Agreed, very nice job Lee.

I agree with your take 100%.

Kgreg,

I am seeing the same things that you pointed out. The Piston machine is ready to roll.

Kgreg I haven't seen a board that has a collective superior bball IQ... quite honestly bball intellegence isn't a prerequisite for posting ones opinions... the ignore list can be an effective tool.

I agree that Sheed did a fine job on Dirk (other than that last minute 3)... and I'm glad you brought up all of the P&Rs that caused the switches with CWebb (Roscoe also mentioned this).... BUT, they've been effectively beating us on the games oldest play for a few years now... they're as good as San Antone at finishing on that play.... we'll have to figure a way to jam down and recover better... we can't afford those switches.

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With politicians the future lies ahead

Yeah, I'm sounding a little pretentious....sorry 'bout that. But dang sometimes I wonder what game/team are some cats watchin'.

Nobody has solved the enigma known as the Pick and Roll, all you can do is give a superior effort and hope. Last season it was Ben switching out on the P&R, now it's Webb, not exactly a good thing. While I love what Webb is bringing, there is no doubt at all that he's a liability in a P&R. Realistically there's no way I expect Webb to Hedge and Recover 20 ft from the basket on a P&R. Maybe we go match-up zone a few poss's and take away rhythm, but Dirk's unorthodox game causes nightmares, at the end of the day there's really no answer for a sweet shooting 7'er who can put the ball on the floor. What we did today was about a good of a job as one should reasonably expect.

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Play hard, Play smart, Play together, share the ball, have fun....Play the right way!!!!!!

'Sheed chafes, Pistons fade

AUBURN HILLS -- Turns out, a statement did come out of the Mavericks' 92-88 victory over the Pistons on Sunday.
It's not that the Mavericks proved they could win a grind-it-out defensive, Eastern Conference-type game.
It's not that they exposed any weakness or established any kind of dominance on the Pistons.
Look, both of these teams know they can beat anybody, anytime, anywhere. A win or a loss in the middle of March wasn't going to change that one way or another.
No. What this game showed is something the Pistons should have learned by now -- their margin of error against elite teams is small. Every player has to be on the same page, especially at crunch time, or things can go very wrong.
That's what happened here Sunday.
Chauncey Billups sat out with a strained left groin muscle. Flip Murray again filled in nobly with 18 points, six assists, four steals and two turnovers. Billups' absence didn't swing the balance in this game.
Richard Hamilton, who took three stitches over his left eye after running into Chris Webber's elbow late in the game, managed just 13 points. Shockingly, he missed five of seven free throws in the fourth quarter, two that would have tied the score with 2:45 left.
"It was like someone popped a balloon on us," coach Flip Saunders said of the missed free throws.
That was the obvious difference in the outcome, and Hamilton was more than willing to accept the blame.
"If I step up and make those free throws, then it's a whole different story," Hamilton said. "After I missed, they were able to come down with some confidence. I make them and it's a whole different situation."
But there was something more covert, and possibly something more serious, that ultimately sunk the Pistons on Sunday. Rasheed Wallace jumped off the page in the fourth quarter. He became upset at the strategy Saunders deployed against the Mavericks' small lineup in the fourth quarter.
When asked where the game got away from them, Wallace said: "Honestly, I choose to keep that to myself. We didn't get a couple of stops, they hit a couple of shots. Give them credit."
The Mavericks went small two minutes into the fourth quarter -- three guards and Josh Howard at power forward, with Dirk Nowitzki -- and quickly erased the Pistons' four-point lead. Saunders chose to stay with a big lineup (keeping Antonio McDyess and Webber on the floor) for five possessions. The Mavericks ran off an 11-2 run and took control of the game.
Offensively, the Pistons missed some easy opportunities, including two free throws by Hamilton. After Wallace scored, Saunders decided to downsize his lineup to match the Mavericks.
The Pistons scored five quick points to pull within one, but, even though downsizing got the Pistons untracked, Wallace was out of sorts.
"I think we should have stayed big," he said. "Let them change to us. We shouldn't change to them."
The Mavericks went back to their big lineup right after the Pistons' run. But Wallace -- who had played an inspired game to that point with 13 points, six rebounds, three blocks -- never regrouped.
The pivotal play came with 4:08 left. After a steal by Murray, Hamilton was fouled hard by Erick Dampier. It was ruled a flagrant 1 foul, giving the Pistons two free throws and possession. They were down one and had a chance to score four points. They scored one. Hamilton missed one free throw and Wallace, breaking off the play, fired up an errant, heavily contested 3-pointer.
"A lot of teams try to go small on us and it usually doesn't bother us too much," said Webber. "I just think we got away from going inside and trying to force Dirk to play defense on the block."
Wallace missed his last four shots, two of them wild perimeter shots after he broke the play. He also was caught out of position defensively several times down the stretch, allowing Nowitzki (28 points, 21 in the second half) to score two back-breaking buckets.
The Mavericks ran side pick-and-roll with Jason Terry and Nowitzki the last eight possessions of the game -- and they scored on six of them. Clearly, whether it was caused by Wallace or something else, the Pistons were uncharacteristically distracted on the defensive end at winning time.
And that is the lesson that came out of this game. The difference between winning and losing, especially against elite teams, can be as small as one player stepping outside the team concept for just a short couple of minutes.

