In last years playoffs Dice caught fire. He is either terrible or he shoots 70 something %. Ratliff and Sheed on defense will be nice.

I was impressed by Theo. I was even more impressed that Flip moved him in and out of the line-up and didn't feel the need to play him for a quarter at a time. If he could continue doing that I would start him and split his minutes with Dyess. Max/Amir would backup Sheed with some time on the floor together as well. Theo brings a dimension that no one else does. I doubt Flip can pull this off though.

I like what Flip is doing with Stuckey and Dixon although it is a shame that it comes at AA expense. I think there is a good chance that Stuckey could be a major liability at times in the playoffs. Dixon, despite seemingly coming down with Flip Murrayitis here on the forum and being played out of position at the 2, will at least have some familiarity playing if called upon. To me, it was Dixon triggering the 2nd quarter run by chasing down loose balls/long rebounds and starting breaks.

A best case scenario for AA would be for him to earn leeway from the refs by playing. Given who he will be asked to guard and who he plays for, he probably wouldn't get that anyway. Playing Stuckey and Murray Dixon might be the way to go.

I too saw the lead dwindling at the end, the dumb fouls, the missed J's. You can almost set your watch by it at this point.

Yeah. The way he subbed in Ratliff last night is pretty much exactly how I think Dice should be used. We have too many good bigs on this team to have Dice playing 30 minutes.

There is a decided problem with not playing Afflalo. Without his perimeter D, we become just a mediocre team. We are so far this season 26-4 when Afflalo plays 11 minutes or more for us. (and the losses came from situations where Flip tried not to play him and he ended up getting the minutes in garbage time during a blowout loss for us.)

If Afflalo plays 5 minutes for us or less, we are 8-7 for the season. This improves to 11-6 if he plays between 6 and 10 minutes. It improves further to 7-2 if he plays between 11 and 15 minutes. If he plays more than 15 minutes, we are 19-2.

If you like Dixon, and think he should play, then Hayes is the guy who should lose the minutes. (Letting Afflalo play some small forward.) (Or Rip playing some small forward with Afflalo backfilling the minutes vacated by Rip at shooting guard.)

I'm seeing it more as Mo Evans; The Love Affair part 2. The fact that Flip clings to these type of players just shows he has no idea what winning basketball looks like.

Like Lee said, there really is a correlation between AA's min and our wins. There's alot to be said with having a great perimeter defender in your line-up. I remember in the beginning of the season how he started and seamlessly fit in to the point where some ppl were advocating Rip to come off the bench. He outplayed Dixon last night. This whole veteran over rookie thing makes no sense esp when the rookie is better.

Nihilistic Knick crowd hates blue collar.

Wade goes West

LBJ goes to MSG

Yes there are those whispers.
Knicks are white collar ? Suits ? More reason to despise them. They expect instant karma?

You mean to tell me that on top of being a Belichickian reviewer of film, you are also a statistician? Those are interesting numbers that I was not aware of.

As I said, I am not pleased that AA is losing minutes, but (for once) I kind of see where Flip may be coming from. You have to play Stuckey with the hope that something clicks, he learns to avoid O fouls or reaching in on D for instance, and he can back up CB in the playoffs. If he struggles, you got to go with Dixon. It would be tough to ask him to step in cold and run the team. It's not like he's been on the team for years ala Lindsey.

AA's D isn't as reliant on the other 4 to be successful. To a point it is easier to ask him to come in without having played and produce in his role. Again, don't get me wrong, with a coach they could probably figure out how to play them all. DET doesn't have that luxury though. They got Flip.

I absolutely would like to see some 3 guard line-ups though.

Theo has put a little giddy-up in my step. I was expecting to read 'Flip says Ratliff 15th man' in the papers this morning.

this thread wasn't up by the time i left...but i took my annual pistons road trip over the weekend and attended this game at MSG with some excellent seats. i'm tired and going to bed, but i'll have a nice recap (of what i can remember) tomorrow

okay so, it's hard to remember a whole lot, but i'll try my best:

MSG is a pretty cool arena. it has a very old feeling to it though, and it's very dark, just like chicago's. i don't like that aspect...or the skinny hallways in the concourse, small bathrooms, and so on. but the seats were great. we were in the lower bowl and it felt like box seats at a baseball game. the stadium was shaped oddly, where the lower bowl seats were very spread out, and the upper level felt like people were sitting on top of each other. either way our seats were excellent.

there were a large # of pistons fans in attendance, as well as some die-hard knicks fans who are as delusional as lions fans. 'well they only beat us by 4 and we were without zach randolph' was overheard. the knicks fans were actually very calm and respectful - the most we got was 'go home this is our house' and that was about it.

the game itself was pretty cool - i've now seen the 1st minutes for stuckey/afflalo/ratliff in person this season. all i really remember was that maxiell got everyone excited, and that stuckey really got into a groove and had an awesome game, knocking down shots along with taking charges.

unlike the palace, the ushers really push you out of the stadium quickly, and they are everywhere, and relentless. they really don't want anyone lingering around. even trying to exit the building, we were going down the escalator and it just shut off.

either way i had a blast and it was cool to see the pistons hang on to win.