Rasheed Wallace vs. Drew Gooden


mikhail1973

If Sheed keeps going after the boards the way he has been so far in the playoffs Gooden shouldn't be a factor. Where he can hurt Pistons is on offensive glass since Cavs make a living off of that. Sheed needs to block him out. Defensively Gooden can't handle Sheed if Sheed's mind is in the game.

Advantage: Detroit


adpreston1988

Gooden is a good rebounder, but Wallace has a huge upper hand in the offensive game he brings, along with the defensive shot blocking. If Rasheed can also box Gooden out and get his share of rebounds the Pistons will have a very good shot to win every game.

Advantage: Detroit


Dumars4Ever

Gooden has been crashing the boards at almost 10 per game in the playoffs, so keeping him blocked out will be important in the likely event that the Cavs brick a lot of jumpers. But I don't think he can slow down a determined Sheed all that much on defense.

Advantage: Detroit


linwood

Skills, experience, leadership. Rasheed Wallace offers solutions at the Power Forward position. Drew is pretty fast, and can finish around the hoop. Sheed can't sleep on the former mouseketeer, because if he does, Drew will certainly clean the glass. Keep him off the glass, draw him away by forcing him to defend a nice midrange shot (you don't have to go all the way out to the three point line, Sheed!), and Roscoe should be able to neutralize Drew.

Advantage: Detroit


bezeach

Sheed has been focused and motivated so far in the playoffs. The biggest role Rasheed will have to play in this series is keeping Gooden of the glass. Sheed's range gives him the edge in this matchup. Staying calm and not picking up technicals will play a role in giving the Pistons a spot in the finals.

Advantage: Detroit


st8ofmind

This is the most interesting matchup to me (as a big man myself) besides possibly Tay and LeBron.

Sheed is the far superior player due to his length, range, experience and superior mobility but Gooden has shown me an awful lot off added offense and grit.

This is another matchup that might swing the Cavs way if we were talking about 2009, but we ain't.

Sizable Advantage.

Advantage: Detroit


Dlev59

Sheed IMO, smells (or should I say draws) blood when he plays the Cavs. It just seems like he enjoys beating and annoying them. Probably because they have no answer for him. Gooden can`t guard him, at all.

The question is, will Sheed go on the block and abuse him, or will he camp out behind the arc and shoot 3`s? I say do a little of both, however, more of the post-up game, for a higher % shot and to prevent long rebounds.

Speaking of rebounds, Gooden is a beast on the boards. Sheed must remember to keep a body on him especially when the Cavs are on offense, he is a very good on the offensive glass. Put backs, rebounding, going after loose balls is drew Gooden`s specialty.

Advantage: Detroit


Maverick

lol.. this isn't even a matchup. If Sheed shows up then Gooden can't score and can't stop Sheed from scoring .. Llook for Gooden to only get points off of dump offs from LeTravel and putbacks.

Advantage: Detroit


dba

Sheed is shooting the ball well, but has been bothered by foul trouble. Still, Gooden is clueless how to deal with him and switching Z over isn't going to help. Sheed is focused and loves to beat up the Cavs. Gooden has been rebounding well, and can hurt the Pistons on putbacks, but needs to step up in a lot of areas to stay even.

Advantage: Detroit


BillLaimbeer

I'm calling this a push. They both make huge contributions, but in different ways. Sheed will make a clutch three. Gooden will grab a much-needed offensive rebound. At the end of the day, the stats will look pretty similar. Should be a good match-up.

Advantage: Push

Gooden is a player that the Pistons can take advantage of. All of the Cleveland bigs are foul prone and if the whistles are even, we stand a great chance of getting them into trouble early and often.

If we get even whistles, hell, I'd have a big celebration. This haven't happened to the Pistons in I don't know how long. If the whistles are even, LBJ wouldn't be as much of a factor as well.

We had the advantage here, but it took to long to materialize. Coach Brown realizes that Gooden isn't as fast as Verajao and he actally played him more minutes. (13 points and 8 boards in 20 minutes). Either we have to adjust when Verajao is out there or take advantage of Gooden while he languishing out there.

Sheed hit almost everyshot he took from just outside the paint. He needs to exploit that so that he scores more than 15. As Skip Bayless said this morning on 1st and 10, that the Pistons go as Sheed goes. His double/double was just what we needed.

I agree we need to get Sheed quality looks, he is so freaking $ when the chips are down.

It'd be especially good to get him the pick and pop's from setting a screen for Rip's Curls. You know some 'clean' 2 point looks or wide open 3's, not some of those where he ends up jacking 3's with a guy draped all over him. In my opinion nobody but Z should even kinda be able to check him in the low box either.

If we are going with a hockey theme I'd have to give Sheed the 1st star last night, Rip 2nd, and maybe Mad Max or Big Z 3rd.

Z can't check Sheed. Sheed is too fast (sounds funny, ain't it?) for Z and has enough strength to push him on low block. I liked the fact that he only launched 2 3-pointers and stayed closer to the basket.

His length and bulk make him a decent lowblock defender but in the midpost Sheed could eat him alive with...
his footspeed, but Sheed tends to just throw floater/sweeping hook garbage at the rim when he goes towards the rack (obviously there are occasions when he does go strong), and for the umpteenth time If I had my way we'd be loading up Sheed, Tay, Dyess and even CWebb on the low/mid block about 3x as much as we are.

I think this has been talked about quite a bit. We'd all love to see more post play. Maybe JMax and AJ can develop, because Sheed is not going to go in there banging.

2 theories on my part.

1. His back is worse than we know about.

2. He's a bit like an Escalade, yeah he can excel in pretty much any terrain but do you really want to take your Escalade rock crawling? Especially one with like 120K on the odometer?




Can't wait for Amir and JMax to get more time.

I agree wholeheartedly. Sheed is prolonging his career by hanging out at the 3-point line and shooting jumpers. And in that way he is doing lots in helping Pistons win.