He shooting the three better than Sheed....and he's third best in the League for Centers.

Just read all the posts in this thread. Where else can you find a basketball forum with references to both Minor Threat and Ronnie Milsap? I love this place.

Utah has one of the longest home winning streaks in the NBA. The Pistons haven't been able to beat these guys in (I think) 5 years. Thee predicted this loss.

Instead of blaming Flip for this loss, lets give the Jazz a little credit; Baby Fats drained some threes when it counted, Deron Williams had 14 assists and 14 points, Milsap was explosive.

Beat the Clippers, and the Pistons will be 3 of 4 on their West road trip. Nice job fellas.

__________________
"Eastern Conference regular-season champs, baby," said Chauncey Billups. "This is what we set out for when we started the season in training camp. We did it and we're happy." (2003)

Baby Fats...I forgot that nickname!!

Now, I've not been this pissed off during a regular season loss since the Bulls game earlier this year, and this is pushing Game 5 of the 2005 finals mad.

But I understood why they didn't play AJ. Utah's system, and how we chose 2 defend it, are horrible for that inexperienced of a big, how much switching and back cutting and hiding on the baseline was going on?

Now what I would have done was put AJ out there with 4 of the starters for a few mins at a time and just run straight man to man, leave him on Memo and tell him to NEVER leave him, I don't care if somebody else is getting a layup...

How is not guarding Memo at the 3 point line ever the right move? I don't get it. It's beyond automatic. Never ever leave him, EVER.


You guys may laugh but the game was lost on 2 missed free throws in the 3rd Q by Sheed. we were up 15 effing points and sheed stepped to the line and had a chance to put us up 17 and completely stem the tide... Instead he misses a pair, D Williams scores a bunny and the anti-run is on.


That was a playoff preview guys, sad to say it, but it was, we went back to 'exploiting mismatches' and C$ getting baited into weak charges, giving up HUGE runs and having long periods of looking helpless on defense.

This should have been an ultra cakewalk, but we closed EVERY QUARTER like crap. It was something like 31 to 16 with about a min left in the first, it ends up being 31 to 21, Utah closes the half strong to get it down to 11 from 18, Utah OWNS US to end the 3rd, We have a slim lead with about 4:00 to go in the 4th... Utah scores on 5 of 6 possesions, we lose by 6+.

This is all to a team that probably won't even sniff the WCF and a team that lost to effing Minnesota the night before and then traveled home.

yeah the officiating sucked, but it's always going to suck for a team without a trancendent star.

This team continues to suck vs the High Screen and roll, and since moving screens no longer exist on the screens on the ballhandler, that is what you'll see 85% of the time in the playoffs and... We'll continue to suck against it.

Yep, I'm melting down, and rightfully so. This was a litmus test. FAIL, we are supposed to break teams with our execution down the stretch and tag shooters... The opposite happened.


Sheed is probably my favorite Piston, but he lost this game, flat out.

1. the 2 huge missed FT's.
2. Not covering Memo, any part of the time. MAKE HIM DRIBBLE
3. Jacking up a ton of threes and missing ALL of them.

Good points by all after we had a night to sleep on it. If Coynejeremy sat in the stands and noticed the Pistons sucking air in the third, why didn't Flip, TP, Curry or Cowens notice it?

Millsap "big babied" Dice and then Max and Sheed for six minutes before he sat down with foul trouble. This could have been a blowout if he had played the next 5-6 minutes. All he did was bring them all the way back and once the game was tied, the Jazz and their fans knew that they were going to punk the Pistons again like have done 16 out of the last 18 games. Can we get Memo back as our center??

We can't win them all and any lead is possible to overcome, but if you are supposedly a championship caliber team, you should not allow any team to comeback from being 18 points down. The Pistons had a 13 point lead in the third qtr with 9 mins left and that should been safe too, but as Flip said, "we went one on one midway thru the 3rd qtr and then stopped playing defense.well why did he call a time out tell them to either stop it, or put in someone who had some legs???

The stat that punctuates this is the 3 assists in the second half...yeah three

Despite all the Flip bashing, the Pistons finish 9-3 in February and since this isbetter than the celtics, 9-4 or the Magic 8-5, Flip probably gets coach of the month again.

Another meaningless stat: In the pistons the three losses for February, the #103 is the key.....103-85 loss to the Magic, , 103-98 to the Bucs and 103 95 to the Jazz...so don't let a team score 103 and maybe they win

Amir Johnson didn't play for the first time in 16 games. No reason was given......

that was all Chris Mc'Flunky" wrote in the News. U HAVE 2 B F$%#!#$!!**^%$#! ME....

Thats investigative reporting. I hate beat writers!

"no reason was given'...how bout "No question was asked"...

I was supposed to chill through this game..I wish The BigLoves would have blown us out...
rats

Some good discussion. This was a bad loss because of the coaching pattern--not the loss itself.

No, Rip wasn't just missing later. He and the Piston offense was being pushed back off the ball by the defense. Teams have done this in the playoffs to us. We apparantly still have no answer. No, it is not just being tired on this aspect. We just fall apart. We have all seen it.

Memo did not just go off. He was allowed to go off. Sheed was to blame but ultimately it is the coach. We are not talking about Kobe here. Memo cannot drive. No excuse.

You didn't have to be at the game to notice Milsap was scoring easily inside and that Dyss did not have the quickness to handle him. If the coaching staff cannot pull a player for match ups, what does that leave for the playoffs? No team is that good that they don't have to make adjustments during a game.

When the starters are on the floor we play at a slower pace. We should have at least get AJ in the game to change the pace as we are losing our lead slowly but surely. A few blocks or shot alterations was all we needed to stop the run and pull out the victory. I still can't beleive "WE" get no explanation from anyone as to why AJ got a DNP.

Even if it is a dumb excuse; I deserve to hear something.

Its all about adjustments and the issue with Memo taking four-three pointers in less than two minutes and hitting three of them means that the time frame may have been to short to react to and on one on the floor or the coaches yelled out "PUT A BODY ON MEMO"...epecially to tired players...

They had plenty of time to adjust with figuring out what to do with Millsap....But nope, he was able to duplicate his effort in the 4th on what he had done in the 3rd... as neither the coaches or players adjusted..

Other teams see that and will exploit it in every playoff game until they are able to force a game 4 loss on us whether it is the 2nd, 3rd or 4th round if Flip is lucky enough to ge there

If Sheed covered Okur, Williams would have shot uncontested lay-ups. Is that better D?