I would like to see him and the rest of the bench get more time. All these minutes will lead to an unnecessary injury or two. Pro B Ballsers can't continue to play these kind of minutes night in and night out without their bodies weakening and becoming more prone to injury.

Maybe it is just a matter of time before Flipper gets more comfortable with the bench. If not, its going to be a long season for us Piston fans.

Ah, don't sweat it bro. We all make them. Everyone understands what you meant.

I considered using the snowman smiley, but man I was dying to use that flying pig one.

I hope the DMC folks are ok with him getting meaningful minutes even if they are few and far between.

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I expect Rip to lose his lead for good in a game or two. I seem to remember Stackhouse having the scoring lead pretty late in the season at one point in 1999-2000, when he averaged 29.8. AI and Kobe will probably battle it out for the scoring lead this year while their teams go nowhere in the playoffs. For us, we'll get Ben up there in boards, blocks, and top 10 or so in steals, and that's about it. Except for that future league leader in blocks coming off the bench...

ROFL i just had to look, i thought it was an icon of a My Little Pony, i was like what the?? haha

plain and simple, this was a sloppy game all around. lots of turnovers from forcing the run & fast break, and taking shots early in the clock with no one to rebound. flip said he couldn't see much to work on after game 1...he sure does now.

we'll take the win!! go pistons!! we need all the wins we can get with the tough WC trip comin up

It is hard to gauge this type of game. It was almost like a playoff for Boston. We went to Sheed, we took a few good threes and we got some early fast break points. Sheed did not do well down low but got that three and the tip in late. Those threes and early fast break points saved us--I think we would have lost this game last year. We looked a lot like last year but not in the best sense. We still struggled at times. Dyss does not look ready yet. Teams will continue to focus on Chauncey as they watched SA last year. Rip is fresh again and what a difference! I am excited about Evans game. Still very concerned about Arroyo's passing skills--not his shot. We still over pass near the hoop--can't blame Larry, now. Well, it is early and this is a marathon. But we have a ways to go.

Fortunately for us, the announcer was saying there was time left. Still, just for a moment I thought we had lost.

Ugly game but both teams played their guts out. In some ways it reminded me of how Philly played against us -- they missed some makeable shots early, tightened up and started taking harder shots. We started off at a breakneck tempo and rushed things all night.

It's hard to identify anyone on the Pistons who played well, and I guess it's a positive thing that you can say that yet still win.

Ben was terrific on the boards, but we got killed as a team. Sheed was doing a lot of the right things, but his shots weren't falling. Nice clutch shot and tip at the end. Meanwhile Hamilton won the game but did a lot more to try and lose it, with terrible defense (how many times did he fall down out there?) and a million bad decisions. Billups got outplayed by West and never really asserted himself. I think the Cs have found their point guard. Prince looked a step slow and got badly burned by Pierce, but Pierce is a handful for anybody when he's fresh.

This was a deja vu game from two years ago ... watch our backcourt struggle, see Rip go 1 on 4 a few dozen times, yell at Prince to be more assertive, wonder why the heck the bench isn't getting more play. In both cases it was early on in a new coach's system. We'll see what happens.

Bench notes: McDyess is a zombie out there. He gave us nada and almost seems disinterested. On my team he's one bad appearance away from becoming our sixth big. Evans made a big 3 but is still sort of waiting around for someone to pass to him. He hasn't figured out the offense or his role. Delfino needs to play more, and I think he will. He wasn't terrible against Pierce in brief service but the lineups didn't favor him this night.

Arroyo didn't do great as a playmaker but is really shooting well. I'd like to see him play alongside Chauncey a little more. Darko played good, just not enough. Feed him the ball, you dopes. He had low post position several times but never got the ball. His one jumper showed how much he has loosened up in game situations, quick-triggering it late in the clock while someone was rushing out at him. Tellin' you, when his shot has that high arc it's the best barometer of his offense.

Celtics announcer and all-time homer Tommy Heinsohn was actually insisting that Boston would be better than Detroit this year because they were more committed to developing a second unit and not burning out the starters. I scoff at that, but I also wonder if there isn't a grain of truth in it ... we'll see.

Actually, watching and listening to Tommy Heinsohn crap his pants when Rip hit that shot was worth a dozen ugly games. And even better was listening to all of the MAHRAL VICTRY talk from Bob Cousy with that thick Boston accent after they came back from the break. Thank you league pass.

Definitely. Isiah was on a mission in the '89/'90 season. He wouldn't let the team sleep on anyone, especially as the season wore on. Without that kind of edge, we can't go all the way.

Lots of people have mentioned this already, but I was surprised to see in the box score that the starters were playing in the neighbourhood of 40 minutes for the second game in a row. Maybe it's just early in the season, and the bench guys will work their way into the rotation soon. If it doesn't happen, the starters are going to be tired again, and there's no way that we'll be the last team standing next June.

As for Tommy's comment, there's no way that the Celts are better than us this year, but he does have a point. (As an aside, I really love the announcing team for the Cs. Mike Gorman is easy to listen to and calls the game well, and Tommy kills me -- yeah he's as much of a homer as you can get, but I love his enthusiasm.)

I wish I could've heard that!

^^^Thing about Tommy is that you know he's a homer. But lately he's getting a little self-important -- awarding his "Tommy Points" like an archbishop bestowing a benediction, then bellowing how Justin Reed is the closest thing they have to ... "Waltah."

As he was drawing out the comparison to its ultimate punchline, I was trying to guess what fabled Celtic player he was comparing him to. Cedric Maxwell? Satch Sanders? But no, it was Walter Friggin' McCarty. Bet ol' Justin can hardly sleep tonight with the excitement that he's become Tommy's pet.