the fact that Manu plays the way doesn't bother me at all, the fact that the refs called the game the way they did does. Twice? CB got called offensive pushoffs that were huge flops by parker and not one time did we seem to get the benefit of the call. 2 Ft's with what 2 mins to go last night? If detroit got the benefit of the calls that wade parker and Manu are getting against us... NOBODY would ever come close to beating us.

Refs..... please call it both ways, and let the players decide it. That makes last nights victory look even better. There were a few looks, and comments after the game, but I think we are learning to play thru bad calls... is that experience or another Coaching item that we should be giving credit to the new guy for?

There is a reason why some teams are so hard to beat on their court. And its not "getting the crowd involved". If anything the refs are influenced by the crowd.

That was the best Piston win of the season. We did it without Arroyo. Last game some said yea but Ginobili was out. This game Ginobili played, looked good and the Pistons had to play without a backup point for the 1st time this season. Prince slidding over to the point with Evans and Delfino having to fill in.

Actually I thought the big offensive draught we had early in the 4th was due to things just being out of balance with the rotations that had not been played before. Team toughen down on the D, crashed the boards and got the job done.

How weird is it that the Pistons two best defensive and rebounding efforts come against what is widely considered the best or second best team in the NBA?

We get our butts handed to us by Utah in 4th quarters, and then go out and own the Spurs on their court or ours.

When the Pistons play with discipline and focus, they can't be beat. The trick is having that energy and effort each night.

San Antonio is better than they have played. I'm still anxious to see a Pistons-Spurs/Suns/Mavs final.

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To all of my friends, comrades and companions at PF.com

Thank you for another great season!

We definately haven't seen the best from the Spurs yet. I think they've still got a bit of the Championship hangover.

Manu is healthy again, but is playing off the bench right now and Finley and Nick the Not So Quick Anymore are still finding their rolls on this team.

They have a scary record for a team that has yet to hit high gear.

I think both teams are better than they were last year. The Spurs and Pistons are BY FAR the best 2 teams in the NBA. It should be one hell of a battle!

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How about 6 seconds. Apparently, the league has extended Shaq privileges to the big men on SA. Nesterovic, twice, got to stay in the lane 5 to 6 seconds, camping out. And it hurt us twice. This was early in the game. And also early in the game, Duncan got nearly 5 seconds in the lane, and again, to our detriment. Without this craziness, SA does not score but maybe 1 point in the opening minutes of the game. This game absolutely should not even have been as close as it was.

Does anyone know how often the Pistons get away with 3 seconds in the lane. Personally, I ain't noticed an instance of it. Far as I can tell, they give us 2 and a 1/2 seconds. What gives here?

I wanted to highlight the differences in offensive philosophy from this year and last. 1st quarter, Ben screens for Tay in the corner who hits a jumper. Last year, we try and post Tay or drop the ball in to Ben. SA loved that. Sheed, after taking Duncan down low, becomes a passer in the high post. Rip does a one man break for a layup. Chauncey who did force up a lot of shots later and tried to drive into the teeth of the defense (shades of last year) took and hit a three in that first quarter blitz. Last year, he usually did not take the long look early. What this does to the SA defense is that they can not rely on our habits to defend us. Further, their defense is geared to sag in and it weakens them to spread it out. I actually think we get more mileage with Sheed outside on this team. Teams now know that the Pistons can score like every other team in the league. In fact, we are one of the better offenses in the league. They also know, that we can lock down. Look what we did to SA. 68 points. We killed them on the boards. We can't do this every game but for key games and the playoffs we can. As Magic said, our offensive tempo is now geared to our talent level.

We did get some play from the bench. Delfino hit a shot. Dyss of course. Arroyo is better than Tay running the offense. Evans made a major, major play in that first quarter rebound and put back. The score was just 18-13. Lee, if you ride this guy, ride him, but that was one of the highlights of the 1st quarter. You have got to report that--we don't always get to see every game. On Delfino, a drawback is that he is only 23 and still lacking in experience. But the bench wasn't the story in this game. Our first quarter- plus blitz was and then our relentless defense in the second half. SA has to be thinking, we never were able to score on them much and now we can't count on stopping them or as Pop says, "We have to play a near perfect game to beat them." SA will be better later but I am now more worried about Shaq-Wade as we don't always stop that duo.

