Detroit Pistons vs Dallas Mavericks
October 18th, 2005 ~ 7:30 pm
Palace of Auburn Hills, built 1998, league leading capacity 22,076
TV: FSN Detroit
Radio: WDFN

Injury Update: Jerry Stackhouse out with a sore knee.


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PostGame Quotes


Max's Notes: Another pre-season lineup twist by Flip mixing in Starters with bench players. Starters on both sides got a lot of time giving this game a more regular season feeling. Except for the end when both coaches wanted to see how the reserves and rookies would finish out a game in crunch time.

Unfortunately our guys had the disadvantage down by 6 going into the stretch and almost pulled this one out closing to within 2 with 25 sec's left by way of a steal and clutch long jumper by Darko. Then a rookie mistake by the rookie Acker bouncing the ball off a defenders foot with 24 sec's left when he forced a fast-break bounce pass sealed the game for the Mavs.

Nice overall effert in the 1st pre-season loss. Highlight of the game was a very athletic slam by Darko over the shot blocker Diop. Sheed lead the way with 12 points and Ben with 8 boards and 3 blocks totally shutting down Dampier in the process.

Billups seemed to be able to get anything he wanted in the post against the weaker Dallas guards and probably would have had a monster game if this one counted and he played his regular mins.

Also notable was Delfino taking it to the rim seeming at will. Very nice hops. Rip and Prince also quietly had double-digit scoring games in their limited time. Evans also had a good game making a choice between he and Dupree a very difficult one. I say Evans has the edge at this point.

goin to the game again, will post a report when i get back

Listening on WDFN (over the Internet). I was just thinking that I was very impressed that our reserves seemed to be holding their own against the Mavs' starting unit when Blaha said it.

Milicic is playing with Ben. Looks like Flip is letting DMC play the 4 spot. I think that front court has a lot of potential.

Pistons lose. Scores by quarter: Detroit 24-22, Detroit 47-45, Detroit 67-66, Dallas 94-88.

Let's get the main thing over with ... what you're going to read about, and probably see replayed a million times: Darko POSTERIZED Desagana Diop in the 2nd quarter. Totally.

Account to follow ...

that dunk was NICE. a 7 footer taking his man off the dribble with his off-hand? this kid's got way too much skill. you can't tell me he's not going to be a force.

and Darko ruins his preseason leading average of 4 blocks a game by getting only 2 blocks tonight

It's hard NOT to be a Darko fan when he has been playing so well since Summer League.

If he keeps this up during the season, Joe looks like a genius.

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They are the archetype for dominance. They are the gatekeepers of the conference. They are the Detroit Pistons.

...and LB will, for better or worse, have his reputation reinforced (see Amare, LeBron, and Wade in the Olympics) as someone who doesn't know when to give a kid a chance.

I have to say I don't think Darko looks like this right now if LB is still coaching the team. He badly needed a vote of confidence, and a chance to play his game--and he's getting that from Flip.

I was very impressed at the end with the defensive intensity that the reserves showed. Reminded me of what we see in big games by the first unit. They could not convert their offensive chances like I think the first unit would have done, but the near miss was pretty impressive. Darko and Evans were looking good in the last minutes. I hope Evans beats out Dupree - Evans has size and hops that we will need more, despite Dupree's big heart.