Before I do my recap (I taped it, took some notes), there's a couple comments I have to make in response to Lee...



no offense, but johnson touched the ball twice. there was no way to tell his ball handling skills...and evans/dupree seem perfectly fine to me with ball handling. they're not going to drive through the lane and 4 defenders, but they do what's necessary in the offense.



again...Darko does NOT look like a guard handling the ball heh.

Okay my reply is going to sound skewed because I basically only wrote down the highlights and none of the bad things. Essentially I'm going to sound like Blaha doing a broadcast. I only wrote stuff down about the 2nd and 4th quarters since there's really no need to discuss the starters. I even timestamped everything lol.

i'll start with a sweet 1-minute sequence (7:00-6:00) in the 2nd quarter. btw the 2nd quarter was basically the Ackers/Evans show.

6:55 - dupree sweet block on mo williams
6:51 - bell is holding onto the ball and evans just finds a way to grab it, and rips it away from him for the steal
6:25 - acker dishes a nice pass to a wide open evans for 2 points - while the ball is in the air, maxiel is out of position but shoves his butt into bell and knocks him backwards, and then gives him a little extra shove after the basket. he didn't have box-out position on the rebound...but he certainly created his own!!
6:11 - bucks mishandle the ball, acker completes an excellent no-look pass from halfcourt to dupree under the basket for a dunk - bucks call timeout

4:16 - bogut has an open lane to the basket running the ball upcourt, instead goes to pass back to guard, acker anticipates for the steal
3:22 - acker gets beat to the basket but blocks the shot
1:30 - evans has a suffocating 2-handed block (looked like volleyball)
1:08 - acker with another steal
0:40 - dupree jumps over bogut to snag a rebound
0:24 - acker drains a 3-pointer 2 feet from behind the line

2nd quarter - maxiel 6 rebounds, acker 5 points/5 assists

Again not commenting about the starters, except someone was mic'ed close to Sheed and we get to hear some gems...'god d*** rip!!' and 'ahhh sh*t!!', he also had a shaq-like dunk in traffic, and we found out ben is shooting 22% from the free throw line in the preseason.

4th quarter:

9:53 - mcdyess has a very ugly facial expression on the bench
8:06/8:00 - dupree and darko get a couple nice blocks

*sidenote* - evans commits 2 charging fouls and a couple bad passes in the 4th ... 5/6 shooting at this point but is trying to do too much

6:13 - acker good spin move and knocks down a 2 pointer

*sidnote* amir johnson kinda looks a bit like tracy morgan from SNL

4:16 - acker hits another tough shot - a floater from the free throw line
2:35 - maxiel sweet dunk in traffic
2:13 - maxiel block
1:50 - glynny takes a VERY ill-advised drive to the basket, throws up a random shot that misses
1:26 - maxiel another nice shot from the FT area

1:05 - this play warrants special mention. evans gets himself a nice block...in the meantime glynny LANDS on top of one of the bucks' players, elbow on his shoulder. after the elbow, he proceeds to FACEWASH the guy like tayshaun did to the one fan after his block on reggie in the '04 playoffs. THEN, he takes the guy down from behind and the guy falls on glynny. comedic genius that bill laimbeer certainly appreciated.

1:03 - maxiel yet again, goes under the basket and turns around midair to slam home a dunk, he's had a good final 3 minutes, he just abuses people and loves to go after rebounds

0:21 - evans knocks down the last of his four 3-pointers.

summary: evans 6/7 shooting (4/4 from 3, 4/4 from FT), 20 points total
acker: 4/6 shooting for 13 points and 9 assists
maxiel: 9 rebounds and 10 points

Okay since I only posted the good, here's the bad. The bucks KILLED us in points-in-the-paint, I think at half it was like 35-13? Whatever it was, it was bad. Acker played well but he still had quite a few rookie mistakes...telegraphed some passes that got stolen, sometimes lost his man on defense. Definitely some rookie mistakes made, but Acker and Evans looked great overall, and if Maxiel looked pretty good as well.

lol, Thanks for the nice recap Pumba. Only thing is...I don't remember Blaha ever saying this kind of stuff.

man i need a TV tuner and video editing software, i would so capture that facial expression. tayshaun accompanied it with a beautiful open mouth 'durrrr' stare

Both teams were working on different things. Even though the starters were off you know with our regular rotation that would have been a Piston win.

If its that important to them to get a pre-season win then well so be it. I am sure the Pistons will return the favor when the games count. Bucks almost lost a player with a knee collision.

I am glad Flip stuck with the script. This is a key point in a lot of players careers - Acker, Dupree, Maxiel, Evans. We need to keep seeing what they have.

Very encouraging stuff out there by Acker and Evans. I like Dupree, Dumars likes him. If Dumars likes him then why did he sign Evans? They duplicate each other as far as what the team needs out of them.

I posted in a different thread that Acker brings a new dimension as a combo guard who can play both guard positions as well as shoot 3's. So its good that he got some time out there.

What to do with Maxiel? He looks like he belongs on the team but where in the heck can he play at? Some of those dunks had such strength to them. Already I can at least say that Maxiel is an upgrade over Ham.

Thanks for the updates, everyone.

Keep it up, love the detail.

If any of you guys didn't hear it flip said he wanted to fix many things because he didn't like what he saw. GOOD NEWS, many people thought this guy was going to be soft on the players looks like he's going to be strict (in a good way).

We lost the game because of 22 turnovers. If the Piston players would not make so many lazy passes we'd probably have only around 10 or 12 TO's which would make the bucks do a lot worse on offense.

This is the first game i watched all the way, and from what I saw Alex Acker looks very good, i don't know why a lot of people think he will be the guy that gets cut. He had a very good game with 13 points, 5 boards, and 9 assists on 4-6 shooting. Maurice Evans did very well too with 20 points, and 4 boards off of 6-7 shooting and 4-4 from beyond the arc. This is the first game Darko struggled hope to see him shine against miami this saturday.

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"That's the end, man." Rasheed Wallace

^^ yeah, i liked how Flip was pretty disappointed with the game last night. it wasn't the depressing/i'm-going-to-slit-my-wrists-now speech that LB used to give. Flip was a little more thoughtful in his responses regarding the team's shortcomings, and i appreciate listening to those details as a basketball fan.

i taped the game, so i'll watch it today. i'm excited to see Acker's PG play, since we keep hearing that JoeD is high on him.

It is hard not to like Max's aggressiveness and strength, but he has a way to go mentally to be a Piston I don't believe that there was one time that he got the ball and did not put it up regardless of where he was on the court.

I don't know about the Bucks but we were on the second half of a back to back which could explain the sluggishness of the whole team.

I am so happy they are back.

Go Pistons!!!!