Ford was shaping up to be a top 10 PG early in his career, but now Calderon has displaced him almost completely. Jose was an undrafted FA iirc.

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

In european ch'ships Calderon wasn't PG for Spain: his main role was to shoot treys as many as possible. He wasn't even a starter.

Chat is open!

http://www.pistonsforum.com/misc.php?do=flashchat

The Raptors have been in a bit of a freefall the last month and they needed the game tonight more than Detroit. Sam Mitchell coaches a lot like Flip Saunders only worse if you can believe that. Mitchell is in love with TJ Ford for some reason and his selfish play almost put the team in the tank for the season.

Jose Calderon went to the coach and told him to start TJ to help with the team chemistry and it worked. I did notice that Chauncey was having a field day scoring over TJ.

There were lots of positives for Detroit and that's Stuckey looking like he fits in the rotation really well and he can score and even play D. Amir was pretty awesome on the defensive end and he held his own and got some key minutes. Arvis was missing his J tonight but he didn't get many open looks at the basket and Tay played his usual steady game.

The Pistons are just playing out the string until the real season starts and I my best guess is Philadelphia is going to take on Detroit in the 7th spot.

Oh well, there goes quite a streak for Afflalo. He played, even started, and we lost. Very unusual. Afflalo got into some foul trouble which limited his minutes in the first half. Flip left him after he picked up his 4th foul immediately to start the 3rd. Afflalo was put on guarding Ford, who is quite quick. Did not work out great, although Ford scored awful easy later with Afflalo not guarding him - giving Toronto the momentum big time going into the 4th quarter. (Not to mention a ten point lead. Afflalo did score five quick points to start the game, and then missed a couple of outside shots. He got inside on a cut and scored against traffic, and got the and one. A short jumper if I recall was his other score.

Hunter played quite a bit in the 3rd quarter. And we barely scored. Hunter was an absolute zero on offense. Call it rust if you want. I personally will not be so kind. But our defense did hold well with him in.
Amir was by far and away our best defender in this one. He played quite a bit. About 8 minutes to end the 2nd quarter and the whole 4th. By the end of the game, we see him getting a couple of outstanding defensive plays against Bosh. Also, Amir was often called to guard small forwards, and it seemed that this was just way too easy for him. He is quicker than they are, much more lengthy and athletic. Amir got one dunk off a cut and that was it for his scoring. He missed an offensive rebound putback try and missed a hook shot. He needs to play a whole lot more and get the rust off his shots around the basket.

JMAX did not play much. Theo got into the game a lot in the first half but not in the 2nd half. His one hook looked pretty good but managed not to stay down. He had a nice block.

Sheed did far too little work in the post. At least his one trip there resulted in an offensive rebound tip in by Stuckey off his miss. Now, Sheed was in there along side Amir as we made a game of it late in the 4th. Why Dyess starts over him is pure mystery. Dyess did hit 4 jumpers in the 3rd quarter as we were letting the game slip away from lack of defense.

Hayes did hit a shot I believe. Why he plays at all though is another mystery. Amir can play his small forward minutes and give us some excellent defense. (And probably start scoring inside for us if we gave him some shots and ran plays for him.)

Billups scored here and there. Hit a couple of threes late. Should we have busted it inside more toward the end. Probably. But it almost worked. We did not hit all the threes we took, but we hit several. Toronto simply found answers.

Stuckey had a career high, mostly going to the basket. Defensively he was so so.

Tay? Where was he. A shot here and there. But this is Toronto, a weak inside defense. Why was he not going inside. Sheed? Same question.
In all, this was 1)a very entertaining game watching some of our young players get to play. And watching a near comeback at least. 2)A pretty darn good game for getting our bench ready for the playoffs. Yes, even Hunter playing helps toward that, even though him playing himself into shape tonight probably lost the game as much as anything. (Though note, Hunter played little in the 2nd half when the game was lost. We had a one point lead mid-third quarter. Billups and Stuckey were in the backcourt as we lost the game. My comment about Hunter playing losing the game has to do with how he disrupts our offensive plan something fierce. Hard to recover even after he gets off the floor.)

