Pistons Game 37 of the 2005/6 NBA Regular Season
Thurs. Jan 19th 2006, 8:00 PM Eastern
Madison Square Garden, built 1968, capacity 19,763
TV: TNT, RNBATV
Radio: WDFN 1130AM

Knicks will be without Marbury ( Shoulder ) and DAvis ( suspension ) for tonights game.

Knicks have lost 3 straight but are .500 ( 9-9 ) at home. Historically has always been a tough win in NY.

Write it down. Detroit wins #32 105 to 79

BoxScoreAndPlaybyPlay - From nba.com

Game Chat will be open for this game. Let's give it a testdrive.

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They are the archetype for dominance. They are the gatekeepers of the conference. They are the Detroit Pistons.

Good thing C-Note didn't shoot too much. He needs to re-assess his shot selection. I figure he'd be backing down Robinson all night. Didn't happen. I don't understand this at all. C-Note ran the offense great though.

Tonight, it was name your mismatch. Tay and Sheed both had mismatches, which they exploited. But let's face it, this is a bad Knicks team that is even worse without Davis and Marbury.

Delfino is quickly turning out to be the surprise of the season. He looks great out there and his defense has improved big time. His game is very much in control. He seems fearless in taking the ball to the rack, too. Muy bien, Carlos.

Darko looked like he cared out there. I was surprised to hear the TNT crew ripping him so hard after he made some plays. All you Darko lovers/Davis haters please note that Davis did not play and Darko did. One less thing to whine about.

McDyess had an uncharacteristically bad shooting night but still rebounded the ball well.

32-5.

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"I don't believe there's any problem in this country, no matter how tough it is, that Americans, when they roll up their sleeves, can't completely ignore. - George Carlin

That musta been some kind of record for 3 point attempts... wonder if they talked about using this weapon against the anti 3 man?

Reminds me of the 89-90 team when they could spread the floor and open up the passing lanes... if you're defending the Pistons you have to bring a big out on Sheed.... I just hope they don't get too lazy shooting 3's all the time.

Still they took care of business against a green team... the inside help D is getting better.

Absolutely Darko deserves some props for his effort tonight (even if it was against 6' 8" guys)... he played more like that rough TP instead of Charmine tonight.... for our trekies... he'll still leave a lotta clingons around uranus.

From the beginning, Detroit was just toying with NY. There was no way, no how we could lose this game. The starters came out executing, and playing D. Rip was just simply going right to the basket without resistence. For the game, Sheed hit 4 3 pointers, Tay knocked down 18, many with outside shots, but one very impressive drive in from the left and dunk. Rip included some long rangers as the Pistons got over 10 triples in this game. Delfino and Evans each knocked one down late in the game to run that total up. Ben as usual did not score. He blew a wide open dunk, and threw up an airball at the line. And he defended Curry just fine. Billups got over 10 assists but did little scoring himself.

Arroyo came in with a little over 2 minutes left in the first quarter, and left with about 6 minutes to go in the half. A good long stint. We gained just one point during this time, because wide open shots were missed. Dyess was off. By the way, anyone notice all the passes Dyess is dropping? Seems he can't bend those knees down.

Evans made a couple of decent plays when he first came into the game, but contributed very little besides that. Without that triple late in the game you would have to say he had an off night, along with Billups and Dyess. With team, a few people being off just does not matter. Just way too much fire power. I suppose someone will bemoan the fact we counted on so many triples. But these, time and again, were wide open triples. We missed 4 in a row at one point, one each Sheed, CB, Tay, and Rip. So what. Except for CB, each of these players canned multiple threes. Thats a lot of offense.

Delfino flat out looked marvelous in this game. Especially in the 2nd half. In that 2nd half, neither Arroyo nor Evans got in the game until it was pretty well over. Just Dyess and Delfino for a good stretch. Delfino hit two jumpers coming off curls into the middle, drove in and got fouled. Drove from the right and got fouled on a dunk attempt. Plus the late triple, just to show us fans he really can nail triples.

Maxiell was again impressive in getting to the line, but darn, he is looking just steadily worse at the line. Not the way to garner playing time. Darko got 6 points, some bounds, and assist. He had one outside jumper, a layup on a pick and roll, and a tip back.

Biggest issue in my mind tonight, besides Darko of course who I believe is the key to winning it all this year, is Evans. Look, Delfino can flat out play. Give the minutes to Delfino. That would make our team a lot better immediately. This is not hating on Evans. Just really, really liking Delfino.

There was nothing really at all wrong with the play of our bench in that 1st half. Just missing shots. But despite the missed shots, like I said, Arroyo was plus one in that first half. Our defense held.

Dale Davis did not play in garbage time. The Darko detractors are going to have a hard time explaining that. Flip was interviewed before the game by one of the announcers. Flip told the guy that Darko was simply playing behind three very good players. Nothing negative about Darko whatsoever. For the record, Darko ain't missed an outside shot of late. Anyone still want to complain about him taking outside shots during practice in those three on threes? I for one want to see Darko be an outside threat, just like he was the day we got him. There is nothing wrong with a 7 footer having range. When we heard about why Darko was drafted, a big part of it was about how Darko could hit them from anywhere in the gym.

Channing Frye was quite impressive. But his outside shot was the most impressive thing about him when NY sorely needs bigs inside. They need someone to block shots. They ain't got nothing inside at all. This team could absolutely use a guy like Darko. Ha Ha Ha, they can't have him. GO PISTONS!!!!!

WTG Darko!! Keep it up. Give him some time next game Flip to see if he can repeat the performance. (He probably can't, but give him the opportunity).

I "signed" Delfino up for my Fantasy team after tonights game. That will likely kill his progress immediately.

Oh, yeah. The starters looked great too...but that's a given. **spoiled**

It seemed like they shot a lot of threes just to show Larry what he missed, but maybe they always shoot that many (I'm too lazy to look).

32-5. Man, whoda thunk it? We are going to look back on this in a few years and just think "WOW"!!!

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reading the last two night how were not playing our bench enough and overplaying our bench. I think people are getting a bit picky here. For one the bench is playing aside the starters to find out combo's that work well and which don't. So for the most part the 4th quarter has been 2 starters and 3 bench players. I got curious after the game and looked at our starters minutes for the last 4 games

avg seasnon avg
Prince 31 29 27 27 28.5 36.4 down 8 mins
Ben 31 33 35 34 33.3 36.5 down 3 mins
Sheed 29 41 26 33 32.3 34.9 down 2.5 mins
Rip 34 36 26 32 32.0 36.8 down 4.8 mins
Billups 33 44 32 32 35.3 35.8 down .5 mins (though the 44 min game killed his average)

If the bench continues to look good i think we can all live with starters averaging in the 32-33 min range.

And who says the draft was a bust 3 years ago..... Delfino was drafted in the same draft Darko was...

I don't think I have ever seen 2 back-back 3-pointers in which both players were so open that they had time to take a step back, rotate the ball to the laces, aim and shoot. Sheed did it and then Evans on the very next play.

Underhanded or not the Knicks did not compete. Pistons are playing great but that was the easiest game of the season so far. At least the Hawks made the Pistons work.