That man dunking over me would give me nightmares.

Good win. Good use of the bench. Good amount of playing time for the young guys. Amir did not play much, but he got some important 2nd half minutes. With him and Afflalo in the game, we took some control of the game to end the 3rd quarter.


I guess some people would miss it, since maybe they don't pay attention to what Saunders says much. Saunders had kept talking about how Afflalo had to play within his game. Not try to do too much. Basically, he was saying it was not Afflalo's role to shoot the ball. This was over several interviews. Well, tonight, they let Afflalo shoot. The Pistons were looking for him to shoot. And the announcers were saying how Afflalo had to start looking for his shot more. Hopefully, this is a trend, as Afflalo is especially good at getting into the paint and making his short jumpers. (or getting fouled and making his free throws.) Afflalo was his usual outstanding self on D, although Williams scored on him some.


Jason Maxiell had a pretty awesome game. Dalembert is a fairly good center in this league, but he was defended just fine by Maxiell and Maxiell scored over him repeatedly. Jason basically just goes up into rarified air and cans those jumpers. Remember just a game or two ago Jason missed some shots. Thats in game practice, allowing him the success he had tonight. Jason got the start for Sheed who is still nursing a bone bruise in his knee. Supposedly, this is not serious and they expect he will play Sunday afternoon against Utah.


Mohammed played extensive minutes in this game. He did well on the boards. Not so great on D, not so great on offense. To my perspective, Flip Saunders at one point pulled just about the entire squad rather than embarrass Mohammed by pulling just him for his poor D.


Rip hit several shots in the second half after struggling in the first. He was a game time decision due to the flu.


Tay got player of the game with 15 points, just about all from outside jumpers - including our only two made threes for the game.


Billups had a solid game. Not a lot of scoring, but not many shots taken either. He ended up with about 8 assists. Thats pretty good, but even better when you consider all the scoring we got from Maxiell posting up. You don't get an assist for feeding the post. (The perfect offense would have no assists. You would just feed the post everytime.)


Murray did not do bad in this game other than some dead spots where he was pretending to be a point guard. He gave us a bit of scoring and was an ok matchup on defense for the most part. The play of the game was a nice assist for a Maxiell fast break dunk.


Amir did not play much. His highlight was a dunk to end the 3rd, on a nifty assist from Afflalo.


Hayes, other than getting that garbage time bucket last game - well, I can't remember him scoring a meaningful point in quite a while. He is shooting little and missing the shots he does take. He does receive a lot of defensive pressure, and he does play inside quite a bit. His most important function seems to be as a spare power forward - althoug Amir could be getting those minutes sometimes.


Dyess never went on any tear in this game. Instead, a bucket here, a bucket there. It all added up to about 12 points on good enough shooting percentage. Some of those buckets were timely ones ending scoring droughts for us. But I will still complain some because I believe Dyess should be playing more inside and getting to the line for us. (And that means drawing fouls that can be very helpful getting the opponent in foul trouble.)


Samb did not play. He certainly could have considering all the minutes Mohammed played.


The bench played a whole lot in this one. Including all but the last few minutes of the 2nd quarter. Why the starters came in then was a mystery to me. They did not do so well, and the bench was still doing just fine when they came out of the game. The announcers contributed this better performance to the fact that the subs were brought in one at a time, starting a bit early in the 1st - compared to an average Flip coached game. Afflalo came in early. Mohammed was in early too due to foul trouble.


8-4. Good. Young guys are playing. Good. Stuckey back in 10 days. Very good. Am I happy. Kind of. I still would like to see more of Amir playing, and I don't want to see Samb disappear from the rotation. Still in all, good job Flip Saunders.
GO PISTONS!!!!!

Good recap. Afflalo is seriously becoming one of my favorite Pistons.

I agree Amir needs more time as does Samb. Solid shot-blockers will go a long way to help us out in the post-season.

There's a rotation?

1 assist total in 51 + minutes for Maxey and Nazr.

Lee summed this one up pretty good. I will mention one thing, Murray played a very good game tonight. The starters could not get anything going towards the basket. Murray came in and immediately began to attack the paint successfully, that's how we got up by 8 pts in the 2nd. The starters came back in and it was all perimeter play again.

Question:? with Maxey doing so well in the post, will Billups and Hamilton actually start giving him the ball when he establishes position on the block?? I swear they freeze that guy out sometimes.

Oh, 1 more point for my Start AA campaign. Notice in the 3rd qtr, the Pistons were struggling and Rip was forcing a bunch of bad shots, I'm not sure if Tay had even touched the ball on the offensive end of the floor. A timeout gets called and Tay is walking to the bench with his head down with a look of disgust on his face. Post t/out AA checks in (Rip out) and Tay goes off for like 8 straight points helping the Pistons take control of the game. Funny what happens when Tay actually gets to touch the ball. Too many chiefs in this starting lineup. We have guys who are good enough to be the 2nd&3rd option being squeezed into 4th/5th option players and it's hurting this team. Popovich noticed it in SA and made a gutsy move......can Detroit do the same.

Now, just so nobody thinks I'm picking on Rip. Rip comes back in the game with 3 bench players (Maxiel - normally a bench player, Murray, Hayes, Dyess) and played very good ball and helped the team big time.

__________________
Play hard, Play smart, Play together, share the ball, have fun....Play the right way!!!!!!

Naz can't get an assist. Nobody ever double teams him. Why would they. Did you see just how bad some his shots were around the basket? And why would Maxiell pass the ball on a night where he can't miss? Maxiell had a great game, and the kind of game we need, all in the post.

We have been waiting for this from Maxiel. Good that he is not trying to dunk every time. He is still rushing his straight on shots. His post ups were impressive.

Murray had a good feel for this Philly team. He is often a poor point guard but he could get what he wanted with this team. He should have actually played more. Saunders plays too much by formula.

Afflalo is starting to look like a bargain pick so late in the draft.

We do miss Sheed win or no win.

Its more accurate to say we have been waiting on the coaching staff to let Maxiell shoot enough to get into a rythm. Maxiell could aways shoot the jumper fro the day he arrived to us.

Good Leecap as always! Was anyone else at the game? I took my wife to her first pistons game. She was able to score 2 tickets because her coworker couldn't go so she got them free. Didn't want the tickets to go to waste.

Anyway, I was really impressed with Afflalo. He is smooth, plays within the system, good shooter, and plays good defense. I wished Amir would have had a little more burn, but at least he got to play some. Maxiell, was really impressive. Even though he is undersized, a man with his girth, he powers it up around the basket well. He also can go up and over his defender to make his little shot in the paint. Nothing like going to a live game. Even scored some free door prizes. Pistons mousepad and a pistons headband for voting for the all star game.

Haven't been to one of the pistons games since 89-90, bad boys era. Anyway, after this I just may go to more of these games in person. I was in section 218, row 8. I know it is up there but I could see the action pretty well.

Vince