Detroit At SanAntonio - 8:00PM

http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/team/DET_444.gifhttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/team/at.gifhttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/team/SA_827.gif

TV: TNT
Radio: WDFN

Max & Micro's Notes: 2nd and final regular season meeting between these 2 teams in 05/06. Spurs will be after payback for the 85-70 loss at the Palace of Auburn Hills Christmas Day.

San Antonio has their maestro, Manu Ginobili back in the lineup as the 6th man. Ginobili is equally as effective off the bench or starting, the decision to keep Michael Finley as the starting SG benefits the veteran who has been uncomfortable in a bench role.

The Pistons will likely be without the services of backup PG Carlos Arroyo after physically confronting a referee earning an ejection during the January 10th game in Oklahoma City versus the Hornets.

Probable Starting Lineups

Your Detroit Pistons

Ben WallaceRasheed WallaceTayshaun PrinceRip HamiltonChauncey Billupshttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/pistons/ben_wallace.jpghttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/pistons/rasheed_wallace.jpghttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/pistons/tayshaun_prince.jpghttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/pistons/richard_hamilton.jpghttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/pistons/chauncey_billups.jpg

NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs

Rasho NesterovicTim DuncanBruce BowenMichael FinleyTony Parkerhttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/spurs/radoslav_nesterovic.jpghttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/spurs/tim_duncan.jpghttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/spurs/bruce_bowen.jpghttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/spurs/michael_finley.jpghttp://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/spurs/tony_parker.jpg

~Tale of the Tape~

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~~Comments on this game?~~


Pistons win 83-68

BoxScoreAndPlaybyPlay - From nba.com (http://www.nba.com/games/20060112/DETSAS/boxscore.html)

Looks like we won't have Arroyo to D up Van Exel or Parker. Will there be an Acker sighting?:eyebrows:

How about a Lindsay Hunter debut?

It would be a tough game for Acker to make an appearance in, but pressure shouldn't affect his D if that is all that we ask of him.

This is going to be a tough game to win. We are not especially rested. They will have revenge on their minds with Ginobli back. They have vowed to get more aggressive on the boards from getting beat up in Detroit last time. I will be watching the offense to see if we get ball movement, if we can get Rip open and if we use Sheed both inside and out. Bringing Sheed out on this team hurts them because it takes Duncan away from the basket. You have to keep Parker out of the lane as they go to him in the first quarter. Ginobli's shot is back and Bowen is shooting better this year. We have to attack Horry down low on his defense. Teams have been sending players into the lane to receive passes and that causes problems for their bigs. We have to take the quick look, run the break and finally, on the half court, make the extra pass.

Playing Darko a few minutes against Duncan would help the young man's confidence. I'd like to see it if only to shut up the Darko lovers if Darko can't man up. But also I'm curious to see how Darko would do. A few posters feel Darko can help on Shaq and Duncan in the playoffs. Let's get a glimpse. :ohwell:

This game is the tune setter of the NBA, I knew the Pistons would win on Christmas Day. This game which we will see again in june almost at the half way of the season is huge for both teams. Now I admit because the way Detroit beat down the Spurs in December that I picked Detroit to lose this game. Now I will be suprised if the Pistons get blown out but I feel there will be a time in the game where the Spurs may go up double digits and look to have all the energy in the world but the game at the end will have a close score game look to it. :nod:

We know Arroyo might not play in this game with the bone head bump of the official. I like to see how this team repsond to one of its players not playing thats in the rotation. Arroyo is not a huge minutes player but he is part of the regular rotation and is big when he can give Billups good rest during the game. Hunter did not even make the trip so it will be interesting to see what the Pistons do. I think Acker is not ready for a game of this Magnitude but what they hey I say play the kid because I feel the Spurs will take this game and for the benefit of Alex you get to see what he can do agains't the best.:confused:

Like last years game at San Ann the score was 80-77 and the game was not that close but the Pistons with Billups shot lights out towards the end to get back into the game and San Ann pulled it out. THis game will have the same feel the first team to 80 will win this game and it will be a high energy game because the winner will have more wins in the W side but the Pistons still will have a better winning percentage. I perdict Spurs 88 Pistons 84( I hope that I'm wrong but The Spurs and Pistons are easy to pick at times):frusty:

Here's a summary of the last Pistons-Spurs game by Kevin Pelton, who predicts a Spurs victory in the rematch.

http://www.82games.com/pelton12.htm

Here's a summary of the last Pistons-Spurs game by Kevin Pelton, who predicts a Spurs victory in the rematch.

http://www.82games.com/pelton12.htm
From that article, Manu should be the difference:
Ginobili's presence will probably be the most important. On Dec. 25, San Antonio's swingmen (Barry, Bowen and Finley) combined for 15 points on 6-for-17 shooting; Ginobili averages 15.5 points. Ginobili is having an off season from 3-point range, hitting just 32.4%, but still will help stretch the Detroit defense after the Spurs shot 2-for-7 from downtown in the first matchup.

