Sounds like he is having a lousy shooting night. I guess that happens when you're completely "soft" and one-dimensional.

flip played the starters long in the 3rd against toronto to put it away, then let the bench play the rest of the game.

perhaps he is thinking along the same lines here. that way he can play the bench more as a unit together.

Think he is giving MO some extra PT but the bench will get some PT in a few minutes.

... is Davis ever gonna play? This guy has "insurance policy" written all over him.

This is the way to play offense in the NBA today. Burn them on the break when our defense arises to the occasion or they miss a long shot. Use the players to their strengths--Tay in the flow (not posting up constantly like last year in the playoffs)--Sheed down low early and not Ben. Tay and Rip are fresh--that is the difference too. Take the open jumper and not just jam it in over and over. We should have taken it all last year with any kind of offense. It is like we played with our hands tied. This team will score so the league will soon find out.

We are going to need a lot better play at this position against Miami, SA and Indiana. Anyone else agree?

I understand that it's not planned for Lindsey or Davis to be playing for the first part of the season.

1st half

We started out a bit slow, and they hit some shots. Our defense tightened. And Wells got real tired chasing Rip around. Soon, we built a lead that got all the way up to 12 at one point in the game.

Remember the Boston game where Sheed missed a bunch of shots inside. That was practice. Tonight, those shots were going in.

Mo Evans used his ups to get a couple of hoops around the basket. You could see we were going to him extra against his old team. And he continued his streak of hitting a triple too. On one trip, Corliss abused the guy, but Evans played good ball denial from there so ended up just doing fine against Corliss. Evans subbed for both Rip, then Tay. No Delfino.

And no Darko. Just an 8 man rotation, with Arroyo only playing 3 minutes due to foul trouble. But thats ok, cause Billups was wanting to get some of his own tonight. We knew things would average out for CB, and tonight is as good as any. He has hit a triple and went inside on them; this included an isolation against Bibby where CB shook him off and rose and hit it.

But the story of the night is the fast break. The Pistons are scoring on fast breaks, twice after a made basket even. And every time we pry the ball loose from them, which got pretty frequent in the 2nd quarter, we would score the hoop on a fast break. And more fast breaks on their misses. Gee. This is truly a change and Flip has has so little time. Man he must be some kind of coach. GO PISTONS!!!!!--Oh, and Dyess is still missing his shots.


Game report


Another triple by Evans. And what an explosive dunk when he drove in. He goes up real fast.

Tay. Ten straight buckets made. The one I loved best, he just pulled up on a fast break and nailed it with utter confidence. Ten straight. No words can describe how good he was doing tonight in that 3rd quarter. He started by nailing some 3's off plays where he was left open. Before the quarter was up, he was just knocking down any shot he felt like putting up. Peja is absolutely nothing compared to Tay tonight. Can Tay keep this up. If he can, forget it league.

Despite CB playing most of the first half, he did not get long minutes in this one. Arroyo came in with a few minutes to go in the 3rd qaurter and completed the slaughter. I am sure someone can find fault with something Arroyo did. Oh well, but he did just fine running things. Over and over, we got good shots, just like when CB was in. Not any dropoff I could see.

Darko and Delfino just got some garbage time. Maxiell a couple of minutes. Among the 3, an offensive rebound and two free throws made from it from Maxiell is about all we got from them.

Arroyo fed Dyess for a couple of made jumpers. Just seems like there is some kind of connection there or something. Ben Wallace had a fine rebounding game. And only tried to stretch his offense once. A travel resulted.

Thats 75%. 3 out of 4 on slaughters. Rip continues his hot shooting, as does Evans from the 3 point line. And thats 2 in a row for Prince on hot shooting nights.

Did you see that little stat? 50 some wins by Sactown against only 2 losses vs. East teams at Arco. The Pistons made it 3 losses tonight. Last time Pistons won 4 to start the season was 1996, the same year we won last at Sactown.

Thats about all I can think of at the moment. I will enjoy watching this one a few more times yet. Our execution on both offense and defense was so flawless at times its hard to believe. Going to watch this one again just to make sure I am not dreaming all this.

A note on Sacramento. You can see at times that they are a very well coached team, getting a whole lot from what they have. But they don't really have that much. Not a blessed soul near the basket to challenge any shot. Nobody who can begin to guard Tay or follow Rip around. And nobody who has a prayer of stopping Sheed. Did I mention CB was just abusing their guards. Hey, its just Sactown. But still 4 in a row is awful nice.

Not really. Arroyo was very good in the first 3 games. You could tell he was in for a bad night tonight right away. As long as he bounces back we'll be fine. Arroyo gets in trouble in garbage time (with the circus shots and overly fancy passes). When the game is on the line he is much more under control.