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I knew he looked a little off at the end of the game esp on defense on that last Nowitzki shot. It a catch 22 than he always plays w/ his emotions on his sleeve . . .

At least Webber got it right about us not going inside against Dirk enough.

Can't give much comments cuz I did not watch the game. However, from the boxscore and thru some comments by my fellow forumites at the chat, I think we lost the game because of fatigue. Starters played way too much as we are shorthanded in this game. 7 man rotation against a deep and healthy Mavs is just too much to ask from our players. We did a good job matching them for 45 minutes of the game. We were up 10 at one point.

I bet Rip would not have miss so many FTs towards the end if he is limited to 35 minutes. Yes, one can argue that he should be able to play 40 min for his age but bear in mind that Rip has been averaging 38 min for the past 4 yrs, All Star games the past 2 yrs and the Playoffs for the past 5 yrs. Way too many minutes for Tay as well.

Flip did good the past 2 games and we can only hope he will be consistent come playoff time with the limited minutes once CB and Lindsey comes back from the injury and suspension respectively.

Yall can say we can beat the Suns, Mavs or even the Spurs in the Finals. I personally think that the Heat that we should be concern before thinking about the Finals. If we limit ourselves to 18 games or less en route becoming the Eastern Conference Champions, then we should have an advantage to becoming NBA Champions once again.

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DETROIT BASKETBALL

I only watched this one once so I am trying to recall specifics of the game that led to the loss.

In a close game like this you can pinpoint a few incidents that ultimately affected outcome of the game.

First the bad foul at the end of the first quarter, I think by Dice on Stackhouse and he sinks 3 FT's

Then after Delfino hits the 3 ball to go up 10 pts in the second, the Mavs call a time out and the Pistons allow them to close out the quarter on a 14-8 run, with some questionable shot selections. It was time to bury them then and we failed to.

Then there was the Dampier flagrant foul where Rip missed both FT's. He later missed again on both ends of another FT opportunity. (Pistons missed a total of 8)

The most blatant ref mistake was when Sheed got fouled on a missed put back in crunch time and instead of shooting FT's, the ball was taken out from the side and Pistons of course falied to score on that possession.

Don't mind running the offense thru Tay, but he's got to pass off to an open man instead of trying to back down to defenders at once. Webber had 3 assists in the first quarter and none after that??

Finally this was not a playoff game, so Flip tightening the roster down to literaly 7 players (Max played 38 seconds) may have been a bad idea as all starters with the exception of Webber played 40+ minutes Ok you will say that Avery J did the same, but his players seem to be in better condition as they shoot better from both FT line and the floor in crunch time..........

This was only a 4 pt win, but a loss to the Pistons by the Mavs and this would have been psychologically damaging to them if they had got swept by the Pistons...especially with Billups in a suit and tie.

We are OK though and with Hunter and Cb down, we are learning that junior can contribute come post season...if Senior lets him play

I've really come to realize that this year. The margin between victory and defeat for two good teams is tiny.

A lot of these felonious cats don't have tv!

I gotta disagree there. I think we can do better.

Dirk is a choker. He's bothered by length and physicality. He's slowly learning to overcome his fear of being hammered on the way to the hoop, but you have to lay the wood on him nonetheless.

And yeah, he's tall which is why you don't get sucked into small ball against the Mavs. I've seen them 4 or 5 times this year, and I know that when they go small with Dirk at center, they are very tough to stop offensively.

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To all of my friends, comrades and companions at PF.com

Thank you for another great season!

Dallas version of the game:

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | SportsDay: Basketball: Mavericks

I did see that part of the game, though none of the second half. That foul on the three attempt by Stack was on CWebb.