Was this a recent quote? Is he mentally-impaired?

The point is, Flip was quoted as saying Afflalo's time would depend on matchups and what we need. Well, we needed his D. He outrebounded Max too. Someone needs to tell that guy to hit the boards. He's a 4 after all.

Yes. Dated February 5 to be exact. He didn't say "situational" after all, but it means the same.
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bla . . . just when i was getting excited about this team again

Did he not just say a week ago we needed to establish a 4th big. That Amir was in the rotation, and gushing about how great he was?? And AA as well? Said defense is what will get you on the floor?

He's like a used car salesman.

As many people picked up on, Flip Saunders is rapidly derailing the team. Sure we beat Miami, a team minus Shaq, Haslem, and Mourning. No, Marion did not play this game. Miami hung close with us with good shooting, but good shooting because of one uncontested shot after another.


We managed to win the game, getting enough offense from Billups, going inside a lot, Rip, making a lot of shots, and Sheed doing a lot of damage from around the basket and midrangers.


Dyess hit some shots. Hayes had a decent game. Tay hit some key shots down the stretch and got about 14 in all.


Afflalo did not do much in this game, and yet he was in there those last few mintues of the 3rd quarter as we built an 11 point lead. Good D. His reward? Just like the first half, he sat down and watched Rip play the whole 4th quarter. Afflalo was used in some end of game situations in this tight game.


Maxiell also did very little in this game, was also part of that run that gave us control of the game. Defense wins.
Amir played some decent D while in his two minutes, got one score on a post up move.


Stuckey did play 15 minutes, which is acceptable. This kept Billups to 33 minutes. Stuckey's highlight, besides picking up a few loose balls, was a fast break layup just a few seconds after Wade layed one in on the other end.


Considering the amount of rest the Pistons have had this past week, the minutes the starters played were not that bad. The problem is how little time Amir Johnson got in the game. Lets review this. In the past 6 games now, Amir has gotten into the rotation for both halves of the game 3 times. This is standard Flip derailment mode. He is pretending to play Amir Johnson. Nothing more. Just pretend. Probably to keep his job.


I wonder, how many fans does he think he is fooling? Does he think its like some slight of hand trick that nobody will notice. Yes, Flip, we all noticed. You did not play Amir enough to matter. All us fans can hope really is that Dumars will fire you. No way you will change. No way the Pistons have a chance to win a Championship this year, because of you and your insistance in derailing a good thing.

Agree. Flip is backsliding on his promise to play Amir more. The kid has earned the pt...he needs to be on the court.

At least we won the game..but it was brutal.

What i don't understand is even if the initial reason he started playing him was to save his job, didn't he see that he is actually good? Is he blind? I mean serioulsy, i just don't get it. I want to go to a game sit courtside, and ask him these questons.

Amir looked thrilled to be playing, had a great attitude throughout his years of not playing. Stop trying to kill the kid's confidence.

I can see the headlines now "Flip Saunders fired today for not playing Amir Johnson". He used a combination of trickery and deception to give the illusion of playing him but he was not really playing him. Just an elaborate illusion.

Games like this sometimes its good to step back and take a look at how the Pistons could be right now. Only 2 years ago Miami beat us in the ECF and now they are in last place. That could be us. Miami has plenty of young guys and D-leaguers to watch everynight.

Bench would have played more if they played better. Sheed and Dyess both played great, thats why Amir did not play more. He is afterall still the 4th big off the bench.

I thought Hayes and Afflalo played well but that was about it. Stucky was so so. Sheed was the player of the game. Slow start in the 1st quarter kind of surprised me. Tons of jump shots and no real plays ran. I am sure they had a plan but players were settling for the 1st open J.

A win is win..

This was the first win I've watched this year that i didn't crack a smile ONCE. There was NOTHINg acceptable about this game AT ALL! We are not playing for ECFHCA so I blame this one on three factors:

1. our coach is a beeyotch! He is scared of his starters, so he wouldnt think of benching for say an entire quarter, which is what i would have done in the 4th. Why is it these so-called great coaches can only coach their bench players in blowouts? There was no reason to play Dice 37 MINUTES! against a bunch of NBDLers. It was a great opp to get Amir some confidence. I hate Flip so much right now.

2. The starters can only blame themselves for their lack of effort tonight. So my thing was - Why not have a lil fun and start the Max, Amir, hayes, AA and Stuckey. It was an exhibition game atmosphere, so why not treat it as such. I would have made a great coach.

3. Dwayne Wade still has a lot of heart. I think he's free of carrying superman's jock and will unleash a season of 30pt/10 assist games. I still find him a marvel and can only hope Stuckey will be half the player he is.
but if Kobe and Wade can do this to this piston D over the past week, I still get a Jordan-like shiver when I think of facing lebron in the playoffs.

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That was definitely a snoozer. The starters were bored, so they didn't play with energy, so Flip was afraid that the game might slip away, so he kept them in, so they didn't play with energy, etc, etc.

Miami put a pretty sorry team on the floor tonight. Scary that they could have beat us in our building.