Charlotte Dec 9 6PM

tv: tv20

Okafor, Jason Richardson and Gerald Wallace head up the 6-11 Bobcats as they try and improve on their 1-6 road record at the Palace. Cats have only won 2 of their last 9 games.

Will see see more passing and ball movement? Can the rebounding rebound? Are Hunter/Mohamed the new answers off the bench for coach Flip Saunders? Lot of questions to be answered as the Pistons try and get back to their winning ways after Friday nights loss to the Bulls.

The Pistons main enemy can be themselfs if they take the Cats lightly.

Because the Pistons lost on Friday I am not so worried about that this time. If they would have won this would be an issue though.

I dunno, if Sam Vincent goes small Flip may counter by putting Nazr on Gerald Wallace.

Snazzy Nazz. I don't think he can hurt us here.
:-{

well i'm off to the palace, let's hope they fare better than the lions

and let's hope i don't come back to a 9-0 thrashing in fantasy, which is a very real possibility

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Another easy win tonight. Dice and Rip powered a quick start in the first quarter, and the Pistons led by double digits most of the rest of the way, aside from a lazy stretch early in the 3rd quarter when the Bobcats almost got back in it. Amir made a nice move in the lane during garbage time. The big stats were a 47-29 advantage on the board for the Pistons, plus a very impressive 32-36 at the FT line.

Good win by the Pistons and of course a nice time had by all in the Chat room for a Sunday game.

No real contest as D4E mentioned until the Cats came back to within 6 early in the 3rd qtr. But some hustle on the boards by Sheed and key shots by Billups who only had 7 at the half pushed the lead back into double figures and the Pistons coasted the rest of the way as the bench contributed 34 points.

This was one of those rare games where all 24 players who dressed, played and scored. It should be noted however that Hunter was the only player of the 24 who didn't hit a fg as he missed two wild 3 point attempts, but did get a FT.

Pistons also had 16 TO's, but 5 of those came in garbage time which started at the 11 minute mark of the 4th qtr. Nice to get back in the win column, but we need to be concerned about Tay who had another bad shooting night a 3/11 after shooting 2/9 on Friday. Hopefully he gets out of this funk this week.

Pistons now 10-2 vs the eastern conf with only those 2 Bulls losses as the dark mark on the ledger.

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

A sixth blowout win in 7 games. Our rotation has set into a pretty regular pattern. Hunter backs up Billups, with Flip only playing in games with large leads in the 4th. Hayes backs up Tay. Maxiell backs up both Sheed and Dyess with Mohammed only playing in the 4th with big leads. Afflalo backs up Rip in the first half. In a close game, Prince plays some shooting guard in the 2nd half.


Amir only gets garbage time. Samb was just sent to the D-League. Dupree does not dress. Blaha says in the post game show that Stuckey will be in the regular rotation after the all-star break.


Hot shooting by Rip and Dyess gave us a double digit lead in the first half. The lead dipped to 6 early in the 3rd quarter with Charlotte choosing to go small. But going small backfired on them as Sheed started getting a bunch of offensive rebounds and we pumped the lead back up to 16 to end the 3rd. (It was 19 just before Hermann hit a quarter ending triple for Charlotte.)


JMAX hit a couple of jumpers, one a quarter ending 20 footer, made a couple of fast break scores, and shot 3 for 4 from the line to go with his 7 rebounds and 2 blocks.


Amir played garbage time, and actually was allowed to shoot the ball one time. He got the ball well out on the left, got past his man toward the middle, changed directions and went inside a 2nd defender to lay it in pretty much uncontested by that time. Thats some good ball handling right there.


Hayes hit a couple of shots, and gathered in several rebounds.
Gerald Wallace was supposedly going to be a problem for Dyess, but the guy only scored 3 points. Matt Carroll, that Piston killer from last year, was shutout. We played some pretty solid D in all.


Hunter did not do much. Flip Murray had some assists and hit a shot or two. This was pretty much garbage time as Billups started the 4th quarter and got the lead up a bit before Murray entered the game. The points were still important as they kept the starters rested.


Afflalo shot maybe once in the 1st half. In garbage time, he made two drives in (one on a fast break) and got 5 points total from that.
Tay made a shot to start the game, but after that he just did not have it. His drives in just came short of scoring and his outside shooting has left him for the moment.


Sheed hit about 3 triples to go with his good rebounding effort. Rip had 3 triples as well. Billups hit some outside shots and did a lot of damage taking it aggressively to the hoop.


Mohammed did play and did very little. He did hit a longer outside shot.


GO PISTONS!!!!!



Oh, and it was mentioned that Charlotte got zero paint points and zero fast break points in the first half. Hard to believe. I'll pay more attention to this when I rewatch the game.