Or lose by 6. Anyone wanna give Nocione the MVP award?

Well once again we fall victim to the Bulls...First they stop a 3 game winning streak by the Pistons on national TV (TNT) on 11/8 and now almost one month later they stop the Pistons 5 game winning streak on national TV too.

The Pistons have lost six games this year...four when they allowed the west coast teams score over 100 points and two when they allow the Bulls to beat them scoring 97 and 98 points. Either they can't beat the Bulls or they can't play on national TV??

Frustrating game as the Pistons could never get beyond a six point lead and allowed Nocioni to dominate them in the 3rd and 4th qtr. In fact Noci, Duhon and Noah scored 45 points off the bench compared to the 14 we got off our bench.

For the Pistons it was all Sheed in the first qtr scoring 13 of his 18 points then. Rip was the man in the second qtrs, hitting his first six shots, but only 3 of his next 10 and was forcing them in them up with frustration in the 3rd. Pistons did not score until about the 9:10 mark of the 4th with Billups scoring the first 12 points of the qtr and 14 of the Pistons total of 20.

Tay and Dice looked horrible out there on the offensive end going a combined 4-19 with only 4 points a piece. They each had 2 points in the first half and 2 points in the 3rd qtr. But Billups kept passing to them because Flip didn't want to play AJ, AA of Flip jr.

For the Bulls, they killed us on the boards in the first half as Ben and Joe Smith had 11 and 13 boards repectfully. However in the second hand the two of them only grabbed a total of 3 between them. I don't know what the points in the paint was, but I know they dominated the first half with them.

Who would have thought the net difference in the game was Ben's made free throws as he hit 8 of nine including 7 straight. Bad loss for the Pistons as they had a chance to put togther a possible 8 game winning streak before heading to Texas next week. Also it gives the Bulls more confidence and we don't want to be responsible for waking a sleeping giant.

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

Flip played his token young. Six minutes, six productive minutes, for Afflalo. Just enough to avoid being fired. Not one bit more. He is probably proud of himself for it. Wins don't matter to him. Just as long as he can keep getting away with defying Joe Dumars.


This game utterly cried for Amir Johnson to play. Jason Maxiell was in foul trouble, four fouls late in the 3rd, but he was kept in. Mohammed was totally ineffective guarding Nocioni - indeed its almost insane that Saunders even tried that for a moment. Jason was having deep trouble guarding Nocioni. Dyess had some foul trouble too. And still, no Amir Johnson, the quickest big on our team by far, and one with plenty of height to guard Nocioni. But Flip Saunders chose to lose the game rather than play a young player he is bound and determined not to play.


Hayes did nothing defensively, and yet he played. Another case where Amir would have been the better choice.


Some people may want to blame this loss on Tay. But wait a moment. You can't possibly expect more than 3 of our starters to have a crazy good scoring night. Rip, Billups, and Sheed all scored plenty. Rip started out 7 of 8. Billups scored about 23 in the 2nd half. Sheed had a blockbuster first half.


More reason to play Amir. Dyess has not been playing 30 mintues a game for us these past 3 years. What makes Flip Saunders believe he is capable of doing that now, 3 years older than he was? His absolute insistence on playing the vets, his rationalization to do so, does not make Dyess any younger. Dyess should be playing 18 or 20 minutes tops per game, whether he starts or comes off the bench. On that topic, Dyess did absolutely nothing in the first quarter. Chicago was getting all the rebounds. Both ends. Every trip. Dyess shot 2-10 for the night in all, so its not like he ever made up for it. And in the 4th, the middle was full open with Dyess in the game. No rebounding from Dyess. No D. and no scoring. But I pretty much guarantee you it won't matter. Unless Flip is fired, we can only expect the same thing next game, a DNP, for Amir Johnson while Dyess gets overplayed yet again.


Hunter did ok. Certainly nothing to write about. Certainly nothing to keep him in the rotation ahead of Stuckey when Stuckey is healthy. Not even for a minute. I'll take a 75% Stuckey any day over where Hunter is at.


