A lot of missed easy shots and inconsistent defense lead to losses against playoff-caliber teams - even when those teams don't have integral parts of their rotation in uniform.

flip murray sucks for that last play.

flip saunders sucks for not calling timeout before the last play.

Buckner and George are their equivelants of Hunter and Delfino....and the two of them combined don't equal Chauncey Billups, so I wouldn't go as far as to paint Dallas as a team that was short handed and Detroit should have beaten.

Bottom line is the Pistons were missing a starting point guard and his backup, they were missing complimentary pieces, and the Pistons still would have won this game if Richard Hamilton doesn't shoot free throws like he's 5 years old.

Dallas played a solid game and the Pistons faltered down the stretch, especially Rip with his FT's. Not happy with the results but am not disappointed. Missing our starting PG and coming within a hair's breadth of a W is OK against a very good Dallas team. Pistons can beat these guys. Flip Sr. could have adjusted quicker against the smaller line-up AJ was using.

That was the difference OZ. Including six misses in crunch time, 3 by Rip and 1 by Cwebb. Rip missed 5 today himself. If he hits all of them, the Pistons probably win or are in OT now....Where is our home cookin? The mavs made more FT's (24) than the Pistons took (21)

Flip had 18 pts 6 assists and 4 steals. Hopefully he continues to get some PT when Hunter comes back. He probably should have taken some more shots in that 4th instead deferring to the guys standing out on the 3 pts line. It appeared that our guys were intimidated by Dampier with all of the outside shots. I have not seen the NBA stats page, but I am willing to bet that the Mavs outpointed us in the paint too, and that is where we were beating teams during the west coast streak.

And how does a guy like Devin Harris who averages 9.7 pts a game get 22pts?? He went to the FTline 10 times.

No need to fret though, we were close even without CB. Rest him one more game and get him ready for the trip back to Texas for the end of the week. We got nine more road games so at least we get at least nine more W's there

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

Great attitude Dre.

Another ho-hum loss. The only Piston that stood out was Dice, and like I've said before, when Dice plays big in a big game, we usually lose.

Don't ask me why.

At the end of the day, Dallas exploited our mismatches instead of the other way around.

Howard controlled Tay, Webber cannot guard Dirk and Terry is too quick for Murray.

Our lack of a P&R game with Murray was glaring.

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

Overall Sheed played Dirk pretty good... that last three by Dirk was just laziness on Sheeds part not rotating fast enough... this was after a timeout.... who do you think was gonna have his number called for a big play down the stretch?

Dallas should get some credit for their defense... Cwebb had a tough time getting position down low.
I think we should have gone thru Tay more... that was our mismatch.
Did Flip Jr. just play better defense on Terry than Chauncey?
This would be a fun finals series.

We are right there at a championship level. I wouldn't worry. Flip Murray can not run the offense as the MAIN point guard. We didn't have a rythym most of the game.

On defense, we were a bit spent against the Suns.

What is important is that we found a BACK-UP GUARD who can run the offense well enough for a spurt and can score. Yes, Flip Murray. Actually, the only way we could have won this game is if Flip went one on one more late--either make or break it as Dallas got into our sets (doubt that will happen with Chauncey) and you could see we were in trouble.

This team is ready for the big dance with a bench. With Murray as the back up. With Webber in the offense.

Flip has obviously learned from Chauncey. Now, Chauncey needs to learn from Flip. We need Billips to be more consistently offensively oriented against the good teams. Flip can't spread the offense like Chauncey because they don't worry about his three ball. But Flip can take it to the rack and Flip is not afraid to be offensive minded.

We have taken away too much of Billips firepower. We need to bring some of it back.

We have what amounts to as 2 point guards on the floor when Flip and CWebb both there. Flip brings the ball up and CWebb runs the offense like Sabonis used to do. Want to see more of that.