Cleveland March 7 7:30 PM

tv: tv20

Lebran James comes to town with the rest of the Cavs.

Down with the King! Down with Lebron!

__________________
Momma was queen of the mambo, Poppa was king of the congo, deep down in the jungle, I start banging my first bongo
Every monkey like to be, in my place instead of me, cause I'm the king of bongo baby, I'm the king of bongo bong
-Manu Chao

Chat is open!

http://www.pistonsforum.com/misc.php?do=flashchat

Why does this team insist upon crushing my soul?

__________________
Momma was queen of the mambo, Poppa was king of the congo, deep down in the jungle, I start banging my first bongo
Every monkey like to be, in my place instead of me, cause I'm the king of bongo baby, I'm the king of bongo bong
-Manu Chao

Oh why, oh why does Flip play his starters to the bone (Tay playing major minutes)? Does he not think that anyone else on the team can contain Lebron? I'm pretty pissed that Delfino didn't even get in the 2nd half and Flip Friggin' Murray played twice as many minutes. The Pistons lost on the boards and took over 40 free throws so why isn't this a win again?

Bad, bad loss. No defense at all in the first quarter, but after it got better for most of the rest of the game, the D vanished again in the last few minutes of the 4th quarter. And then when it returned in the last couple of minutes of OT, the offense suddenly vanished, with bad shot selection and choking on the ones that were makeable. The Pistons are struggling pretty badly now, and the schedule's not going to make it easy to right the ship.

Flip Murray outplayed Billups on defense. How sad is that?

Tayshaun played matador defense on Lebron all game.

Why we cannot defend the P&R and why our man goes over the top instead of under every time is a coaching problem.

Frustrating game. Sheed needs to keep sitting until he is right. He's playing on bad wheels.

__________________
Momma was queen of the mambo, Poppa was king of the congo, deep down in the jungle, I start banging my first bongo
Every monkey like to be, in my place instead of me, cause I'm the king of bongo baby, I'm the king of bongo bong
-Manu Chao

Good games
Rip Hamilton: in 47 minutes, put up 29 points and played good defense
Carlos Delfino: in 6 minutes, played phen-omenal defense on LeBron and didn't see the second half

Decent games
Flip Murray: got to the line 6 times and actually got a stop on one of his defensive possessions
Chris Webber: in 41 minutes, lousy defense and missed a ton of shots, but rebounded well
Jason Maxiell: pretty good defense, but missed every shot he took
Antonio McDyess: 7&6 in only 11 minutes. That his defense was bad goes without saying, though

Bad games
Tayshaun Prince: in 46 minutes, got smacked around by James for at least 30 points. Pretty efficient offense, though
Chauncey Billups: in 45 minutes, nearly recorded a triple double, but missed 80% of his field goal attempts and a game-tieing uncontested layup in the clutch
Rasheed Wallace: not terrible defensively or on the boards, but missed almost all of his spot-up threes
Flip Saunders: Flip coached this like a playoff game.

A complete lack of offensive execution down the long stretch. Very poor execution for a contending team. This coach has had a long time to get the offense to a contending level. Do any of the other contenders in the NBA have this problem?

We need points from Billips to go where we want to go--assists are not enough. His shots have no consistency to them. We need to get him some good looks (even though he is the point). Sheed did not look ready and that hurt. So why was he shooting threes?

The defense was inconsistent. We have to hold teams to 90 in the regular season and around 80-85 in the playoffs.

Not afraid of Cleveland but am wondering if our offense can take us to the big dance.

Well, Webber got his first 20-10 game as a Piston. Quite impressive on the offensive end of the floor. Not bad at times on D, but lacking very much in covering the lane to the basket. Meanwhile, Sheed could not move well at all to start the game, and Cleveland took advantage, owning the inside. They got a pretty hefty lead on us.

The bench came in, Delfino, Murray, Maxiell, Dyess. And we pretty much tied the game back up. So why bring in the starters to end the 2nd quarter? Of course, to ensure we don't have anything at the end of the game. Sure we did ok there for those few minutes, but be assured, that coaching move lost us the game.

Billups had a good game, and yet a horrible game. Great when he was deciding to drive in, draw fouls, and get to the line. Horrible when he decided it was yet another opportunity to clank a missed three off the rim. You take away all those very ill timed treys both he and Sheed took, and we win this game easily enough. Of course, a decent coach would be needed to control his team. Joe Dumars should fire Saunders tonight, take over the team. It would be hard work sure, but we could win it all this year. Its worth it.

Rip had a fine scoring game and he spent quite a bit of time guarding Bron. He did not do so great at that, but for sure Rip put a lot of energy into the game. Bad shots? Not by Rip. He has a pretty darn good nose for when to take a shot.

Webber scored pretty much all his inside. A steal by him where he took it all the way down and dunked was the highlight of his game. Basically, Webber just knows how to score.

Dyess did a couple of good things, but his outside shooting, when not falling, hurts us. From what I can see, Dyess has enough of an inside game these days he should go back to that. Inside scoring is always more reliable, and we needed it mightily tonight.

Flip did good. Basically controlled his urge to shoot the ball every time he touches it. If he could do that consistently, and actually put effort into defense consistently, he would be a regular in the rotation.

Note, good D by Maxiell and Delfino got us back into the game in the first half. So Delfino is left out of the rotation in the 2nd half. Imagine that, no Hunter, and Delfino plays less. Its amazing how Flip can make a negative out of an opportunity.

Tay did some scoring for us. Good stuff. Yet against Cleveland, he should have been driving inside all night, not just on occasion. And in key situations, where we had to have a stop on Bron, Delfino should have been in the game, not Prince.

Not that bad a game overall after the first quarter. If Flip would have pulled Sheed out early in that first quarter, recognizing that Sheed was killing us by not being able to move, we would have never got so far in the hole. One loss. Oh well. At least JMAX played, and did quite well. GO PISTONS!!!!!