That was quick.

This is one deep team. We won without Theo, Amir or Afflalo. Hayes showed why Joe picked him up. He has his place. We keep coming at them in waves as I wrote on the SA game. Sooner or later the other team buckles. The depth is impressive. Hunter is not suited up. We (purposely?) kept Theo under wraps for the national audience. Afflalo and Amir can provide help in certain situations. We are still under the radar from our key opposition.

What we also saw was yet again, the starting unit's flaws early. I wrote about this for the SA game. We are very often getting down, especially to good teams. Amazingly, we still win. But this has to be adjusted.

The starting unit is weak early with Dyss at center. Today it was Ely doing damage. Dyss adds nothing early offensively. His jumper is more suited as the game goes on. We need either of the young bigs for energy or at least Theo to shore up the defense.

The coaching staff again showed its inability to act. That first unit got down 9-0. Ok. Don't panic. But as the bleeding continued, no substitutions. This is not a question of rotations but of coaching pure and simple. The coaches are afraid to pull players. Joe has given this staff the players. The coaches need to do their job.

Ely was doing most of his damage against Sheed, not Dyess.


The coach called a timeout and the team came back and started running the offense correctly with passing and cutting. In just a few minutes, the deficit was erased. The coaches actually did their job.

It was pretty obvious that we got back in the game after the 11-0 start by making a concerted effort to get in the paint. Later in the game when they "wired" Saunders, you could here him say something like "we talked about their lack of shot blocking, now keep attacking the rim." That was actually a worthwhile soundbit from the man in charge. Of course after we stabilized things, then we started to punish them from the 3-point line. That is the way to do it. Make them fear us inside, then score from the perimeter opportunistically.

Chris Paul's passing game was awesome, but consider this- the rest of the Hornets team had 3 assists tonight. Besides Chauncey, the other Pistons has 20 assists. It takes more than a great point guard to find the open man.

Our bench was great today. Stuckey was very energetic. Hayes had the game of his life. And Maxiell was really impressive with the help D and rebounding. He easily had the best block of the year for our team. Overall, it was a fun game to watch as our passing and movement was beautiful.

__________________
"I’ll just say this: We’re not talking to teams about their second- or third-best players." Joe Dumars talking about his plan to get other teams' 4th best players.

Jarvis was fun to watch today.

I wonder what the points-in-the paint comparision was? Bet we lost that.

And I think Amir should have gotten some burn when it counted. I think AJ is being mishandled. Give the kid a lot of playing time, he plays well and then you cut it back? I don't understand it. I really don't.

We did lose that battle. But it wasn't by a ton.

Jayes "Willie Mayes" Hayes: "I'm so pretty"

Lambier,

9-0 wasn't Charlotte's biggest lead in the 1st. Don't remember exactly their widest margin--I think it was 13. I believe Maxiel was the first actual sub--not sure--probably at about the 4:30 minute mark He came in for Sheed. I remember a grimace on Dyss's face as someone shot over him--erased the tape so can't go back. Ely did damage at any rate. What bothers me is not just the specifics of this game but a trend.

Sheed rightfully must save his fouls early as he is our best big down low defender in crunch time. So it is up to Dyss to roam and use fouls. But Dyss does not have good lateral movement. I believe our defense is poor at the start of a game-- at least not good enough to make up for our offensive slow starts early which seem to be happening a lot. One could argue the problem is (not the defense) but the offense and its lack (or seeming) lack of attack mode or purpose. Still, I would rather see Theo or a young big to start the game. I believe the defense would be better without hurting the offense or a net plus.

Our depth is so good, we overcome these early leads but I worry about the playoffs. It won't be so easy.

Thats twice now Detroit has looked pretty awesome against New Orleans. Yes, Paul was playing injured, and West was out, but this was still a quality team we played. Look, they went up 11-0 on our starters to start the game. They can play, even as they were today.


Maxiell, like so many times this season, came on and injected energy. In his first minute in, he made a jumper, then got a spectacular block. (which he repeated in the 2nd half but got a bogus foul called on him.) I believe it was Ely. He was up to dunk the ball. JMAX was still down on the ground. The ball was pretty much at the rim about to be slammed thru when JMAX explodes upwards like a rocket to swat the ball right out of the guy's hands.


Tay played shooting guard to backup Rip in both halves. And this looked like a great idea since Hayes was totally on fire. 29 points with 7 made threes. That tied his career high I believe. Tay is the only guy who played heavy minutes in what ended up being a 21 point blowout for us. Since Rip only got like 30 minutes, he could have played a bit more while Tay played a bit less, and neither would have played too many minutes. In any case, Rip got some rest in this one.


Billups also got some good rest. Stuckey is on quite the up-note of late. He hit an outside shot. He got to the bucket and scored. He nailed a couple of free throws. He personally got N.O. in foul trouble in the fourth quarter. Decent defense as always. Billups did not need to come back in for the 4th quarter.


Amir got a few minutes of garbage time at the end of the game. Theo got a few minutes to end the 2nd quarter. Theo's highlight offensively was a move to the lane from the left where he finished with a high hook off glass. Not bad on D either.


Billups quietly had a very good game, getting to the hoop some, hitting some shots from the outside.


Rip did so so. His highlight was nailing a three for us. Sheed nailed a couple of threes himself.


Tay did not do that great on offense, but the team did very well indeed with him at shooting guard, mostly paired with Stuckey, who was plus 24 for the game as I see someone mentioned. (and Hayes and JMAX were also plus 24 or so if I recall what I read.)


Dixon only played garbage time. Still managed to fumble the ball in his short minutes. He did nail an outside shot right after Afflalo had done the same. I do not like seeing Afflalo not playing, but I am equally as relieved Dixon did not get into the rotation tonight. That we certainly do not need. Tay as backup shooting guard can work. (Though Hayes is not automatically the right guy to backup small forward just because of this one game. In effect, he backed up shooting guard and small forward since he was sub used to spell both Tay and Rip.)


After starting down 0-11, we outscored them by 32 the rest of the way. Pretty much identical to the last time we played them.

Flip said after the last game "Don't think the young kids are out of the rotation just because they did not play one game." Well, Afflalo and Amir have now been sat out two straight games, and Afflalo has played very little of late. Note, Dixon has still not replaced Afflalo. Afflalo has been taken out of the rotation, but Dixon hardly played the last two games. (and the last time he did play, the few minutes in the last game, was a disaster for us.) There is no reason not to end the Dixon experiment and simply start playing Afflalo again. Now watch Flip say we got to play Hunter to fill the void. Nope, Afflalo is still quite available, and still playing great whenever given minutes.


Amir is still a very good player who needs to be part of our rotation. JMAX did well in this game tonight. Who knows just how good Amir could have done. It is not a competition between these two. There is room for both to play, and Dyess, and Theo, and Sheed.

I wasn't at all worried. I had the feeling that the Piston might be testing the water. Anyone has the feeling that if the Piston is playing on national tv they will get a win every time? Counting this game is the third time they blew the other team out of the water.