The Cavaliers travel to the Palace the day after going to overtime with the Celtics. The Cavs used only 8 players and all of the Cleveland starters went 40+ minutes:

James 46 min.
Pavlovic 43 min.
Gooden 43 min.
Gibson 41 min.
Ilgauskas 40 min.

Meanwhile, the Pistons have had the last two days off. We'll see if it makes a difference.

Game time : 7:30 eastern

I noticed that and was waiting for this thread to be put up to comment on it. Even though there is a strong rivalry between the Cavs and Pistons I think the Cavs will also suffer some kind of emotional let down tomorrow after tonights win.

We have no excuse for not winning tomorrow.

Is Sheed scheduled to play in this one?

Great game between the Celtics and Cavs...Agree that the real Pistons should be well rested enough to win this one as the Cavs should be playing off emotions and Fred McLeod's exhuberance, but the question is which Piston team will show up?? The one that is smarting from last years ouster or the passive one that played in last years ECF...

Knowing Detroit, knowing Lebron, knowing the kind of play they tend to do, well, I'll play the pessimist in this one.

Pistons give it away.

Gone are the guarantees, Sheed.

Well, surprise me Pistons. I'm never giving up.

James back to bedevil Pistons

Both Sheed & Rip is expected to play. Z will not have enough legs to last the whole game, Boobie and the rest would not have enough legs to shoot jumpers above 40%, no excuse to lose this game. Simply no excuse.

Hopefully, someone in the Piston uniform will make sure Gooden do not score more than 10 pts. He's been talking too much bout this rivalry.

Which is precisely why they will probably allow some ballboy off the CLE bench to go for 30 tonight and come up short.

Damn I was kinda hoping Rip didn't play or they brought him off the bench due to the flu or something and Afflalo got the start. I really don't want to see Gibson or Pavlovic (sp?) go for 37.

I have a feeling this game will be painful. Luckily i have class from 6:30 to 9:20. The drive home after that should be enough time for me to miss the game. The last thing i need is getting home to us being down 2 points and Lebron dunking on somebody. I'm Tivo'ing and only watching if they win.

Memo to Flip, play the right ppl off the bench please.

edited to add;

I just read the article. Did Flip Saunders not watch the SAS/CLE series? They trapped James. He got the ball back, they trapped him again. DG dominated us b/c Chauncey Billups let him.

without varejao there to get flop calls i can't see us losing this game

The way they looked vs the Celtics last night, them maybe one sideshow Bob away from returning to the ECF this year vs....the Celtics

I don't want to be a pessimist, but we may have witnessed a the preview of the ECF last night.

However I will be an optimist here and say that the 2008 ECF matchup will be the Pistons vs Magic