Boston at Detroit... January 16th - Page 2 - Detroit Pistons Fan Community

FreshPrince22 · #11 (**permalink**) 01-16-2006, 06:37 PM

Players of the Game: Carlos Delfino / Rasheed Wallace

Wow, phenomenal game for Carlos. Very tough defense on Pierce, knocked down some big shots for us when we looked dead in the water. Hopefully this boosts his minutes. Rasheed was phenomenal in the post.

TaShawn · #12 (**permalink**) 01-16-2006, 06:45 PM

I remember that someone from the Argentinian team said that Delfino was considered their best defender when he was on the team. Maybe he has recovered enough from the surgery to become a little more effective in that area now. So Evans isn't the defender we all hoped he'd be, but Delfino is making up for it. They both bring something different to the table now.

All of the starting 5 had a great game today. Tayshaun came on the latest, but he sealed it.

Lee356 · #13 (**permalink**) 01-16-2006, 06:47 PM

Wow, an exciting game to watch. Boston came out hitting all their shots. It was going to be a long night. No one particular Celt was killing us. They all were. Cept one. Ricky Davis never scored in the game. Now, since Ricky Davis never scored once, can we credit Evans with shutting him down. Seems to me a guy has to score at least once before you can shut them down. Never the less, Evans never let Ricky Davis score, Evans hit a triple, and cut in for a hoop. Further, he played a ton, keeping Rip off his feet. That I will take.

The big hero among the starters was Sheed. In this game, he did not just work the post a couple or a few times. He worked it, and worked it, and worked it some more. Then he steps out and nails a couple of threes. After that he is seen mugging er, stuffing, their player. A good clean stuff it down your throat kind of block. Ben got it right after Sheed did and took the ball with him. Sheed just used the old standard face up I think every time. If they can't stop a face up jumper, who needs anything else anyway. Just shoots right over the top. And swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.

Ben hit his last 3 of 4 free throws. Thank goodness cause he had missed several in a row before that. Ben played his usual fine D, got a bunch of rebounds. But, hey, no I can't say his D was all that good in the 1st or 3rd quarters. Boston was scoring all too easy against our starting unit.

Rip had it going for much of the game. Just the usual off the curl jumpers. Pretty steady. CB did his damage driving em inside. And Tay. Kind of quiet. A jumper here and there. A drive or two. But hey, a triple and that drive inside in crunch time means we got a scorer when it counts. I believe without looking that Tay played 30 minutes in this game. Lots in the tank for the last 5 minutes of the game.

Arroyo only played about 4 mintues. We did not score with him in but I believe a time or two. But somehow, the lead of Boston did not increase much. Defensively, we were doing ok. Now, Arroyo had Evans in with him along with Ben Wallace. And this combo did not do well. CB and Delfino came in. Now we had three bench players, Delfino, Evans, and Dyess in with CB and either Sheed or Ben the rest of the 2nd quarter. And we took a 12 point deficit and turned it into a slight lead at the half.

Evans was guarding Davis as mentioned previos. Delfino was guarding Pierce. Delfino was guarding Pierce real darn well. I think we can safely throw out the weak defender label. Delfino was making Pierce take some awful tough shots if he even decided to shoot the ball. And when the refs decided to give Pierce a superstar call in the 2nd half, Delfino said ok. And simply played ball denial so Pierce forgot what that ball even looks like. That was some darn good ball denial defense, reacting to every trick Boston tried to get the ball into the hands of Pierce.

Dyess was near invisable in this one. Did he make a shot? But he did one thing right. He played a lot of mintues. Billups is the only starter who did not get proper rest in this one. Dyess played good defense on their bigs. And again, just staying out there so long is the key.

I see someone made the comment Tay might be mad about not playing as much as usual. Hey, in my opinion, all Tay should be playing right now is 30 minutes per game. He needs the rest. And just like tonight, he can still get his 13 points or so. Just compressed into a shorter time frame, making him that much more effective for us when he is playing.

Note, Boston was indeed trying to deny Sheed the post. We were running plays to get him down there. And winning out over and over in this effort. Boston is just not that good a team. They go from a no-rebounding center to some young fellas who don't know how to play the game. With decent centers and power forwards, this team would be pretty darn good.

Oh, I forgot to mention Delfino hitting some shots. He hit some spot up threes. Later, he tried adding some new wrinkles. Did not go as well. But look, you got to miss a few before you make a few. That is how basketball goes. We got to get Delfino more shots. A couple of those just barely missed going down. And you know how precious little game time practice he has had to this point.

Thats about all I can think of at the moment. Going to be fun reviewing this one. GO PISTONS!!!!!

himat · #14 (**permalink**) 01-16-2006, 07:32 PM

delfino is great. when lindsey comes back this bench will be great.

Lee356 · #15 (**permalink**) 01-16-2006, 07:35 PM

In case anyone missed it

pistonsloyalist · #16 (**permalink**) 01-16-2006, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lee356

In case anyone missed it

Thanks for that information. Interesting game summary, as always.

himat · #17 (**permalink**) 01-16-2006, 08:09 PM

we are 3-0 against boston, but they always put up a fight. delonte west is a nice player. perkins is solid.

himat · #18 (**permalink**) 01-16-2006, 08:23 PM

doc rivers aid if no piston made the starting lineup of the allstar team he'd vote for all of them as reserves.

roscoe36 · #19 (**permalink**) 01-16-2006, 08:32 PM

Really impressed by Delfino's scrappiness on Pierce. The jump ball two handed block was very nice, and I liked that he kept challenging his man and playing physical. The jumpers are just icing on the cake for me.

Interesting pre-half unit of Billups, Evans, Delfino, Dice and Rasheed. Today just shows that Evans and Delfino can play at the same time if the right mix of players are around them. Without Rip, CB had to look for other players to get involved.

Not only is Sheed averaging a career high in 3P%, he's also making almost 2 threes per game. His previous best was 1.5 three's per game in 2003.

As scary as it sounds, right now Sheed's probably playing as well as he did in his All-Star seasons. After a slow start, he's in the top 20 for total blocks in the league. 16 straight games with a block. Amazing.

Today was vintage Sheed. 9 boards, 23 points, 9-12 shooting, 3-6 from three, 3 assists, 1 block, 1 steal and here's the best line...

2nd most minutes played by a Piston today.

BigDaddy · #20 (**permalink**) 01-16-2006, 09:08 PM

Good game against a scrappy team they have a misleading record.Flip had in a recent article he might sacrifice to develop the bench.Well if this is the result I like it.He had a good mix in there and we need that in case of foul trouble or heaven forbid injury.

If we can keep a mix like this going and keep winning to stay in front of SanAn we will be golden come playoff time.BTW Delfino's two-handed block/jumpball on Pierce was priceless he crumpled to the floor. About the only thing we were mising was a BadBoy elbow to finish it off.

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