To the posters who continue to defend Saunders, I say you are part of the problem, the complacency, that Dumars fights every day. Lets all get behind Dumars and send the message, the youth must play. No excuses accepted.

I hate watching this team play the Bulls. On offense it is all one on one play. The ball movement seen the last five games was gone. On D they can't contain them on the perimeter and when CHI does miss they can't get the rebound.

Lee agree with your post and comments on Flip. If tay and Dice are struggling, bring in a young wipper snapper like Amir to see how he fairs. It was obvious that neither Dice or nazr were going to stop Nocioni. Not to say that he would have schooled AMir too, but you never know if don't at least try him.. with the Pistons struggling to score, I would have even tried Flip Jr for a spell to open up the lane and penetrate as the rest of the starters appeared to be intimidated by Ben and Smith in the middle.

One of the many diffenrences between Flip and LB is that flip just can't seem to coach in crunch time as he relies on tired starters instead of fresh horses..

Did Max run into a woman named Delila? His energy seemed to be lost when his hair was cut off ??

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

Do you think the fans will ever start a "Fire Flip" or at least "Play Amir" chant?

Our defense sucked. Our rebounding sucked. Our ball movement sucked.

Our players don't listen to the coach. Good times!

edited to add; Watch the Bulls go off now.

OMG!!! Talk about exposing a team. Beat to death on the offensive boards because Sheed and Dyess looked like 100 year old men that played back when the ball still had laces.

Then we beat them in the 3rd qtr by 1pt, but then Skiles brought Nocioni in to play the 4 and it was over from there.

I agree wih everything Uncle Lee356 said in ref to Flip and AJ. I'm not an AJ can save the day type cat, but this game was indeed screaming for the things that AJ does well. Ernie, so-true man...so-true.

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Play hard, Play smart, Play together, share the ball, have fun....Play the right way!!!!!!

Very unhappy to hear that they lost this game. Although with Ben going 8-9 from the FT line, WTF...

I would much, much, MUCH rather have lost the New Orleans game and then won this one, rather than the other way around. Being 0-2 against the Bulls is very irritating.

just got back from the game - not a fun one to be at for sure. it really looked like the pistons said to themselves 'hey, we got 5 in a row, the bulls are too annoying to put out our best effort, let's just play lazy iso basketball and hope they shoot themselves out of a victory.'

just terrible all around. bad switches - sheed guarding guards, no rebounding, no hustle, bad calls on maxiell, iso basketball, no ball movement, no coaching, no adjustments, nothing. the crowd wasn't into it, everyone arrived late because of the early 7 PM start time, and no one around me was all that interested in the game.

i could go on and on, but i'll just agree that this would've been the perfect game for amir to come in, especially without tyrus thomas in the lineup. i also would've liked to see flip murray in the game, because we needed a change of pace and had no need for lindsey's defense and poor shooting, although he didn't play terribly. i couldn't believe how easily nocioni was getting in the lane, and how poorly our guards were defending dribble penetration, when chicago is small and slow. either way, this game was as painful to watch as the knicks game, because the bulls are not a fun team and have a collection of some of the most annoying players in the nba.

on a sidenote, there was a woman there with the biggest rump i've ever seen, when talking about ratio of its size to her body. wow. imagine a skinny woman with two bowls of jello for her butt, each the size of small watermelons. seriously she had trouble walking with those cheeks. other fun parts were vinnie johnson sitting in the suite 2 rows in front of us, and an appearance by stone cold steve austin in the crowd. then later i went out to eat at applebee's near oakland university and watched 3 guys sit in the vicinity of 2 attractive girls at the bar, hoping to talk to them. well they must've been flagged far in advance, because the girl closest to them refused to turn around and acknowledge them for at least 30 minutes, and just chatted away with her friend. the guys waited patiently, and waited, and waited, and waited...but never got their chance.

How long did you and your two buddies wait Warthog?