One of the things I did not post earlier is the TP factor. Tay is the key to every Spurs and Pistons match up. he is the one guy that San Ann can not match up one on one. What the Spurs have been doing lately since the Finals is double teaming Tay every time he gets the Ball. The only way I see Detroit winning this game is Tay goes off big weather it be high assist or big time scoring in the paint Tay is the X factor come Thursday night.:)

Sheed and the three ball is a huge play come crunch time if needed but I think the play where CB post up his man and Sheed standing beyound the arc is a difference maker in the NBA and a unstoppable play when executed perfectly. Niether Van Excel or Parker can check CB on the post and so it leaves no choice but to have Horry or whoever will have to double leaving Sheed open beyound the arc for a open look. WEll this will be a great game to see just really to see how the Pistons respond win or lose.:laugh:

How about a Lindsay Hunter debut?

It would be a tough game for Acker to make an appearance in, but pressure shouldn't affect his D if that is all that we ask of him.

Too bad he won't be back until the 16th.

Looks like we won't have Arroyo to D up Van Exel or Parker. Will there be an Acker sighting?:eyebrows:

Arroyo missing will effect the game in a huge way if Billups gets in fouls trouble. Other than that I can see him playing all the way thru considering the game will be shown on national TV. Longer breaks. We may get an Acker sighting, but if we get a Hunter sighting, what would that mean?? Darko doesn't look like he may play this game, maybe CHA.

Well last time they were without Ginobli and we won. This time they have all their guys (as far as I know) but we are without Arroyo. I smell heavy minutes from our starters while SA goes deep into their quite capable bench. I smell a SA win (hope I'm wrong).

GO PISTONS!

Gotta keep Chauncy out of foul trouble. He got in early foul trouble in game 7 - and now we don't have a backup.

Expect to see Acker only if Chauncey has to sit with serious foul trouble; otherwise we'll see Chauncey play about 42 minutes with Delfino and Tay handling the ball in his absence.

If things go horribly wrong, this could be a good opportunity for Flip to experiment with different guys in the rotation - Davis, Milicic, Delfino.

actually, only expect to see acker if joe takes him off the inactive list :)

warthog...you are not allowed in chat this game...its too important!:laugh:

Did flip say anything? Whatever Flips said just take the opposite and you'll have a good idea of what's going to go on. I predict that if needed Hamilton will slide over to the 1 slot. Evans the 2...with Prince doing a lot of the ball handling duties.

I'd like to see Delfino take on Ginobli for a little bit but we'll all complain about evans' extended minutes.

Seems like Billups should cover Bowen tonight to keep C-Note out of foul trouble. Rip on Parker. Parker could have a field day. I'd like to see him get a hard foul in the early game if he even whiffs getting close to the rack.

Seems like Billups should cover Bowen tonight to keep C-Note out of foul trouble. Rip on Parker. Parker could have a field day. I'd like to see him get a hard foul in the early game if he even whiffs getting close to the rack.
I'm with you ggazzoo! If nobody else wants to do it, put in Jmax.:eyebrows:

warthog...you are not allowed in chat this game...its too important!

hehe i'm probably goin by a friend's today so i doubt i'll be in chat anyway...but i thought i broke the curse last time!! :D

prince is fine playing point...i'd worry if a guy like hunter or james was guarding him, simply because he has high dribbles due to his length and could be picked off by a smaller, quicker player. but i don't think parker will be guarding him there, or that it will be much of an issue.

Has anyone noticed that Carlos Arroyo is 5th in the NBA in Assist/Turnover Ratio (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/statistics?stat=nbaassists&sort=astto&avg=pg&seasontype=2)? Pretty good, since most on this board think he is a bad backup PG.

Acker has been activated for the game tonight. Blakely is supposed to update his new Blog (http://www.mlive.com/pistons/weblog/)a little later today with the information.

Arroyo had trouble with Parker last game, but gave us a few points and 4 assists.

Delfino just played 5 minutes last time.

Evans played 15 minutes. Shot 3 for 6, 4 rebounds.

Rip will guard Parker a lot, as he always does. This does not make him our point for this game though. No way. Rip will be too busy finding screens to come off. Tay or Delfino will act as the point on offense if CB is sitting.

