Steve Javie is a gotdamn clown

Good win tonight. That first quarter was the best they have looked in a long time. Not too long ago there were first quarter blues.

Big and expected drop in the second half. Lewis killed his team. When a big man roams so far outside to line up those threes, you best shoot at least 40-50 percent. Sheed needs to see how Lewis hurt his team, since the key on bad nights is to get those second shots. Let us all hope Dyess stays healthy, because he is the only one rebounding.

Not a good night for the bench, but there could be a huge wave of developing talent for the near future. One thing is obvious about this bench:

• They are athletic
• They are quick
• They are not lazy
• They take no breaks
• Amir, Stuckey, and AA are still rookies

Extremely inconsistent refs tonight.

Pretty good team that needed 40 free throws to stay within 10 points. Dyess played almost 37 minutes, Amir didn't get off the bench in the 2nd, Tay played 38 minutes. If Orlando made all the freebies it would've been a close game at the end. That's why we are "whining".
I'd rather take a 1 point win over Milwaukee with bench getting extensive playing time.

The Magic got lots of free throws because the Pistons committed lots of fouls. It really is that simple.

Amir actually played. Let's celebrate.

Who gives a crap about all of the minutes played micro-analysis?

I couldn't believe those refs tonight. They sucked badly. The Magic needed what, 40 ft's just to keep themselves within striking distance. Take away some of those (particularly the Turkey Glue touch fouls) and this would've been a different ball game.

Amir - I loved seeing him get some time and produce. He's played well so far; hopefully he keeps it up so Flip can trust him more. He had 3 fouls called on him, but some were really tacky ones. Sheed/Dice/Max got hit with a few of those as well.

Stuckey - He needs to make better decisions. That offensive foul on a drive to the hoop was just poor recognition. I liked the aggressiveness, he just has to play more under control. Once he does that, he should be fine.

Afflalo - Needs to play more. Didn't score much, but he was solid on D as usual. And he rarely ever forces anything. He has a lot of poise for a rook.

Jarvis - Still no J. He didn't get much time because he was cold and sucked on D. Tay ended up playing a lot 'cause the Tragic were going to 'Shard any time either him or Afflalo were on him.

Sheed - Got his 7th T of the year. Not completely underserved, but not unwarranted either. It was fairly obvious the refs were screwing us over. He had a stellar first quarter, however, going 6 for 6 at one point and playing good D.

Chauncey - Abused pretty much all their guards. Efficient game for him, scoring 20+ points on around 10 FGAs and getting to the line quite a bit.

Rip - Player of the Game. He was on FIRE, scoring 30+ points on iirc, 50+% shooting.

Maxie/Dice - Dice had a double-double, rebounding very well. Hit some shots too. Max did well. He has a pretty smooth stroke on that jumper now. The starters played a lot, which I don't like seeing as we were up double digits for much of the game, 20+ almost all through the third. They were clearly a bit gassed at the end. Decent win. The kids are coming along. I'm happy as long as we continue to give them time to develop.

I was at the Palace, in my usual seat overlooking the Pistons bench. It was tons of fun to cheer on the Pistons. A young couple sitting next to us was at their first Piston game, and loved it. They got a hoot out of how much yelling I do.

There were some negatives in this game for sure, but plenty of positives too. I'll gleam over some of the bad stuff quickly. Yes, Dyess is wiped out, as far as I can tell, and yes, our play did drop off when he returned in the 2nd quarter. Our young guys were doing great. They had knocked the lead up to 25. We did not need our starters to return in the 2nd quarter of this game. Hayes played a short spell, and did pretty much nothing right, and Afflalo got the rest of his 1st half minutes and all his 2nd half minutes. Yes, it seemed like Flip was coaching with wrong thinking, imagining that Orlando was going to fold all the sudden, and then the bench could come in for extended garbage time. Nope, Flip, you got to sub in late 3rd quarter, assume the worst.

Now the good stuff. We rocked in the first quarter, getting a 21 point lead. The game was somewhat anticlimactic after that. It was just a matter of whether we were going to put the game away early. That first quarter featured some very impressive post work by Sheed.

Amir sure enough came in the game and played a good stretch of the 2nd quarter. He was very effective on the offensive glass, and at one point, the Pistons as a team had more offensive rebounds than Orlando had total rebounds. (Of course, we were shooting about 77% at that point too, so Orlando was not getting that many defensive board opportunities. A few blocks from Amir helped out cause too. After two straight offensive rebounds on the same play, Amir put the ball in the hoop for his only basket. Amir was not given a shot to take otherwise.

JMAX hit a couple of much needed midrange jumpers in the game, plus he made one very impressive move from the left to the middle, ending in a short jumper.

For the whole game, we outrebounded Orlando badly, with Dyess getting the most. Sheed was guarding Howard the most in the first quarter, and doing a pretty good job of it, but Dyess was taking his turns too.

