| Review of game
First, Arroyo. The Pistons had just hit their last 4 shots when Arroyo entered the game with a minute and a half gone in the 4th quarter. The Pistons from there hit 14 of their next 16 shots, with many of them either being Arroyo assists, or Arroyo scores. (Nine I believe, 3 scores, 6 assists. Might have been 7 assists though.) His MO? Dribble the ball right to the basket, score if they don't stop him, which he did twice. If they do stop him, kick out to the open man who is always out there, or else they would not have stopped him from scoring. Quite effective.
Darko had two blocks. I wathced in frame by frame. Further, the first block was called a block by the announcer. Can't see how the official scorer missed that one really, although Darko did just barely get a piece of the ball. (Of course, you know there is some lattitude in this. Since in that case, the ball still got to the rim, it theorhetically still had a chance to go in, although in actuality the ball missed very badly after the "block"). I watched a bit closer on some of those rebound /block sequences, and I was more impressed with Darko on the 2nd look. My first impressions were wrong. He was really doing very little wrong. It was just the way the ball was bouncing. He was doing a very good job of altering shots. Nobody can dictate where the ball goes exactly on a miss. Now, the announcer called him once for missing a rebound, but not so. What happened is that Darko was fighting to get inside the defender, but the ball came out well long. Darko went way up for that one, reaching way back in an attempt to snag the ball. He almost got it despite being in an extremely awkward position by time he reached the ball.
Got to mention that Evans was in during the entire 18 for 20 shooting performance put on by the Pistons. He did only one thing skilled really, advancing the ball well on one fast break. But he was alert enough to avoid getting in trouble with the ball, getting out of his hands quickly. The other team was trying to collapse on him when he got the ball, recognizing his poor ball handling, but again, he got rid of the ball before traps could fully develop. Basically, everyone else around could handle the ball just fine and he let them.
Evans defense? Still not impressed. Yes he can jump. But he is short. Lots of times, a taller defender is needed more than one who can jump. This applies to interior defense the most. You are quite a disadvantage if the other guy is taller than you and has an automatic head start on you when they put a shot up.
Now, this is not to say Evans did all that bad on defense, or that guys his height can't be better defenders. From what I can see, Evans is mostly a raw physical player who is slowly learning how to play. For all intents and purposes, he was a rookie last year, and it show. He looks bad one sequence and seems to learn and do better the next.
Arroyo did not really do all that bad at all in the 2nd quarter. Despite Dyess and others missing shots, the Pistons did not lose ground in those five minutes Arroyo played there. Arroyo set up guys for shots several times, but the shots were simply missed.
In case anyone cares, the two shots missed in that 18 for 20 run were a floater by Arroyo and a wide open jumper by Dyess. Ben missed a pair of free throws in there, but even then, we got the offensive rebound off the 2nd miss. A couple of turns, none by Arroyo. One pretty impresive run for Arroyo there.
I caught what the announcer said this time. Sheed campaigned for Flip to come here and coach. Interesting.
Darko lost a few minutes of playing time due to waiting for a stoppage in the play. In one case, he was suppose to come in for Ben, but Ben was at the charity stripe so he had to wait even longer.
I forgot to add that offensive tap back Rip got to the list of ways he scored.
Sheed looked quite impressive when he was in the game as far as his scoring. Two of his fouls were helping out with AI. I suppose if it mattered, they could cut that out and end up playing Sheed a bit more.
That is about it for now. GO PISTONS!!!!! | 
11-03-2005, 05:59 PM
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