I agree whole-heartedly. They have shown themselves fully capable against the right opponent.

If you guys think they are tired now what will happen if Flip does as suggested and cracks the whip for playoff level production on both ends of the court.

That's the cycle they need to get going. Well rested starters playing as hard as they can and blowing a fair number of teams out early. Bench gets important minutes early holding those leads. Starters get more rest, are better able to start the next game with energy, etc., etc. Instead, we seem to be more in the starters getting 36-42 minutes, trying to pace themselves and then turn it on late, bench not getting the minutes they need to get comfortable.

Of course, easy to say from the sidelines, but seems to me the championship hangs right there.

IMO the interior defense has been missing most all season. Yeah we have won a few games but why do our starters have to start and close out these games that should be blow outs that the bench can hold....

One game it's some little guard that penetrates our interior and next there are a bunch bigs making the right pass ala what the Pacers did Saturday night or what Webber and Korver were able to do before the Bigs stepped in and stopped it in the Philly game. We all have to admit that we lose some defense in the paint when Dice is in there replacing either of the Wallaces.


In terms of offensive boards, I have to agree with my fellow chatsman linwood, who stated we are not going to grab that many offensive rebounds when two of our bigs> Sheed and Tay are hanging outside on the perimeter. A few weeks ago it was reported that we were 27th in the league in "in the paint scoring" despite our 26-5 record. Most of our offense was coming from the perimeter with three ball doing a lot of damage.

Although we have a penetrater in Rip, we need a point guard that can do the same where the defense doesn't know if he is going to score or dish off ala Tony Parker. I am not talking about replacing CB of course, but his back-up Arroyo doesn't appear to have the ability and if he does, we don't have the plays set for him to dish off to someone who can get the eack layup or dunk. Most of his passes are off to Dice who in most instances is 10 feet from the basket. I noticed in a critical spot Saturday night after CB went out with the two fouls, Rip scored a quick end to end fast break to go up 12-4, but after that we came down and on 4 of 5 possessions, CA over dribbled and did not pass the ball into the hands of the shooter until there were 10 or 11 seconds left in the clock. This lead to 2 hurried shots and two TO's and before you knew it was 14-14.

The last 4 games have seen our 3pt effiency drop off. Some say that this is due to the tired legs and arms, which is probaly true. Saw a lot of bench play in the Pacer game, but unfortunately neither the bench nor the starters generated that much offense in the second half --35pts

against teams pistons want to beat they will play there defense. you saw it against san antonio. now the problem is that is the only team the pistons wanted to BEAT. Maybe we'll see this great D against Dallas, but the pistons have had great D against teams. Aftewr a loss htey play great D the next game. We'll find out the answer to this during playoff when the team will want to and needs to win.

The Dallas game should tell all. I don't know if the schedule matters but I say the Pistons go after them. If I remember right LBs team couldn't handle the Mavs. As the Mavs just shot our lights out. This team should shut down Mavs perimeter game and still get off more shots of its own. No stall ball D.