Even though we have had the best starting 5 for the past couple of seasons, during our championship year our bench bailed them out in many games. This did not happen last year with LB only using a 7 man rotation, but now that we've seen our bench do a lot better with flip here...

I see what you see, but it's the preseason. So my eyes tell me, wait a couple of months before drawing any conclusions.

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

What I see is Dale Davis is no deterant for Shaq.
That's what Joe wanted to see out of this game.
EC phone home.

I hope that Flip starts using his roster the way he plans to use them in the regular season... they need consistent reps together.

Himat, preseason or not... it is encouraging to see some "unknown factors" stepping up... the bench and Sheed have been the pleasant surprises of the preseason so far.

I'm thinking about changing my sig to say:
"He's located his mom's hooters"

dale davis doesn't do a better job on shaq than anybody on the pistons. but from what i saw from the heat shaq dominating us won't kill us in a 7 game series. shaq had a dominant game he usually doesn't even play us that well with just ben, sheed alone. the person that played shaq the best was actually darko for the few times he was on him.

i think flip is using the rotations he will be using during the season. i think the second 5 man unit concept is back in effect. from what i've seen the second unit has a chemistry all it's own and plays better by themselves without the starters mixed in. but this is only preseason and maybe the starters were dogging it when they mixed in with our bench players.

I hope not. They gotta get the offense in place. Guys are just playing on talent right now. At times, it looks disorganized out there. At least to me it does.

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

Dale will give us 6 more fouls though.

yes. i agree there at lots of times when it disorganized. i think the rotations will be basically the same as the miami game. except the starting unit will log much more time on the court together. dice will get some minutes with the starting unit and then also anchor the second unit. we just need more time together. this will come during the regular season when the starters are playing many more minutes together.

To say we have the best starting 5 implies that our starting 5 can beat any other team during stretches where those 5 are out there.

Can the Pistons beat all other teams with those starting 5 in crunch time?

Yes we do need a bench.

On Shaq. Dale Davis really was not brought in as a Shaq stopper. Just a decent PF who could provide some depth. Darko can guard him effectivly if he gets more respect from the officials. Last night Shaq fouled him once and Darko got the call.

Still don't see Evans as being a great big part of our bench. Instead, I still see him as a defensive specialist. Dupree? Can't even see him playing any. And besides, lets assume Mercury is right (see question on playoff roster size thread) and we only get 13 guys for our playoff roster. Dupree would still not make that cut. So why not let him go and find somewhere that he can play?

Instead of Evans being a big part of things, I am betting Maxiell is the 5th sub on our 2nd unit. This will seriously increase the interior defense and rebounding, while also increasing our offense. If on occasion we truly find a situation where Maxiell can't do the job on defense, then we bring in Evans. Ditto for if Arroyo or Delfino can't handle their guy.