He had to. He was the 3rd leading scorer (10), and leading rebounder (9) for the Pistons. Near double-double.

It may be Corliss syndrome but I for one loved his tenacity and reckless abandon pursuing the hoop everytime he got the ball. His game is not passing the ball around. It's attack, attack, attack. Punish the rim and defender. Force the issue with power. Without J-Max, we had no paint game whatsoever.

Did anyone see those slams? Brutality. I'm drooling at the prospect of seeing J-Max go at his fellow UC alum K-Mart. I wonder if this kid practices the way he plays. We might have to suit up Dice and Ben in those inflatable Sumo suits or the IR could grow fast!

__________________
To all of my friends, comrades and companions at PF.com

Thank you for another great season!

Pistons looked lazy last night, and TJFord looked like he was drinking 32oz espressos during commercial breaks, great to see TJ back, he can really legitimize the Bucks and with us , Indy, Chi & Clev, the central once again may be the best division in basketball top to bottom.

This indeed was a game where the organization needed to get some looks at players. Acker had a GREAT stat line running the point, has a smooth shooting touch. The issue I had with Ack at the point is that he solely runs it from the top and NEVER tries to make a play, this can indeed stagnate an offense. Ack often picks his dribble up too early too much, DAMN there has to be a happy medium between him and Arroyo. Acker might not ready for the NBA just yet, I honestly believe that if he went overseas for just one season that he would come back and easily compete for a 2nd string PG on at least a dozen NBA teams, much like Charlie Bell. All that said I feel as if Acker can really develop into a solid NBA player. CUT HIM!!!!! sounds harsh, but Ack is better than a IR PG listed as 4th on the depth chart behind CB, CA, & LH. The Det News is reporting that Joe knows if he cuts Ack about 4 teams will be there ready to pick hm up, and truthfully he deserves that opportunity, if Ack was 19, keep him, but he deserves a better opportunity than what the Pistons can give him right now (actually so does Dupree). Worse case scenario we cut him, another team signs him, and he's a FA next summer (because you know he's only going to get a 1 year deal) and we bring him in with a guaranteed contract, like we did Dupree last season. So long as Joe gives him the WE WANT YOU BACK HERE NEXT YEAR!!!! speech.

Man I want this kid to get some significant clock this season. There are going to be some games this year where I truely feel he could be effective. Dyess' post game is stricly fade away jumpers these days, he no longer gets the ball in the post and attacks the basket. I could see nights where we go with Maxiel instead of Dyess or Darko and he will give a teams backup PF nightmares all night long. On nights where we play soft teams that don't really want to bang, he can just bruise people. Now his height sometimes is an issue, but as long as he's not battling a 1st unit 6'10"+ froncourt player, he can hold his own and then some. I don't think that there is another player in the league coming off the bench under 6'10" that will be able to check this kids post game. Man if we can keep him and Darko together, and convince Maxiel to accept a Corliss type role on this team, WATCH OUT!!!!

Thanks for the scoop guys (missed the game)...
Just one question.... did our bench outscore their bench?

I'm interested in the bottom line net results.

Nope!!

Just noticed that there is a whole week before the next preseason game and it's against Dallas. This is an opp for Flip to show his stuff.

1) We just had an awful pre-season showing with bad shot selection, poor execution, poor energy, poor defensive rebounding and too many to's, way too much dribble penetration by the oponent.

2) He has a whole week to fix the problems above, how effective will he be.

3) We get to play a team we just lost to after the week is up. This is the most ideal time to display the corrections that should have been made over the cousre of a week.

Yep. 55-52.

__________________
To all of my friends, comrades and companions at PF.com

Thank you for another great season!

We do have a game against the Heat on Saturday... but your points are well taken (especially the dribble penetration)...
In a week we should have the final roster set... this gives em a week to play regular rotations and get the roles assigned.
Looking forward to the Heat game... sounds like Fatoine is coming off the bench... I'd love to see Sup-a-Dup tomahawk on his skull!
Wonder if Flip sticks with his youngsters.

I'm getting a bit tired of these and, judging by last night's performance, so are they players. Let's get the season started.

I would like to see true, regular-season game rotations for our next two games. Starters playing more minutes and reserves playing the minutes they will be getting. Then for the final one we can go back to playing the reserves heavier minutes as it falls on the second day of back-to-backs (I believe).

This is a helluva decision between Dupree and Acker. Not many teams have more than 15 NBA-caliber players on their squads, so I guess it's a good problem to have. ASB seems to believe Dupree has had the better showing but the P's may think it more important to have depth at the 1. I wonder, if Hunter were healthy, if Dupree would have a better shot. Right now, if either CB or CA go down, we're really in a bind.

I've been pretty impressed with the play of our bench overall. This team legitimately goes 12 deep with players that are ready to contribute this year, which is remarkable (CA, CD, Evans, Dyess, Darko, Davis, and Hunter off the bench).

However, I'm getting a strange sense that the team isn't quite ready to go, either offensively or defensively. That concerns me a bit because we have a tough early-season schedule, and we'll need to be ready. I don't want to dig ourselves another hole the way we did early in the season last year.

Actually the next preseason game is day after tommorow (Saturday) against Miami.