Acker has been activated for the game tonight. Blakely is supposed to update his new Blog (http://www.mlive.com/pistons/weblog/)a little later today with the information.

thats cool. acker can dress and sit on the bench with darko and Davis.

thats cool. acker can dress and sit on the bench with darko and Davis.
Yeah, they had to dress him though. If Delfino or CB come up lame, there has to be someone who can run the point. Shifting Rip or Tay just creates more holes.

ASB has updated his blog on the Acker situation. Be sure to check it out to get the lowdown.

The following is from a short time ago from Blakely;


The fact that the kid is on the active roster tonight, in itself, is not that big a deal. But I believe if this kid gets a chance to play tonight, he'll play well. He's been one of the better players in practice lately, and now that his contract is guaranteed for the rest of the year, he's become a more relaxed player. I talked with Flip and Joe D. earlier today about him. Some of the stuff they talked about is in my new blog (http://www.mlive.com/pistons/weblog/).

Color me intriguied. Too bad it's against SA.

Is anyone else AMPED for this game? Even though I'm borderline comatose, I will be PUMPED UP by the tip. In a season where the Pistons have been so good, it's hard to get up for anyone who is not a legitimate contender.

GO PISTONS!!!

Oh, and GAME CHAT IS OPEN!

Acker's main strength is his shooting. I am not sure about his ability to handle the ball in a game like this and his defense could use some work.

what is flips love affair with evans. there is no way he should be getting more minutes than delfino. he is darvin ham with a jumper. well he used to have a jumper haven't seen it lately. delfino played pretty good when he was in there. yet flip consistently gives evans more minutes.

evans is not earning the minutes he is getting in my opinion.

I know I am biased... but can the guards for SA get anymore calls... atleast we are learning to play thru what I perceive as bad calls...

And can we finnally start to put to bed the notion we can't play defense like we used too?

And dang we didn't out rebound them by 27 this time.... only 24? better start working on that in practice....

Nice win, now lets put a little run together.

ginobli and parker get so many weak calls it really makes you sick. the refs were not calling the game both ways. ginobli smacks rip in the head real hard yet no call. it doesn't matter now though since we got the win.

i'm kinda mad we didn't get to see acker. hopefully he will stay active for the next game and we can get a taste of what another one of our rookies have.

sheed was dominant. rip kept us in it during the 4th. just an good game for us. oh yeah and look at tay grabbing boards. i think he had a career high.

The fould disparity cannot just be chalked up to the Stones shooting jump shots or any other excuse because if any one has played basketball on any level--only 2 shooting fouls the entire game is ridiculous. (im not including the 2 trips to the line down the stretch where the refs had to call something eventually because Ginobili was just hacking guys hard in the face.

Speaking of Ginobilis hacks--didnt anyone else catch the verbal scuffle between Hamilton/Sheed vs Ginobili/Horry at the end? It wasn't huge, but the refs were keeping the players at bay a little and talking to them at the end. Maybe the win was making me delusional, but I like the fire.

Not much to complain about tonight... and there no sense overstating the obvious about the quality of the win tonight.
This will be a big boost for their confidence... the media critics well has runeth dry.

There's obviously a substantial drop off in our starters & the bench...
BBall, what are you complaining about Evans vs Delfino for... seriously.... was either a significant factor tonight or during the year for that matter... there's not a big difference in performance from either... just different skills (or lack of)

What this showed me is that we are not sunk without Arroyo... probably better defensively without him.

Oh yeah, Sheed critics (BBall & Jacktagg)... the ball told the truth in a big game.

Weird game. Sheed set the tone early and played well throughout. If he can do that against the Spurs, seems like he can elevate his game against other teams. C-Note did not look good at all, but you can't expect him to be great every game. Evans is a better rebounder than Delfino, which is why I think he played a lot more. I thought Delfino looked good on D when he was in there, though. Detroit won this game with its rebounding. This offensive scheme still concerns me. This team is playing so far away from the rim on offense now. Ben has been deemed completely useless in this offense, and I hate that. Finley gets the Stinker of the Night award. He stunk bad.

Anyone who wants to worry or complain right now...:hand: (talk to the hand)

I mean... come on. It doesn't get much better than this.:D

We've got the best team fellas. No ifs, ands, or buts!!!!!!

I don't think it's even arguable at this point (well, it almost isn't, anyhow).


GO PISTONS!

We won this one by playing in spurts. Good first qtr, good last two minutes of the second qtr and good end of the 3rd qtr and finally good last 5 minutes of the game. The Spurs did not look that good, we let them stay in the game by having two long droughts.

