ugly game. crowd was into it early but as soon as i saw jack nies i knew it was going to be a nauseating game, and the few calls early sucked. so did 30 seconds of waiting to change a blocking call into a charge. a few fans started booing, most cleared out early in the 4th quarter, and i sat back in my chair and relaxed. i think people miss darko because herrmann got an enormous ovation when he hit his 3-pointer. i'm talking everyone who was left put both hands in the air and screamed wildly.

anyway, the pistons lost their lead early in the 2nd quarter. they got about 3 or 5 points down and flip called a timeout. i turned to my buddy and said 'this is going to be a 15 to 20-point orlando lead in a few minutes', and sure enough i was right. you could just feel it. we weren't playing hard on defense, we weren't moving the ball on offense.

this was probably the worst game i've seen afflalo play. max was alright, and stuckey/amir worked on a new pass/dunk play.

i thought stuckey played well, although dooling actually defended him pretty tough. he's definitely getting played for the drive, and to his credit he's hitting a few outside shots that will help in the long-run. let's give him credit for not only finishing some tough plays around the basket, but getting to the line 8 times (the 9th was a technical) and making all 8 of those. at least someone was being aggressive! he even managed 4 assists.

sucky game all-around...at least the bw3 boneless wings tasted awesome.

I hate all start Game and All star Break. Period

oh yeah i almost forgot...the night was summed up perfectly when i witnessed a young couple wearing ben wallace and darko jerseys.

Flip lost this game in the 2nd quarter. First bad move, bringing back Rip with just 4 minutes rest. Next bad move. Playing Hayes at all, who could not even get near making an outside shot tonight. Unless the Pistons were giving him one last chance to prove something before the deadline, there was no reason at all to let him fire up so many bricks.
Next bad move. Amir comes out after just playing 6 minutes in the first half. Not enough.


There was some good. Stuckey was kept in the game the entire 2nd quarter. Thats a good thing. Stuckey ended up with a career high 16 points, half at the line.


You could tell Dyess had more energy, and used it to do well guarding Howard tonight. But on offense, no, his outside shooting helps us not one bit. This is Orlando. They play a center, and two small forwards. Why can't Dyess score inside vs. a small forward. Simple reason. He does not try. Yes, he did some inside work, but that is what he should be doing every minute in the game. By the way, Dyess starting probably helped us lose this one as much as anything. We needed more perimeter help. No way we ever needed more than one center in the game at a time since Orlando never played more than one big at a time.


Sheed was awesome on defense. But he can't do everything. The perimeter was left undefended all night long.


Tay was so so. Aggressive, yet not finishing.


Rip hit some shots. I don't know why he was taken out way early in the 3rd quarter. Anyone know?


Billups did a little damage going inside, but needed to do a lot more.


Afflalo needs to play a lot more, and jack up a ton of shots. A four minute stretch where he gets two shots is not enough.


Amir looked awesome enough when he came in. Here is another player who has to be fed the ball in the post about a hundred times. He should come in the game earlier, probably first off the bench for Dyess. (In fact, Amir should be starting, especially if we are playing Orlando.)
Maxiell always brings energy. He did in this game too. But hey, a perimeter player he is not.


It was still fun to be at the Palace cheering on the Pistons. At least until toward the end of the 3rd quarter when it was obvious we were getting blown out in this game. And then, it was still entertaining to watch guys like Amir and Stuckey get minutes.


Of note, regardless of how hopeless things seemed, Amir was not brought in early in the game. Why I can't begin to guess. Meanwhile, Orlando kept their starters out there for most of the garbage time 4th quarter. Considering our bench was playing their starters, they held their own well enough in that 4th quarter.


Herrmann did hit the one shot, but seriously, here too is a guy we need to let come into some games, several in a row, and jack up a bunch of shots. See what he can do. We certainly should have given up on Hayes by now. Its time to give someone else a chance.

We looked scared of Howard.

Sheed and Dyess never attempted anything in the post tonight. Maxiell got an isolation against Howard once (why?). Tay's shots inside were severely altered. The one drive where CB went in with confidence, he got volleyball blocked.

Shot blockers make a huge difference by deterring attempts.

The one positive was that we were playing Howard great on the other end. If Sheed stays in front of him, Howard's got no real game on O. Staying in front of him is not easy though. But he is very turnover prone when he has to put the ball on the floor.

I'm not sure Flip did much wrong here. I would have liked to see Amir get more minutes, as he was taken out with a 1 point lead and came back in when we were down 24. But other than that, our players just weren't guarding the 3-point line.

__________________
"I don't think MC is going to allow us to shoot as many jumpers." Tayshaun Prince.

I didn't listen to the game and only followed part of it on Yahoo. Then I went out.

I had a bad feeling about this game. Maybe all day. Maybe that is why I woke up in a panicky mood. Something besides the article about Hunter sent off all kinds of bad vibes.

Oh well.

On to the next game.

I had a good time this evening when I went out, so it was a good choice.

Saw this one coming. (See my recent post in the winning streak thread). Hold on boys and girls, these next 7 games are either going to be Nirvana or Ultimate Frustration..........no in between.

Flip's play calling is extremely frustrating at times. When the bench is in he calls iso's for Jarvis Hayes (Seriously... WTF), Tayshaun Prince trying to create off the dribble on the perimeter, etc. There were bad shots a plenty in this one. Stuckey was the only guy on the team looking to work for good shots rather than just hoist one up. Just give the guy the ball on every play and set a couple picks for him. There is your bench offense. You aren't going to get anything better no matter how many Tayshaun Iso's you run.

It seemed like the energy was all on our side when AJ/Max were our frontcourt. Then Flip swapped Max for Sheed and the team just fell flat. It doesn't help that Orlando was on fire, but I would have liked to see someone with a pulse outside of Stuckey and Walter.

Speaking of Walter... It's time to take a serious look at giving him the SF minutes over Jarvis. I have never seen a worse player take the kinds of shots he does. He takes Kobe shots with Mo Evans-type talent.

Mo Evans played better than any Piston did last night.

Sure wish Delfino was running with this second unit instead of Hayes. Can you imagine Stuckey, Fino and Amir on the break?