It seems that the offensive stats are not as reliable as the defensive ones when it comes to winning games.

Its interesting that while watching Cleveland, Boston, and Detroit play during the past few weeks, that sort of stat has been brought up.

Detroit is the only team whose winning record was tied to an offensive stat rather than a defensive one. Both Boston and Cleveland base their victories on defensive stats.

This disturbs me the closer we get to the playoffs.

Maxiell is a superior pick and roll defender. It takes length and quickness, but he also has a great show, and he shows very hard which gives him time to recover.

Dice also shows hard, but is prone to picking up fouls. Sheed can't always recover.

A bigger concern for me is how much our defense was predicated on a high energy attack, and we're starting to see laziness and heavy legs now.

One thing to admire about super franchises like San Antonio. They do what they do with whatever personnel they have. Obviously their better players play more, but if the goal is to play a deep bench, then they play a deep bench, win or lose. There is something to be said for that sort of ideological and organizational consistency.

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

As we live and die by the jump shot, so will our playoff hopes. Even with open looks at the basket, we still couldn't catch that team last night. Some nights we're hot and other nights we must count on the quickness of Dyess on defense. Well at least these guys have beaten Boston on Back to back nights this season so the loss hurts less.

That's a given, but since we refuse to play our best perimeter defender, we need bigs that are quick and can recover and rotate easily. Dyess has slow lateral movement. He can't do that.

Was too tired and wanted to read a few posts before I give a very breif recap of this debacle of a game last night.

I was there. It wasn`t pretty at all. I want to say that the Pistons didn`t come out to play because their playoff position is already established, but that excuse is getting old.

Some quick observations that I probably wouldn`t have noticed if I didn`t see the game live..............

1) I was in shock when AJ popped off the bench to replace Sheed instead of Maxiel. I just knew AJ was about to have a breakout game, after a couplle of minutes he really looked tentative out there, IMO Flip has robbed him of his confidence. He is terrified of making a mistake.

2) Sheed and Dyess are terrible defending the paint. At times it seems as if their feet are nailed to the floor!! They do things that your Boys and Girls Club coaches tell you not to do when playing defense - REACH, REACH, REACH! Saying they are slow on their feet is a huge understatement.

3) I am totally convinced now that CB does not know how to lead a fast break. The decisions he makes on fast breaks are almost comical. Once last night he aggresively went to te basket on a break, in front of everyone and HIT THE BOTTOM OF THE FREAKING RIM! Another time a TO, I am like you are a PG geeez....Not to mention at times during the 1st Q CB looked out of control on several possessions.

4) I read a few posts about the Pistons pick n roll defense, what about the pick n roll offense? When Sheed sets the pick the Wiz were showing very strong, instead of moving the ball to find the open man, CB or Stuckey would hold the ball too long allowing the Wiz defense to recover. They did this over, and over again.

5) On occasions Sheed embarassed himdelf trying to guard Jamison on the wing. Let`s face it, Sheed trying to guard a #3 (or any quick SF or PF) on the wing is a foul, and 1, or 2 points waiting to happen. I have also noticed that opposing teams are going right at Sheed to either get into his head, get him in foul trouble or both.

6) Stuckey needs to somehow develop a consistent J to be effective. Teams are not respecting his shooting at all. He is fearless and can almost get to the basket whenever he wants but until he proves he can knock down that 15-17 footer defenses will pack it in on him.

I will post anything else that comes to mind later.........

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"I`m shocked" The Low, on the Pistons game 2 win in the ECF at Boston.

I'm usually tempted to defend Chauncey on this point, but last night was really terrible. I think the problem may have been that we were playing against a team that is comfortable in that environment. They seemed to always have a man or two back and our guards probably should have pulled out more than pressed ahead. Stuckey/Rip/Tay are all pretty good on these though.

Also, I agree that Stuck needs to establish the J. He has been hitting that college 3-point shot recently, but there is no way that he is going to significantly improve this aspect of his game this year. It is what it is. He needs to reinvent his shot in the off season like Rip did with his 3-point shooting a few years ago.

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"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.

Just so to make my opinion clear. It does not matter who we face, even the worst team in the league, we could go out in the first round. Even if they let Miami play us. We are that bad. We have an open door policy to our hoop. We bring slow guys off the bench like Hayes and Theo. If Flip had his way, we would bring an ultra short guy like Dixon off the bench to make it worse, and the too slow, too short Hunter.

First of all, thanks for the firsthand account, dlev. Appreciate it.

That's something I noticed with Stuckey early on, and Afflalo as well, before Dixon came in and the DNP's started piling up. Our bench guys sometimes look like they're thinking too much, and it hurts a player like Amir most, because being tentative = doomsday for a shotblocker. It's how he picked up most of his more recent fouls. The acquisition of Theo has hurt Amir the most, imo. It doesn't help that Flip simply pulls him if he makes mistakes instead of letting him play through it as he does with Maxiell and to a greater extent, Stuckey. You can hear Flip yelling orders at him the whole time he's in there. The "Box out," command was good, but I've never heard Flip yell that to Max, who doesn't consistently box out either.

Nothing to add, I just agree wholeheartedly.

Stuckey isn't ready for prime time. At least not yet. It was too much to expect a rookie from a small school to try and learn the PG position and back up one of the best in the league on a championship contender in the playoffs this soon anyway, even if he'd had a full season. They put too much pressure on him. That said, I expect him to do much better next year.

It seemed like that's what it was. Ever since Theo basically coming in and taking his PT + Flip's super quick hook with him, it looks like he's overthinking again. I don't understand why he is one of the only few players on our team that isn't allowed to play through his mistakes (esp when the ones he makes are due to too much effort/hustle). Flip talked him up earlier in the year, and i thought he had a lightbulb moment; althugh he also talked up AA and procceeded to DNP. I remember a quote where he was like we are the only contender team that has 2 rookies playing. It was such a backhanded comment.

He's never going to learn anything by playing these sporadic min. I'm worried that the only way he's ever going to get anywhere is when we are a lotto team, and we have to play him.

Alexa, your inside my head LOL. I posted around the same time.

I'm not buying this one. That's a Darko excuse. I agree Amir should be playing more. I can even almost buy the Amir should be starting argument. But you can't blame a poor effort by Amir on the coach. Amir has to be ready to bring his best effort every time his number is called. Yesterday, he made some "rookie" mistakes.