I hope you're right, but I'll believe it when I see it. This isn't the first time Flip said the bench would see good minutes.

The second the game looks close, Flip panics, goes into his rooster neck twitch and wears out his starters.

A discussion with my former Flip player friend led to these obsevations about Flip's substitution style:

Flip MAY cut back on starter time as the play-offs approach, but don't expect much of it. In the play-offs, there is actually frequent time-off between games, and no back-to-backs. And both teams get the same time off. Really good players expect to play lots of minutes. Iverson, Jordan, Magic, Bird, etc always played big minutes in the playoffs.

My contact at the gym, who played for Flip, gives me the following helpful answer:

http://www.pistonsforum.com/news/853...hat-debut.html

Game Chat is open. I'll be along later. nJoy!

__________________
They are the archetype for dominance. They are the gatekeepers of the conference. They are the Detroit Pistons.

Wow, when they lost At NJ I thought they'd be in trouble if they lost another that week, they lost at Indy, but they were tired. But on 2 days rest they lose in Atlanta as well?

Something is wrong, this isn't just a skid because the past 10+ wins have been by slimmer and slimmer margins, and now we are losing.

Dallas wins #12 in a row tonight.

The first half featured offense. No defense. Our starters ran the offense like a top, but did not seem to think defense was part of their job description. They got the lead to 10 at one point, but only because of a whole series of three point plays, and three point shots made, not from stopping them much at all. Arroyo did just fine too. It seemed he was under a microscope in this game.

Both teams played better D in the 2nd half. Detroit could not shake Atlanta, not getting better than an 8 point lead. In the end, the experienced team, Detroit, was suppose to come out the winner. But gee, it was not to be. And no, that was not a bad call from the official, the ball was off Ben. (I checked it frame by frame. From one angle, you got a false impression that the ball was off Pachulia, but Ben got that long arm of his inside of Pachulia's arm and knocked the ball away.

CB and Rip had it going, producing several assists to go with their league leading assist combination, a new stat someone is apparently tracking. Sheed was doing some scoring, at least in the first half. Dyess also was scoring, in the first half. Tay was our scoring hero though, getting just shy of 30. Man, those two missed free throws in the 4th quarter by Tay came up huge. Tay was nailing about every shot he took, from inside, outside, and inbetween.

Yep, we had five guys at least near 10 points in that first half. And only had a three point lead from it.

Ok, now for the story. Did Flip play the bench more. Not really. Especially not CB. CB got a 6 minute rest in the first half, and about 5 more, maybe just 4, in the 2nd half. And it did not help. A 6 point lead left by Arroyo in the first half, and a 4 point lead in the 2nd, did not last. CB ended up playing the last 12 minutes of the game. Anyone want to listen to my opinion on that: You bring your starters in for the last 6 minutes. Six, not 12.

Delfino played some good D, was on the boards some, but thats about it. He should have had an assist but the shot was missed inside. Delfino missed a triple, and a somewhat forced shot closer in. He did not play a ton, but he did play more than Evans, who I doubt would have played at all in the 2nd half except for some foul trouble on Rip.

Dyess played about his usual, and again went to his pattern of scoring for us, but only in the first half of the game. Hunter played 12 seconds, the last 12 seconds of the first half.

Maxiell is the guy who did not dress. Dale Davis and Darko did not play. Basically, this notion that several players would start getting more minutes did not happen. Anyone out there think it still ever will? Yes, its getting very easy to doubt Flip's ability to stick with a plan.

Basically, nothing much changed. But we did get an earful about Darko. Kelser interviewed Darko, and Joe Dumars about Darko. First he spoke to Dumars. Dumars said absolutely he still believed in Darko, and if that was not the case, Darko would be long gone.

Darko said he really thinks he deserves to play, that he has been working really hard. Kelser liked the fact that Darko wanted to play. Kelser cited Flip saying it was not Darko, but the guys in front of Darko that kept Darko from playing.

About all for now. GO PISTONS!!!!!

Its too bad Flip is about winning, regular season games. Too bad he is doing nothing to get this team ready for the playoffs. In this game, no way did we get any progress at all in developing our bench, nor getting our starters some rest.

I will say one thing positive about tonight. Flip played the combination of CB, Delfino, and Tay for a good long stretch their to end the 2nd quarter. That is a good combination. He has just started to use this combination of late. Although I still feel he must also add to this the Arroyo, Delfino, Prince combo, I am glad to see at least this one. Thats something. Another is that again, Evans was pretty much cut out of the 2nd half. Progress their too. Now if only he would get cut out of the first half, because other players need more minutes that can give us more with them.

woops again lol. not worried about it, but what i don't like is that in closer games the pistons tend to stop running their offense and play a lot of 1v1, rather than staying confident with their offensive system.

Right, we are not playing offense. Tay gets hot so we go one on one. That is not an offense. Sheed has been off for awhile. He should be hitting the offensive glass for some put backs. We are not playing D (even for a quarter) and the offense is not able to just bail us out like before. Ben's offensive game and free throws have totally stagnated. I am not for going in to Ben a lot, but some slant movement to the hoop would help. Teams get all the loose balls on us lately. I can't complain about the bench because I am not sure that we would have won with the bench tonight either. In general, though, Flip needs to pull a starter here and there when they are off. We lost and we are not well rested for the Clips.

I didn't get to see the game but from what I hear my man Zaza Pachulia did well. Still would have like to see a Pistons win with Zaza having a good game for the Hawks.

Reading the boxscore and following the comments in chat and here, it seems that the team is starting to hit the wall.

First bump in the road, back-to-back losses pretty much puts 70 or even 72 wins in serious doubt. Maybe now we can get back to winning East home court with 65 wins and getting the bugs out.

I'm sad to see the Pistons lose the battle of the boards again. 5 out of the last 6 games the Pistons have been outrebounded, some of them by heavy margins. No way the Hawks should outrebound the Pistons by 9 with a lineup featuring only one true center.

Getting outboarded by 9 and give up nearly 50% shooting (49.4) and it's tough to win on the road no matter who you are playing.

Lots of work for Flip and the boys to do. I'm seriously wishing no one from the Pistons will be involved in All-Star weekend. That's a nice 6 day layoff they could use to get healthy and recharge for the stretch run.

__________________
They are the archetype for dominance. They are the gatekeepers of the conference. They are the Detroit Pistons.