A couple of times, Afflalo was guarding Lewis, which would seem quite a mismatch. The ref blew the whistle on Afflalo the first time, seemingly arbitrarily, maybe just for pwar. Playing While A Rookie. Lewis then backed him down later and scored an easy bucket. But hey, Afflalo still looked capable of doing the job, maybe if given some more experience and a bit more of a fair whistle from the refs.

Interesting that Orlando outscored us in quarters 2, 3, and 4. This included a 33 point 2nd quarter if I recall right. 49-18, yep, 33 points. Orlando hung in there, despite falling behind so far so fast. While we can certainly laugh at how easily our guards scored on Arroyo, it must be noted that they can score on a lot of guards. Meanwhile, Arroyo was having a particulary good shooting game and dishing the ball right and left to give Orlando good shots. Contrast that to earlier in the season when Nelson was their point guard. Nelson plays no D at all, and no way could match the point guard play of Arroyo. That game back then was easy. (And Dyess was not worn out at that point, the 2nd game of the season.)

Their star, Lewis, hit one triple early and seemed to some extent to shoot Orlando right out of the game. I mean, you think that somehow they could get the ball into their star, Howard, right? They did, but we continually fouled Howard when they did and he only makes half his free throws. Howard's free throw shooting woes are a big weak spot for the Orlando team. Sheed ended up with serious foul trouble from the late 3rd quarter on when he picked up his 4th foul.

Afflalo only got to take one outside shot that I recall, and he made it, a midranger.

Stuckey, did get stuffed driving in the one time, but oh well, he has to keep doing what he does best. The more he drives in, the more comfortable it will be for him to do so. Open players will become more easy to see. Keep it up Stuck.

When we need a score, there is Billups to drive in and get to the line. When we want to score some buckets, there is Rip with his steady as ever midrange game, and you better not give him an open look at a three. Great job of shooting by Rip tonight.

Tay had a decent all around game. Nice passing. Key rebounds. Some scoring. Good solid D. He probably did play maybe a bit too much, but this was not a back to back, and we don't play for a few days. Still, I would like to get Sammy Mejia on the team, a lockdown defender, strong rebounder, and excellent ball handler. Tay could get some serious rest if Mejia was on the team, and could do a lot of what Tay does when he is playing all those minutes.

Why do I want Samb on the team? To close out the 2nd quarter. Give us some shotblocking, and let Dyess get more rest than he did tonight.

OK, about all I can think of at the moment. Overall, this was a very good win. Things may not be running as nicely as they could, but they are running down the right track.

GO PISTONS!!!!!

How long before every C & PF tandem in the L has blocked Stuckey's shot?

Are we sure Flip is awake during the games? He might as well be in a bathrobe with the paper under his arm. I don't know why he can't at least loosely follow his 1st half rotation(?) in the second. I actually thought he left Amir in for too long. He should have yanked him a little earlier to bring Sheed back in with more time. Flip met his quota though, no need to play Amir again. Central Division Champs here they come!!!!

Very good writeups in the last few posts. I enjoyed reading them.

Yes things are going in the right direction now.

This was kind of a must win game with how much importance the Magic were putting on it. You can't let them gain that kind of confidence with another win. Thats what burned us with the Cavs a couple of years ago.

Starters came out great, Flips new substitution pattern worked out great in the 2nd quarter. Things did derail at times in the 2nd half but the magic never really got close, even with all the cheap calls.

I think the plan was to go for the win in the 3rd quarter and give the guys the rest of the night off but they stopped executing like they did in the 1st half. Sure the shots are not always going to fall so easy but you have to stick with the game plan.

Don't worry about the refs. League does review all games and hopefully will point these hacks in the right direction. You know its bad when Javie lets Sheed get away yelling at him. He knew it was a poorly called game.

Pistons got the win. Get to face these guys again in a couple of weeks.

Obviously a fun game to watch in the first half. Rip with 14 FGs! CB doing damage. Sheed hitting a high percentage from the low block. Dyess almost matching Howard in rebounds (in 7 fewer minutes).

I'll just go ahead and point out the problems for fun.

Problem #1-
ZERO free throws for Sheed, Dyess, JMax, and Amir???
31 free throws for Dwight, Turk, and Shard???

You got to be kidding.

Problem #2-
Orlando won the turnover battle 9 to 14? Oh crap. That is their biggest weakness. Did you see that way Howard was losing the ball? And they still had less than 10? All in all, this was about as good as you could have expected Arroyo to handle the game for them (Maurice Evans was sort of invisible, eh?).

Problem #3-
Amir had 3 blocks in 9 minutes (I actually counted 5).
The rest of the Pistons had 1 block in 231 minutes. Hmm. You know how we are letting Stuckey struggle through this ugly stretch? Well, Amir isn't struggling through anything. He's just kicking assyeah.

__________________
"I don't think MC is going to allow us to shoot as many jumpers." Tayshaun Prince.

So is AA.