Evans putback was indeed in my report.

I write a ton about the starters too. Nobody makes much comment about that. They just concentrate on what they don't like. How much of a story is it that Sheed is going into the post a lot more this year, or that he is doing great on his threes? That story I have told over and over in my reports. Or that Tay continues to work on and stay aggressive on his offense. He continues to try to establish his outside shot, making them come out to guard him so he can blow by them to the basket. How much of a story is Ben Wallace pulling down 20 rebounds. Nothing new. Or blocking Paul 4 times in the N.O. game? Old. Rip coming off screens? He does it game after game. Rip going inside more. Rip hitting triples well. CB hitting triples well. CB going to the line all day in so many games. You can only tell the same story so many times.

You say the bench is not a story? With our "bench" in, to start the 4th quarter, we went 1-10. Rip hit a shot to begin the quarter, and then we not only did not get a bucket the next 5 minutes, we did not even score a point. Don't you think that is a story? Don't you think people would want to know how that happened? After all, we only had 2 bench players in the game. CB was still running the point. Either Rip or Tay were in the game. Either Ben or Sheed was in. So how come we stalled? That is a story.

And now, contrast that opening of the 4th to the opening of the 2nd quarter. No Carlos Arroyo. CB sitting on the bench getting some rest. Quite a story. Did we falter. Crash and burn. Nope. We ran the lead from 13 points up to 20 points. How did that happen? Here, again, we had 3 starters and 2 bench players. Who ran the offense in the absence of Arroyo? This is a story, pertinent to this game.

By the way, Prince brought the ball up for us, but Delfino was also quite involved in our ball handling in those opening minutes of the 2nd quarter. Tay passed the ball for instance, and Delfino drove toward the top of the lane, drawing 2 defenders, kicked out to Dyess for an assist. And a couple more times Delfino handling the ball led to us scoring.

To open the 4th quarter, in contrast, it was Evans getting a few shots at handling the ball. Each time, he simply lost some time on the clock and passed the ball off, not giving us a thing for the time the ball was in his hands.

We are talking about quite a hunk of the game time. Stuff not hardly ordinary, run of the mill stuff about the Pistons. Stuff that is different. New.

And what happened after Delfino sat for Evans? SA scored every time down, and the last two times it was on Evans. Evans came out of the game and we righted the ship, so to speak. You call it riding Evans. I call it reporting to people who might want to know what happened in the game.

Specifically, Nick the Quick shook Evans off real easy and hit a jumper. Next time down, he shook off Evans easily and got right in the paint. Sheed had to challenge him, leaving Duncan open for a dunk. That is what happened right before his coach took Evans out of the game.

We did have two periods in the game where we scored, and gained some lead, with Evans in. In both the 1st and 3rd quarters, Evans was in while we pushed the lead up. None of this was really Evans though. He did get the one offensive rebound putback, and thats it really. His other rebounds did not lead to us scoring. Other players on the team did some good stuff on offense, like nail threes, hit their teammates for good assists. With Evans out of the way. On defense, Evans was ineffective on anyone he gaurded.

If you disagree with what I am writing, you tell me just where. Can you tell me the player Evans guarded well. Can you point out where Evans made a good pass that led to scoring for us? Any positives you want to add about Evans, go ahead. I am listening. I plan to watch the game a couple of more times yet and I will be sure to look for whatever you mention.

Its pure comedy they called that an offensive foul on CB. Parker never got position at all. Indeed, his body was turned sideways as he approached CB, who really did not touch the guy. Parker just basically threw himself on the floor, and got the benefit of the whistle for it. Worse, the announcers applauded Parker for how great he did getting into position. They even said CB lowered his shoulder, which he did not. he was going in with a low stance, but never changed a thing at the time of the imaginary collision. Just a horrid call with the media blindly (we hope blindly) cheering it on.

I watched that 3 times; their feet weren't set.