I hate losses as much as anyone. But this game did get us toward our goal of winning in the playoffs. What we need going forward: Rest the starters. Have them fresh for the playoffs. Give Stuckey, Afflalo, and Amir a ton of shots. Play Amir as backup small forward. Play Hunter some, not a lot, and play Theo. Get the bench deeper.

Conversely, leave Dixon, Hayes, and Herrmann out of the equation. Yes, it would be a good idea to play Samb some. You can't go wrong getting a shotblocker into the game upon occasion just to give the other team pause when they around the basktet thruout the game. (Make sure Samb is still off the floor before shooting that ball near the basket.)

One more obsevation. No, Hunter did not have to play in this game. Note that Flip did not use Tay as a guard in this game. He could have. We had Stuckey, Afflalo, Billups, and Prince dressed. Hunter played strictly to knock some rust off his game. Not to help us in any way in this particular game.

Again, this was a good game. Good for playoff prep. Which is what matters. If things continue to go as they did tonight. (But with less Hunter playing of course for most games) the Pistons are going to be rip roaring for the playoffs.

First the score....

Toronto 89-Pistons 82

Second the meaningless stats
A stat fact that scrolled earlier today on ESPNews>> Pistons are 1-7 in games that they fail to score at least 83 points. How about 1-8 now.....

Pistons lost for the sixth straight Wednesday as once again they couldn't get over the hump. In those last four Wednesday game losses the Pistons scored 78 pts vs the Celtics, 82 vs the Sixers, 73 last Wednesday vs the Cavs and 82 vs the Raptors tonight. WTF do they do on Tuesday nights that prevent them from showing up on wednesdays?? We have two more Wednesday games left this season AT the sixers on 4/9 and AT the Cavs on 4/16...

Now the game
Story of tonight's game Brick city in the first half for both teams. Raptors woke up and scored in the paint at will in the third qtr...while the Pistons continued with Jump city. About the time the Pistons decided to wake up they were down 17. They put together a run with Stuckey, Billups and Sheed to get back in it, but went to the three ball to many times down the stretch. I think they were down five 82-77 with 2 mins left and came down with 2 or 3 straight 3 ball attempts when a duce is all they needed. Billups got 16 FTA Monday...he could tried the same method of scoring tonight down the stretch and tied this one instead of going for the long gun...Great defense by Amir down the stretch on Bosh after Dice got abused in the 3rd qtr. No matter if Rip was missing or not, this was a winnable game by the Pistons, but it appeared that they took game off just like Rip

Notes

Pistons have split the last 8 games .... 4 wins vs the western playoff contenders (Spurs, Hornets, Nuggets, and Suns) and 4 losses vs the eastern playoff contenders, (Sixers, Cavs, Wizards and Raptors). Which means that we can beat those western teams if we can get to the finals, but we got to figure out how to get by the so called weaker east first?? Then again, maybe we are not showing our hand since three of those teams are potential first round matchups...

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It is very, very obvious the Pistons could care less about this game, and played very uninspiring basketball.

Can someone please tell me why with under 2 minutes to go, after a couple of huge defensive stops (one of them a great block on Bosh by AJ) ONLY DOWN BY SIX POINTS, CB and Sheed launch 3 pointers???

What happened to the agressive CB from the Suns game? We could have used an "and one" in those last two minutes.

And Flip allows this foolishness, unbelievable!!!!

Leopold - good analysis. There were some positives to take out of this game. More crunch time mins for Stucky and Amir made a good case for increased PT.

I understand that they think since the playoff seeding is set there is no need for urgency. Total lack of recall from the 2006 season where it was deemed important to get home court over the West in the Finals. Only have about a 1/2 game lead over the Lakers at this point I believe. Or maybe they will be glad to just get in this year. Who knows.

Yes but I don't mind the point guard taking 3's when he is hot. Its those stupid F** 3's from Sheed when he should be in the paint ready to grab the board or get open for a pass.

Missed this game as well. Damn Midterms! Although they lost, and looks like they didn't try very hard so kinda glad i missed it. Nice to see Amir get min. I was curious to see how he would match-up w/ Bosh. AA didn't play much. Looks like CB played too much.

I have this Dvr'ed. Prob going to skip it.