Six in a row baby! Detroit had their hands full with a talented squad of mostly foreign players (that can all ball). Toronto is a fun team to watch and they just are just a couple of pieces away from being a serious playoff contending team. I like when Sheed plays on fire he seems very engaged in basketball right now so I attribute that to Chris Webber being on the team. The tech Sheed got was ridiculous and I hope they appeal that because no other player would have been called for that. Maxiell is in a sophmore funk right now but he's just not playing enough minutes to get on any kind of a roll so I just want him to keep getting some burn. Delfino is so energetic and fun to watch and he finally finished some plays close to the hoop tonight. His D was decent except for letting Mo Pete burn him several times on 3s. Need to be in that guys jock because Peterson is an incredible shooter. Bring on the Paperclips I say!

Thanks Web...Although 9 of his game high 28 pts came from beyond the arc, that record alone is why he should be fed the rock more often in the post.

Now Ms Sheed and Dr Phil will need to sit down and talk to him about anger management, because the next tech I believe will start to hurt us.

Well, if you watched the game, you saw what I have been preaching. The Raptors are a bonafide up and comer.

Poor play - Billups, Prince, Maxiell, McDyess

Good play - Delfino, Hunter, Webber, Billups

Great play - Rip and Sheed

Sheed was a workhorse tonight. He fought Bosh every inch of the way, and showed the young fella how to play at another level. Maybe his best regular season performance in a Pistons uniform to date. Classic.

Toronto Coach Sam Mitchell said in the postgame that this was a night that Chris Bosh and some of the other young Raptors grew up. That Chris now understands that players are going to come after him.

On the downside, Sheed did pick up his 15th tech from one of the worst refs. Courtney Kirkland.

Hamilton had a very efficient game and played solid defense on Parker.
Unfortunately Rip was also the beneficiary of a spotty call. He was tagged with a flagrant foul for what looked like a graze on Anthony Parker's face that may or may not have been embellished with a flop.

I really thought the Pistons played decent and the Raptors played almost as well as they can. That's a good sign because if the Pistons play great, they should be able to keep getting teams down by big #s.

As an aside, does anyone believe we are playing Flip's playbook anymore? Sure looks like a bunch of talented players just balling with a lot of improvisation and plays off of instinct. They look like they are having fun and with the exception of Tayshaun (and at times to the detriment of Billups) not thinking too much.

We're officially hot right now. Let's burn up the Clippers.

Roscoe how could Chauncey to both poor and good?

There was absolutely no reason for this game to ever be close. Toronto has zero interior D, especially from this so called all-star of theirs. Yep, the fans got that one very wrong. Defense is part of the game and Bosh is way too short a player to affect the shot of NBA power forwards and centers, as well as too weak to compensate for it.

The Pistons started off mostly jump shooting, again thru about the first 6 mintues. We got behind some. Then Flip reminded his players about the game plan. Thats twice we went 6 minutes to start a game with everyone on the wrong page. Then we started going inside. A bit of Webber, a lot of Sheed, and of course Toronto had no answer.

We got the game tied back up pretty much, and then in came Hunter to put us behind. He scored 4 points himself but other than that we had no bench scoring thru most of the 2nd quarter. However Hunter continued to hit his shots, other people compensated by helping out with the ball handling, and we got back on track with Hunter still in the game. The announcers were calling this great game by Hunter already in the first half. Nope, you give up a huge lead because you are too stuborn to let someone else handle the ball, then help tie it up later-thats not a very good first half. In the 2nd half, Hunter did better.

Delfino gave us some scoring, and some excellent defensive rotation. I see someone on one of the boards blamed Delfino for two of those 3's by MoPete. Nope, Delfino, on the first shot, was the only player on that side of the floor. He can't cover everyone-it was poor rotation by other players. On the 2nd one though Delfino did play off MoPete too much. Other than that, Delfino's D and rebounding was a huge part of this win.

Rip had lots of points, and lots of assists. With Billups running things, Rip's offense just kind of is there. His scoring in no way bogs down the rest of our offense. On the other hand, with Hunter running the point, or I should say trying to run the point, yeah, things really slow down. It irks me no end when Delfino is bringing the ball up, and instead of going to spot up, Hunter pouts for the ball.

Maxiell only got in for 5 minutes in the 4th quarter. Still some good solid NBA experience in crunch time for the big guy. He did ok defensively, and thats it. His only scoring attempt ended in a very obvious offensive foul.

Sheed was totally awesome, nailing triple tries but more importantly using his mismatch in height and strength to utterly dominate inside. And on D, he chased Bosh around very well, making Bosh just a rather ineffective jump shooter.

Webber settled too often for the long outside shots. He did pull some rebounds and got some dunks. Not much of a game from him compared of late, and with Toronto being such a perimeter oriented team, Webber was a poor fit for our defense. Fortunately, we had Delfino, who is perfect for such, come in the last 4 minutes to help win this one. We had just given up a big run to Toronto just prior with Webber out there.

No Dale Davis. Again. Dyess hit a shot from the outside, played some decent D. He has taped up ribs so I don't know how much good he really did tonight for us by playing. Did I mention we had Dale Davis available?

CB scored little, was surely to blame for not runnign offense thru the post to start the game, and at one point where we had them at our mercy decided to shoot another 3 early in the clock. Fortunately, it was just that one shot and we returned to the normal program. Overall, CB did great in keeping our offense on track and had 7 assists to no turns. Very little scoring from him.

Prince was out there. Hit a shot or two. Considering who we were playing, there is no excuse at all for Prince not to have driven in a lot more.

Even though not as good as we could have done, still a very good win vs. one of the hottest teams in the league. (Althoug Toronto is coming off a stretch of mostly home games, so are they hot or just comfortable?) GO PISTONS!!!!!

Lee Billups had 9 assists and 0 turnovers not 7 assists.

Thanks, but get use to this. I do not look at the boxscore before I post. I try to post from my memory, as fast as I can, while my memories are still fresh. Rather late in the game, they announced Billups had 7 assists to no turns, and that is what I remembered. Still, again, thanks for the info.

Good recap. The playbook? I think its a myth. Just a convenient excuse for not playing guys. Or not playing Delfino at point. Or never giving Amir even a little taste of playing time. Basketball is not that complicated much of the time. Flip should be trying to get this team ready for the playoffs. We need more bench play, throw that playbook away anyway as its the most well known book on the planet as far as I can tell.

Bosh got schooled by the veteran Sheed, but his team is the 4th best in the east and playing well ,so might as well send their best player to the allstud game.

I am not sure about "Flips game plan", but you are right they did curtail the ouside J's and concentrate on penetrating and using Sheed in the post.

Didn't see the game tonight, since I was watching my Kentucky Wildcats with some friends as they got beat by the Gators. Nice to see that Sheed had a huge game against Bosh. And it's always a good sign to see that your starting guards combined for 17 assists to only two turnovers!