I mean, at the end of third, some starters are sill in... WHY?

Primo, Primo, Primo...

AJ, AA, Max = Beasts.

flip jr is on trade block, riight?

OK, lots of garbage time in this one. Nellie waved the white flag early in the third, taking out Baron, Jackson, and Harrington only about 5 minutes in. Matt Barnes got hot and got the Warriors back within 15, as the Pistons ball movement stopped happening, but a quick run at the end of the third pushed the lead back to 20 to start the 4th. Sheed got T'd up late in the third quarter, which was a waste...why use one in a blowout? Anyway, Amir came in for him and played the rest of the game, almost 15 minutes total. Tay played about 2 minutes to start the 4th before sitting down, and none of the other starters played in the 4th at all.

AA, Amir, and JMax led the way in garbage time, with blocked shots all over the place for JMax (6 total) and Amir (3). Interestingly, Flip Jr. didn't play even one second in this game. Is he about to be traded, like Nazr? Maybe, although it's also possible that Flip Sr. and Joe finally tired of his "4th Quarter Slaughter" act and decided to get more shots for AA and Amir whenever the next garbage time opportunity rolled around. AA took good shots and ended up with 11 points, while Amir made his presence felt with the blocked shots, 7 rebounds, a follow-up slam on a fastbreak, a nice drive through the lane when they left him open at the FT line, and a diving hustle play to trigger a fastbreak (which ended with JMax missing a breakaway slam...doh!). Primos got almost 7 minutes of run at the end to give JMax a rest.

Afflalo is easily becoming one of my favorite Pistons. Kid's a gamer.

A game that was over at halftime gave both AA and Aj plenty of time to show the coaches and the fans that they belong. Afflollo got 24 mins and contributed 11 pts, 4 brds and 2 assists, along with some nice defense. No mistakes no TO's. Amir also played 14 mins including the the entire 4th qtr and added 6 pts, 7 brds and 3 blocks.

Youth was served with Aj, AA, and JMAX showing that they deserve to play and can contribute if Flip lets them. It's just to bad that Stuckey couldn't be out there running the point today instead of Hunter...

oh back to the game....Steven Jackson signed autographs before the game and was booed after every made basket but scored 13 of the Warriors first qtr points and finished with 13 points....... Baron Davis was snowed under in Detroit as he was only 1-8 and hurt my fantasy team as I needed more steals and assists from him today...

With the exception of Sheed, the starters hit at least 55% or better from the field. Tay also was 4/4 Ft and was 3/3 from beyond the arc for his 23 points...... If you noticed on his basketball card they showed during the game, he was born 2/28/80, which means that technically he has celebrated only 5 actual birthdays and will celebrate number 6 in two months.. Hopefully our 5 year old toddler is out of his scoring funk...

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

So Amir gets 15 minutes of GT, and is 2nd on the team in rebounding? 3 blocks? 3-4 shooting on dunks and layups? This dude is a force.

Max and Amir... and I agree, AA, should always play together and should come into the games like a tidal wave.

This is precisely what all the grumbling is about. They teased us with the quotes about Amir, then they showed us what he can do, and he seems to bring it every single time he's given a chance.

Don't develop him, just let him loose. Unhook the lease and throw his favorite bone in the neighbor's yard. Watch him tear up their grass, impregnate their poodle, and drink out of the bird bath.

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"I’ll just say this: We’re not talking to teams about their second- or third-best players." Joe Dumars talking about his plan to get other teams' 4th best players.

Wow, a game where just about everyone got what they wanted. (Unless someone wanted to see Fabio play, he did not dress for this one.)


Our starters did not do all that well, but they did not fall behind either. Baron Davis was kept to 2 points, so you know our starters were playing some serious D. Prince was rack'n up the points all over the place, nice to see his outside shot back. Rip hit some shots. Dyess was in a shooting groove and he got inside here and there. Sheed had another no show game for the most part.


Billups gave us some very important scoring at the line to end the 3rd quarter. His drives inside, and some good shooting by Tay, were all we had to counter a GS team that was all the sudden hitting all their outside shots. (Shots by their subs after their starters had sat.) I kind of wondered though why it seemed Tay and Billups were playing a two man game, ignoring Afflalo, JMAX, and Amir. Amir had come in for Sheed after he picked up a tech, with about 4 minutes to go in the 3rd. A unit of Billups, Afflalo, Prince, Amir, and JMAX played the last few minutes of the 3rd, and it got quite interesting.


The lead was 20 when Amir entered the game. It went down to 15 at one point and this had us fans wondering if yet again we were going to be shutout as far as getting to see Amir playing serious minutes. Fifteen points down with 14 minutes to go in the game is not garbage time. Amir ended up showing a lot of skill.


For the third time in 3 games, we saw Amir do a fancy move to the basket while making it look easy. Very impressive. He blocked a fastbreak layup attempt. He went on the floor and alertly knocked the ball ahead to start a fast break. (Where JMAX missed a windmiller.) Three blocks for Amir. Seven rebounds. He followed up a fast break layup miss by Afflalo with a slam. There is a huge difference between Amir getting a rebound and JMAX getting one. Amir makes it look effortless while JMAX, being much shorter, makes it look hard.


Amir is very active on D, and when it comes time for the rebound, he is right there. If the other team is fast breaking, they got to contend with Amir. I really can't see any down side to this young player playing for us. A whole lot of us want to see more. It is my opinion that if Amir started playing regularly, the Palace would start to fill up again.


Afflalo played half the game. Half the game. He played the whole 2nd quarter save maybe 2 minutes to start it. He even got some small forward minutes there at the end. What a difference between him and Hayes getting those minutes. Afflalo handles the ball well to complement the point guard, hits his shots, is all over the place on D. And when he drives in, people become open as the other team is forced to address him.


Hunter played solid ball for the most part. Yeah, he played too long, and got slow bringing it up at the end, but you know I was thinking he might need life support if they kept him in any longer. And still, even with a 25 point lead, an exhausted Hunter, Murray still got no time. Which was great, as Afflalo and Amir got lots of touches this way. Back to Hunter. Good solid D.


Hayes did very little in this one. A nice pass from Brezec got him a easy one under the basket, and very late in the game he finally made a jump shot.


Maxiell was pretty awesome. A unit of Billups, Afflalo, Hayes, Dyess, and JMAX held GS nearly scoreless for most of the 2nd quarter. Hunter helped start the run, and Sheed was in there too for some of it. We ended the 2nd quarter with Rip at small forward and Afflalo at shooting guard. I loved the fact that Afflalo stayed in after playing such fine D.


Now for just a bit of knitpicking. In the first half, we played exclusively a 3 man rotation for our bigs. JMAX spelling both Dyess and Sheed. I sure hope that next game, after what he just did in this one, that big rotation adds Amir to it. Yeah, and Amir could play some small forward too. Nobody could do much worse than Hayes did. (Though I must say that for this game and last, Hayes has been in during some seriously good defensive runs for us. He does hurt us now and then by being too slow on one on one defense, but he is a good team player.)


GO PISTONS!!!!!

Actually that would happen only if he was born on 2/29/80...which is, believe it or not, the exact birthday of my younger brother! He does indeed get to celebrate his "real" birthday only once every four years.