Crappy loss tonight. CB had maybe his best game of the year: 28 points, 10 assists, 7 boards, no turnovers, 11-11 from the FT line on lots of aggressive drives. Rip had a great game shooting but turned it over way too much, Dice crashed the boards and hit shots but bricked 4 FTs, JMax sparked a big run in the 3rd quarter but also bricked his FTs, and Sheed was terrible all night long. Bench was mostly terrible, nothing from Stuckey or Hayes.

no................

I think, such losses are needed, they are cure for complacency.

Well the Pistons came back and took the lead in the third based on some inspired defense by Max and some timely buckets by CB, but our lack of production from the rest of the bench and the 11 missed FT spell doom for the Pistons as they were swept by the restructured Kings. Their big guns all coming back from injury this week did what most us predicted took out our less than skilled bench in the second qtr and the all important 4th qtr. This is the same team that got blown out by Raptors two days ago...the same team we blew out the night prior to that!

How does this stat grab you Kings bench 60, Pistons bench 5!! (all by JMAX) as Hayes, Stuckey and Afllolo were a combined 0-10 from the field. What happen to our bench...they must have lost their confidence sitting on the bench during last weeks road trip I guess.

Let's not put it all on the bench though . Sheed 3-12 shooting, 1-6 from beyond the arc. Sheed, Dice and Max 1-11 from the FT line. Rip 5 turnovers

Another great Billups game wasted. 28 pts, 10 assists, 7 board and no turnovers.

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

Our starting backcourt had a terrfic game; Chauncey especially. Rip could've turned it over less, though. Our frontcourt - not so much. Dice had some great hustle; Max as well, but neither they nor Sheed could score for us. We got very little help on offense from our frontcourt. Pistons also missed a lot of ft's.

Our bench really struggled, producing only 5 points. Max was the lone bright spot there. Stuckey seems out of it. He got burned on D quite a bit - and he needs to be more aggressive on offense. I guess the hand's still bothering him. Flip might wanna think about upping the tempo with him in there. He'll do better, and it'd be a good change of pace for us.
Hayes needs to take better shots; he's starting to force things again. Herrmann was decent, but he didn't really stand out; neither did Afflalo.

The bench is coming off a a string of games where they haven't gotten much run and are trying to adjust. They are pressing to do well instead of just playing. I think part of the problem is you bring in Stuck and Max but leave Dice, Rip and Tay in the game after already having a lot of minutes on them. They are slowing them down. Stuck, Max and even AA want and need to turn up the tempo when they are playing. We need to reduce the length of our runs so that we can turn up the tempo when Stuck and Max come in.

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Damn Right I Will!!!! - Joe Dumars

Another coaching loss. Sacramento steadily shuttled in fresh players the whole game. We countered with a 6 man rotation.</p>


<p>Worse, three of our starters played near or over 40 minutes, in the first of a back to back. So much for planning to leave anything for tomorro night. And yes, Dyess was way overplayed too, for his age and condition of his knees.</p>


<p>What happened to the promise of Stuckey playing major minutes, win or lose? The announcers proudly, I should say dutifully, announced the 8 man rotation. What a joke to put on us fans.</p>


<p>Rip sat out about a minute or so in the first half before coming back in, and utterly predictably finishing the half. Virtually no rest. The 8 man rotation thing failed to work.</p>


<p>Anyone think Afflalo got minutes. Technically he did. Two minutes can be referred to in the plural. This is a joke.</p>


<p>Hayes continues to do nothing at all out there. But since he is someone who Flip can play instead of Amir, he will not come out of the rotation. His minutes were given to him, and they are gold.</p>


<p>Herrmann hustles, but is way too slow. He simply does not get to plays to affect them.</p>


<p>Maxiell had a bad night at the line, but provided a great burst of energy in the 3rd quarter to get us back into the game. But then the coach sat him most of the 4th quarter, going with a couple of tired 33 year olds instead.</p>


<p>At least Saunders did do a couple of things different. He brought in a guy who should be starting, Maxiell, into the game when it was very apparent we needed Maxiell and his stellar defense. He also played Herrmann and later Hayes some at power forward. If he had not, Dyess would be up around 40 minutes for this game too, and that would be truly obscene on a front end of a back to back. Now, neither of these guys gives us a lick of rebounding or shotblocking as power forwards, so it will never work, but it would be stupider yet to play Dyess even more minutes. So I applaud the coach for at least not being totally ignorant as far as his rotation tonight. Close, but not totally.</p>


<p>Back to the lie that was told us fans. Flip cheerfully announcers he cut Afflalo, a fine young player, out of the rotation. With the absurdly lame excuse that he was going to increase Stuckey's minutes. Afflalo still barely played, but Stuckey was cut to about 10 minutes. Lies. Now, who out there actually believed any of it. I certainly hope that more and more fans will understand that truth and Saunders are strangers. He wants his way, and thats all there is to it. The rest is just excuses. Lame as heck excuses.</p>


<p>Billups and Rip had fine shooting nights. But I sure hope they don't think they will ever win anything of importance on their own.</p>


<p>Foul trouble. Hard to notice it. But we had enough fouls on our bigs in the first half to where they were choosing to let people waltz in unchallenged. This paranoia of Flip's not to ever have to play Amir is truly hurting our defense. And believe me, other teams smell our fear and are crashing inside all they can. Now, Sacramento did not play a particulary smart game. They could have pretty much slaughtered us if they had went inside a bit more even than they did. Don't fool yourselves. With this coach of ours, Sacramento would beat us in a 7 game series.</p>


<p>Tay played aggressively to start the game and then vanished.</p>


<p>Dyess had a good shooting game, got some rebounds. Sure would be nice though if he could cover the inside. He is a good sub, a poor starter.</p>


<p>Oh well, let the inevitable flood of excuses start on Flip's behalf. But it won't help the team any. Fans who want to see the Pistons win this year, and we still can, should start hollering for two things. One, fire Flip. Two, play the youth.</p>

Near 0 production from the Bench and Sheed kind of did us in here. Maxiel was the only bench guy who scored with 5 points. I don't think we have gotten that low of production since LB's last year.

I would stick with the plan though. Stucky has not looked great and Afflalo not much better but thats what it is like sometimes with player developement. I think we sometimes get the idea that these young guys are always going to do magical things when they get the chance. But in reality Its a slow and sometimes painfull process. Ask Denver fans about Mello's rookie year.

Stick with the plan Flip. We keep saying that its ok to take a few losses for the good of the team. Well, here you go.

At least the team will be extra motivated for the Bulls.

Stuckey played poorly on both ends of the floor. He got 10 minutes, but certainly didn't deserve any more tonight. He was 0-for-4 shooting, got burned several times on defense, and was -17 while on the court. I like Stuckey, but he's got a long ways to go.

Hamilton and Billups played great tonight. These guys should both be All-Stars. When they are this hot, unless you are trying to lose, it would be stupider to not ride them. Tomorrow, you get more minutes to both Stuckey and Afflalo.

Max, you did notice right. The plan was not stuck to tonight. Stuckey only played 10 minutes. Hayes can't play, and he only played 10 minutes. The only part of the plan stuck to at all was Maxiell getting minutes. Even he was insulted I am sure by his coach ignoring a fine game by him and going with the old folks at the end of the game.