Its not a pipe dream to say Amir and Samb should have played considering the impact they both had in the GS game. At the time I was elated to see them and at the same time dissapointed because I knew it would probably never happen again.

Tough team comes in and Flip goes with the vets. Very predictable.

the problem is that as long as the Pistons win two of three and stay in or within a game or two of first place, Flip gets a pass... As long as the Palace fills up, mr. davison only half cares. Flip needs to get a stern warning from both Dumars or Davison that the kids need to play at least 5 mins game or else...other wise we got a bunch of darkos on the pine...

I missed the game, but I expected Utah to play hard and give us a rough ride.

Max, I think you hit the nail on the head.

Well, I was looking for some inspiration and I believe I have found it.

I don't think that Sheed or who the coach played specifically can explain how one guy (their go to guy) can be that wide open time after time. Can't explain how LeBron could do what he did last year in game 5. There is still no evident defensive preparation and adjustments from the coach.

Only two guys on that team can produce a win over us. And we let one of them completely open--the whole game almost. Williams at least earned his shots. The Jazz were exposed in last year's playoffs. Did our coaching staff take any notes?

One team (utah) has steady offensive sets. The other (us) don't. The one on one misses by Rip and Chauncey led to many points for Utah. It is not the loss but the state of our coaching strategies (or lack of) that is scary.

This game was lost because our perimeter players CAN NOT STAY IN FRONT OF THEIR MAN DEFENSIVELY. Boozer did not KILL us in the paint, he clobbered us with the WIDE open elbow jumpers. That shot became open often because our bigs were always forced to rotate (more like scramble) because our guards could not check their man. Utah in turn moves the ball with great precision to get Boozer's open looks. Boozer did not just come onto the court and "Take It" to any particular defender, but Williams "Took It" into the paint at will and got the defense scrambling.

Amir and Samb would have really hurt us in this game. Amir and Samb are not good at understanding their defensive rotations away from the basket. We could have won had Afflalo played more. Here's the funny thing AA comes in and began to limit the effectiveness of Williams (no he didn't stop him because nobody can really just STOP the guy), AA had to check him because the backcourt consisted of him and Flip Jr (who had a few nice steals defensively BTW) and Williams would have murdered Flip Jr. Billups checks back in for Jr, and rather than leaving our best perimeter defender (AA) on Williams, and CB checking little Ronnie Price, he takes Williams and immediately began to get burned again!!!!!! Why oh why did the team and coaching staff not stick with AA on Williams?? Billups wanted to show DW that he was the better PG, and we lost!!!! The entire frontcourt played VERY WELL, it was the backcourts poor defense, and poor decision making offensively that lost this game for us.

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

Excellent post.

I disagreed with Lee and other folks who applauded AA on his defense, however, the few minutes he was in this game he did stay in front of D Williams and I was very impressed.

It did seem as if CB didn`t want to be embarrassed by D Williams resulting in a couple of bone head plays down the stretch trying to force the issue.

We are in trouble with our current rotation when facing quick penetrating guards that are well coached.

so Nazr grabbed 14 boards in 17 minutes? How did he do that?

If things don't change Flip needs to be fired. He is not utilizing all the players and is not doing anything about the poor defense. In the GS game the Pistons changed their game plan and they came roaring back. Flip needs to do that all the time, but he doesn't. To me a mistake is only a mistake if you do not learn from it and make sure that it does not re occur. Flip keeps going with the same game plan and he needs to change it.

He's tall, and Memo plays for the 3.

Just noticed a really disturbing stat. Boozer was 17 for 20, and only took 2 fts.

Either the refs were completely biased, and didn't call any fouls against the Pistons, or from what I saw' we played zero D against him, and were never close enough to foul him.