Minutes:

Billups 41 - Hamilton 43 - Prince 39 - Wallace 30 - Webber 28
Hunter 10 - Delfino 11 - Maxiell 9 - McDyess 23 - Davis 6

The minutes were a little better with Prince Sheed and Webber, but Chauncey and Rip were way overused.

Thats going to change once we get a backup guard. Just can't play Hunter too much very often. Everytime Hunter came in the score plummeted. trying to win a game here.

Great all around game. Nice inside game by Sheed, Webber and Dyess.

Tayshaun was overused considering how innefective he was. 39 minutes for 6/2/2?

This team still needs to replace Lindsey Hunter. He comes in and the offensive flow is shot to hell. Especially when we have these lineups with Lindsey, Delfino, and Dale on the floor at the same time. Teams go zone, and we don't have a prayer because Lindsey can't find the open man 90% of the time, and even if he does, the shot is going to be inconsistant. This leaves us with Rip going one-on-one and bricking 20-footers. A PG that can make plays for himself and for others would do wonders for this bench. Then again, it's the same story for the last 3 years, and Joe has done nothing to find a permanent solution. He's just too attached to his buddy Lindsey.

67 free throws tonight! That is why I record every single game and start watching them an hour late.

Those refs sucked.

But even so, Sheed, Dyess, Webber and crew were actually playing a style of basketball that the other team didn't want us to play. It's about time for that.

Webber is working out quite well, eh?

Oh, and after reading about the "10 Trillion" stat on this forum earlier today, it was funny to see how close Carlos Delfino came to joining the club. 12 minutes and the only thing that was on his box score was a turnover and a foul.

Good win, 4 of 5 with CWEBB starting for us. Chris Webber had his best game as a Piston. 17 points, 13 rebounds, 3 blocks. The game stayed in halfcourt mode quite a bit, although Indiana did adjust that in the 2nd half when they realized our halfcourt D was just too solid. The Pistons scored not a one fast break point, so they had to show a fast break from Indiana for the fast break of the game.

And just why would we ever want to push the ball when we have Sheed and Webber scoring all nite from the post? Sheed ended up with 20 despite just getting 2 points in the first half. Sheed also added 7 rebounds, 3 steals, and 5 blocks, I think 3 in the first few minutes of the game. Webber started quickly in scoring and rebounding, but then missed several post up shots-mostly hooks. But he got 7 offensive rebounds, and put a lot of them back in.

Good and bad about the bench. The good, we played 10 guys. The bad, Hunter is still one of them, and he is simply not a point guard. Further, despite playing 10 guys, our starters were overplayed. We were up 13 in the 2nd quarter with about 6 minutes left to go, and in comes all the starters. Now, the starters had given us that lead, and the bench was just holding their own, but you know, the game is not won in the 2nd quarter. It can certainly be lost in the 2nd quarter though. One, here we were tiring our starters out with their bench still in, plus we were losing our lead to boot. In this game, it did not matter though as these starters took a tie game, and scored 10 straight in the closing minutes of the game. Guess they were not all that tired.

Five minute heroes. Rip hit a midranger. Sheed ditto. Webber a tap back. That Webber tap back in particular gave us control of the game.

We still used a lot of zone. Our zone still got burnt plenty, but at least for this game we did actually did mix zone and man to man a bit more effectively.

Maxiell seriously needs to work on short shots. He looks a bit lost in shooting an 6 to 8 footer. Better get a lot of practice, cause he keeps getting shots at that range in games. However, it is also my observation so far this year that Jason Maxiell finds it quite difficult to get a comfort level offensively in very short minutes.

Dyess scored very impressively in this game, especially early 2nd quarter. But we could not make defensive stops to increase the lead. In the 4th quarter, our bench kept them from scoring the first few times down, but could not score themselves. Well, considering how little they play as a unit, I mean, its always a different mix, what can anyone expect.

Dyess had plenty of bounds with those points. We held O'Neal to 1 of 8 shooting in the first half, but he got hot in the 4th. He scored once on Maxiell, and we pulled Maxiell from the game. Then he went nuts scoring on Sheed. Maxiell was not the problem.

Dale Davis did not do much, yet he gave us energy. Even though he ended up not doing anything under the basket on offense, he was there, despite Indiana's best efforts to keep him away from the basket. It had to have helped wear Indiana out a bit.

Tay seemed to, on occasion, realize Dunleavy was guarding him, and got agressive on O. But you know, since we had an inside game going, why would we really want Tay or Rip to score all our points anyway. Or Billups. We got 37 points between Sheed and Webber, mostly inside, while even Dyess could count quite a few points as inside scoring. Thats a shift in the right direction. GO PISTONS!!!!!

comments after looking at boxscore:

Indiana did end up outrebounding us by a bit. Kudos to CB and Rip, as they quietly nailed 19 of 20 free throws between them. Yep, our starters played too much. Fortunately, Webber got into foul trouble and played more along the lines of minutes he should play. One game further from when Flip manages to tire him out and leave him worthless to us. Delfino got nothing in 12 minutes, but he still gave us energy out there, helping with the ball handling, and spending time gaurding their hottest player, Granger. Delfino did not do that well defending Granger, but not bad either especially considering all the helpout D he was playing too. But again note, it was Delfino we called upon to defend their hot player. That is a compliment to him, I won't call this a bad game for Delfino.

Not too crazy about twice blowing double-digit leads in this game to let the Pacers back into it, but quite happy with the decision to take full advantage of Sheed's hot hand in the second half. Also happy that Sheed obliged by working hard on the block time and again to get his buckets. Glad to see CWebb get involved on the offensive glass, but I'd also like to see him end up with more than 6 defensive boards.

A win is a win after the disappointing loss to the Wiz. Time to get that one back next.

Other than McDyess, the bench was non-existent stat wise
Delfino >>0-0 shooting, 1 foul, 1 turnover
Hunter>>>0-2 shooting, 1 rebound
Maxiel>>>0-3 shooting, 1-2 FT,1 rebound,1 assist,1 steal, 1 pt and 4 fouls
Davis>>>0-2 shooting, 1 rebound, 1 assist,2 fouls, 1 TO

Delfino, Hunter, Max and Davis all contribute, but not every night because the sub patterns are inconsistent. We need still need someone other than Dice who can contribute everynight, not just once a week. I know that Flip jr is inconsistent, but sometimes Flip sr needs to bring him in when Hunter is flatlining. ..wait did I say that?? Joe just needs to pull the tigger before the trade deadline to get this offense clicking on all cylinders before the end of February.

Last year we relied on a bench of Dice and Delk and fell apart in the end of the second round and went fishing early in the 3rd.

__________________
"Once you go Barack, you never go Bak" Mario Cantone 2008

What is wrong with Tay? I think he needs a physical or something. He just looks very tired and worn out. He has not energy. I look at some of the games last year and he looks more fit. I hope this will not linger all year.