I guess Charlotte matches up better with Indiana than the Pistons did as they had no trouble putting them away on the Pacers on home floor 113-102. Harrington who was so prolific from 3 pt territory in the Palace because we dared him to shoot it, was 1-6 in trey attempts vs the Bobcats.

And guess what Flip>the Bobcat bench had 39 points because Bernie plays them. Those youngsters can survived triple OT's on a back to back and we couldn't with one days rest. And oh by the way Mr. Billups/bigshot,>>>Raymond Felton dropped 19 dimes. . Sorry to vent, but instead of being 2.5 games up on the charging Bulls, we are hanging on to a half game lead

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"Once you go Barack, you never go Bak" Mario Cantone 2008

I don't know, LA Dre. It's unfathomable really. The only thing that I can come up with is that Flip has a "formula" for the way he handles substitutions and timeouts and play calling and he adheres to it rigidly and doesn't let the game events dictate his decisions. It's incredibly irritating. I personally believe that he is a very stubborn and inflexible coach who is incapable of thinking on his feet.

They are saying Billups will be out from 10 days to 2 weeks with a strained right calf so thats 4-7 missed games. He is kind of a big guy for his size so thats a lot of extra weight going on those muscles playing those kinds of minutes.

We have been very lucky the past few years with injuries so I suppose its about time for that luck to run out. Injuries can be a positive things forcing players to expand their games and for coaches to play other players, making the team stronger.

In that game. I am not totally faulting Delfino for that last play. That was a hail mary type of pass that you don't expect to be that accurate. Live and learn. Now he knows to be more carfull on the last play of a game like that. It did not look like he was even trying to foul, just got careless. We would not have been in that game anyway if it were not for Delfino.

That game was lost in the 2nd quarter as others here pointed out. Same old same old - get a big lead and let the other team back in. Get off to a nice lead and get away from what got you there. Will they ever learn?

Guys, the Pistons bench played more minutes against the Pacers than the Bobcats bench did. That's a fact--I just checked the two boxscores. Bobcats had 3 guys who played between 39-42 minutes (Felton, Morrison, Okafor), while the Pistons only had one in that range (Chauncey) and no one else who played more than 32 minues. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point you all are making, but I don't see how you can compare these two games and come up with the same old same old about how everyone else plays their bench except Flip.

Lets put it more simple. CB has been battling a hamstring problem. Hamstring problems translate thruout the leg causing problems. No way, no how should he have played 40 minutes in this game. Especially after just finishing playing about 90 minutes total in a back to back set just two days earlier. It does not matter if most of your players got the rest. They all need the rest, especially CB. Flip messed up in this game simply by limiting CB's rest in the 2nd half to just 2 minutes. And he messed up by not using Blalock more in the 2nd quarter when Blalock and the bench were doing just fine.

Flip will claim that he lets the trainer make such decisions. Which is a copout. An NBA coach with 12 years experience coaching should know this kind of thing, and should have been monitoring how many minutes CB got on a bum leg. (Which I am sure he meant to, but as usual, Flip Suanders can't control what he does in a game when he chokes and forgets his game plan.)

I have reviewed the game. Nothing new really at this point to mention except about that Delfino play.

I watched this a few times. At first, I thought Delfino just royally messed up. I though Tay was there and so Delfino had no business even worrying about the situation. However, first impressions were wrong.

Looking a little closer, what I found is that no, Tay was not in position to stop Armstrong from shooting. Tay was in position after the pump fake, but not before. In other words, if Armstrong had shot the ball instead of faking the shot, and Delfino had not went for the block, there is a very strong likelyhood that Armstrong would have made his shot. The shot was going to be from just 8 feet. Without Delfino in the play, this would have been an unpressured 8 foot shot by a highly experienced NBA shooter. I doubt it would have missed. Delfino did not make such a mistake after all. PS, Delfino came from 3/4 court to make that play on the baseline. Pretty good hustle.

The pass was into O'Neal, but Tay went up and got a piece of the ball, batting it away from O'Neal and starting the clock ticking. Armstrong came up with the loose ball. If not for Delfino flying toward him, Armstrong could have calmly sank a banker. Due to Delfino coming at him, he had to go for a pump fake. Smart, savvy decision by an experienced vet. Nothing Delfino did wrong at all.

I understand the colateral damage thing about the hammy but that had been defused weeks ago? I think dude just broke down. I think we were due. Well over due.

This is the most overblown thread in NBA history POINT: Players get hurt .PERIOD................next

Most every thread here is over blown.

I may have overblown it a bit, but it is not just the minutes, its when to play the bench. In other words, when your bench was hot like they were in the second qtr, why take them all out because you got the big lead. See if they can extend it and if your starters come out flat to begin the 3rd, pull them early and get the guys who are in synch back in there.