Chris Paul is out, this game shouldn't be a struggle at any point. I expect them to lead the entire game.

i want defense.

We lucked out with Chris Paul being hurt, Kirk Snyder will have to step up, yeah right. On a serious note, with Paul in the game, the Pistons would be in trouble, this is a well balanced team, up and coming young team. Without Paul, you have to wonder how well their O will be run. However, unlike Flip, their 2nd unit guys have gotten PT, so Snyder shouldn't be too bad.

Rip and CB should absolutely abuse Snyder and Speedy, but we need to stop Speedy and his dribble penetration. Sheed and Ben need to get there acts together, if PJ Brown and David West combine for anything more than 30 and 15, Ill be real upset.

Bottom line, our first real "Gut Check" game, we lose with the starters playing 38+ min per, expect Flip to get a real talking to from Joe, especially if we have another 4th quarter collapse.

BTW, Evans has no business in this game, there is not one player, except maybe Kirk Snyder, that he's capable of guarding.

Free Darko

OK men, time to leave hotel and go to game, but I will have to stay night over because of snow in KC.

Flip just said on WDFN that they are expecting Chris Paul to play.

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

Idle thoughts on Carlos Arroyo...
I think he would be a superstar in Europe or South America where the speed of the game is equal or less than his abilities... he has all of the skill level required...
Unfortunately the speed of this league is one notch higher and he has a hard time keeping up with these gaurds.
Interesting that he played so much with the starters tonight (showcasing?).... this certainly shows the difference between playing against starters or reserves.

is playing too many minutes. he shouldn't come into the game before delfino. he isn't bringing it on d and that's what he was supposed to be brought in for. he's also a non factor on offense.

idle thoughts on arroyo. people are too hard on him defensively. none of our guards are stopping penetration. chris paul and claxton are too fast for all of our guards that are currently active.

oh. i think i know what flip is doing is must be using a delfino 1 game and evans the next game rotation. that way they don't have to share minutes they can play lots of minutes 1 game and sit out another game.

It's sad to see our bench play such small minutes to the hornets we finally held a pf in check tonight though pj brown 3 points

Yes, the game was played in Oklahoma. I got absolutely no love for the people of Oklahoma so greedily looking at another city's team. What if it was us? Big quake or something. Another city, in another state, hosts the Pistons for a time. Would you want that city to keep our team?

Ok, the big story seems to be Carlos Arroyo. Anyone who knows there NBA basketball would not imagine Arroyo could guard Speedy Claxton all that well, which is why I would like to see Acker involved some. I think we could have used him in this game.

But Arroyo kept us right in their with good, solid play on the offensive end. That first turn, believe it or not, was not his fault. The announcers did not want to embarrass the guy who missed the play. That should have been an Evans dunk, but Evans pulled up on the play. Next, you got a turn with Arroyo trying to feed Rip posting up. Gee, trying to feed a guy posting up is a good thing. You don't always feed the post though, as the other team surely does not want you to. One of the best steals guy in the league, Chis Paul, stol the pass. So what. I would still want Arroyo to attempt to feed Rip right there. Now, the pass to Ben, that was a bad pass. Not that the pass was not thrown perfectly, just that Ben is not yet accustomed to how good at passing the ball Arroyo is. Ben was not ready for the pass. Almost, but not quite.

Now, I see a lot of negative posts on Arroyo occurring from the first half, based on the score. Yet, when Arroyo left Billups with an 8 point lead in the 4th quarter, no props for the guy. Whats up with that.

Arroyo nailed a couple of threes. Not too surprising. Of late, he has been starting to work on his range in the games. In his full year with Utah, he made plenty of threes, at a 33% clip. Not great, but certainly acceptable.

And finally, the bump. Not much of a bump. More like incidental contact. Man, I have seen a whole lot worse. But I won't say get rid of Sheed for his temper, neither will I say get rid of Arroyo for his. Instead, I will just choose to love the competitiveness.

I won't comment too much on Evans play. He did not do much. Two steals, one a pick the ball up kind of steal where someone else knocked the ball away, and another early 4th quarter that was quite helpful. He alertly cut in and got a dunk. He got burnt by Paul, but Paul of course is much to fast for him. One missed defensive rotation I caught, and that blown offensive play. Who knows what reviewing the tape will find.

Surprisingly, Delfino did not play in this game until garbage time, and even only then because CB fouled out in the last minute. Matchups maybe? N.O. has some real quick guards. I am guessing Flip felt he needed another guard vs. a small forward in this game. Now, Flip has stated he is going to start playing his bench minutes just to get them minutes so they can get comfortable. Does this mean Evans will not play next game but Delfino will get major burn?

Rip was, well, on fire. Nailing shot after shot coming off his curls. 30 points. Dependable. Good word for Rip. He has been averaging around 20 points a game for us from the day we got him in the Stack trade. Seldom a whole lot more than 20, and seldom a lot less. Got to love him.

CB delivered a 3 dagger late. Then Sheed further buried them with another 3. I am glad the game did not stay tight at the end, cause frankly, my heart can't take that much excitement. This was one very exciting game to watch. I pegged this team to not make the playoffs, but to play near 500 ball this year. Now, I see one of their rooks is struggling, but who knows, he too might get his act together like Paul surely has. Could be quite a team by years end.

Tay was involved in the offense quite a bit. Hit a three. Another outside shot. Went inside some. Lost the ball twice going inside. Between him and Rip we had a lot of mismatches over their guards. Tay picks and chooses when to get involved, but he is absolutely shooting enough to work on his game. Make the outside shot, force them to cover you. Drive them. Standard NBA stuff. Great to see Tay develop his game before our eyes.

Sheed did some work down low in this game. Hit a midranger. Played solid D. Usual. Ben played great D, swatting Paul 3 times. Rook got to learn. Ain't those No Fly Zone signs posted clearly enough?

Dyess hit at least one shot, maybe 2? Kind of invisible for the most part. CB hit a shot here and there, got to the line here and there. Not a ton of scoring, and he was in foul trouble partly due to a pair of somewhat boneheaded offensive fouls. Bad enough he had Speed and Paul to defend. PS, note, when the other team goes small, like they did with Speedy and Paul in together, we are just fine, cause Rip can guard speedy points better than anyone on our team. Got to appreciate that versatility on defense from him.

fyi, Tay played point for the one minute Delfino played, not Delfino.

Scoring line. Basically, this game stayed close, a real heart thumper, until the end of the 3rd. We had an 11-2 run with Arroyo on the floor and took a 10 point lead. Arroyo's 2nd triple, off glass this time, sure helped. His 2nd last second triple of the game. OK,going to check out the boxscore. GO PISTONS!!!!!