Who would have thought that we could win by making only 4 FT's Checking the final score, we actually could have won this one without even scoring in the 4th qtr.....We had 69 after the end of three and the Spurs finish with 68:eyebrows: . (held them to 70 on x-mas day). Just need to average no more than 75 points a game to beat these guys in the finals. :laugh:

How come we can out board the second best team by so many and struggle with other teams in the rebound area?:frusty:

Random drunk thoughts by the sausage king
We need to go to Tay a whole game just once
There is no way Manu or Bowen can keep up with him
Did anyone else notice that travel by Duncan when he passed to Manu and he got fouled????
Its games like this that make me mad at Sheed he was a god out there when he wanted to be
Rip is the man except when he gets fouled and there is a no call his staying down pouting pissed me offfffff they scored a 3 while he was whining
Dyess needs to be more of an enforcer than a finesse player think Fortson but with game
Flip needs to learn that a bench can and should be used especially when you have a lead bigger than ohh let’s say 12
Ben needs to call for the ball at least 2 times a game and just pull a Shaq and knock someone on their butt
The pistons can flat out ball when they want to

The Spurs are on par with the Pistons defensively... it's not hard to see why went into some droughts... they (Spurs) play help defense as well as any other team... it's obvious that they were keying on Chauncey tonight... he compensated by not forcing too many shots and dishing out 14 assists.

This was Rips best game against Bowen... I think the extra screens that Flips offense generates is creating more space.

Is it time to give Flip some due credit yet?

Early recap hot off the press:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/recap;_ylt=AqJYOqlf9PizmsXHKUWq_aI5nYcB?gid=200601 1224

The Spurs are on par with the Pistons defensively... it's not hard to see why went into some droughts... they (Spurs) play help defense as well as any other team... it's obvious that they were keying on Chauncey tonight... he compensated by not forcing too many shots and dishing out 14 assists.

Good points about C-Note. I guess he didn't play as bad as I thought.:ohwell:

First of all, lots of great comments on the board tonight. Good job everyone.

We start out with Sheed going inside for 6 points early. They decide to double. So next we see Sheed nailing triples. And Sheed doing a great job guarding Duncan. Quite a player we have in Rasheed Wallace. Oh, and he continues to nail more triples thruout the game. His jump from last year to this year on 3's is real simple. Last year, he was given a guilt trip every time he shot one.

Rip nailed a 3 too. Still at 47% from the 3 line. Very impressive. CB nailed some shots. Tay scored 6 straight at one point, two inside, and one outside midrange jumper. And of course Rip had his midrange jumper going. We are running a lot of picks for him. Without studying the film too much, I'd say Bowen could fight thru the picks we set in the Finals series, but he can't fight thru twice as many like he is seeing now from the Pistons.

Ben did not do much. Some rebounds. Usual great defense. He fumbled a pass from Delfino near the basket. Us Delfino fans were expecting an assist right there.

Delfino played in the first half only, along side Tay. Worked out ok. After a slow start for about the first two minutes, this unit exploded for a 20 point lead all the sudden. There were a couple of good plays where Delfino helped us create scoring, one an assist to Dyess after drawing his defender away. Delfino hit a short jumper, and missed one near the 3 line. (Can't recall if it was a 3.) Just before they took Delfino out, he got to the basket but missed. He may have been fouled there. Something looked funny. Have to check the tape. Why he went out at that time I do not know. We had lost 6 points of the lead, but it was nothing Delfino was doing. Oh, and defensively, Delfino did just fine.

Dyess got us about what, 8 points, or was it just 6. Nothing spectacular. Helped out guarding Duncan some and did ok. Rested Sheed and Ben quite a bit.

Now for Evans. He had 3 stints out there. He had a couple of offensive rebounds, putting one back in. He missed a wide open short jumper off an offensive rebound situation. (The kind Rip always hits but everyone else seems to struggle with.) It has now been about 7 games since Evans hit a 3 for us. Lately, he is not even getting to take any, or in some cases has passed up ops to do so. In his first stint, he played with the starters, and Dyess. We built up a lead right there. But it was on individual play, not team play. A made triple by CB. Tay taking it all the way to the rack with a cross-over. Evans played the last few of the 1st quarter. Defensively, anyone who he guarded could beat him. Fortunately though, SA missed some shots, so you can't say he hurt us defensively in this stint; though later, we see Nick the Quick burning him for two straight SA scores. One, an outside jumper with Evans guarding him, and the 2nd time a pass from Nick to Duncan after Nick lost Evans and Sheed had to leave Duncan to stop Nick. Ginobili lost Evans a couple of times, but missed the first shot from it. The 2nd time he simply realized that Evans could not possibly stay with him and took his sweet time.

So Evans and the team did well in that first few minutes. Next stint was later in the 2nd quarter. The lead had gone down to 14 and Evans came in for Delfino. In these few minutes, we see SA never getting stopped, and the lead shrink to 11.

The 3rd stint by Evans was his longest and by far the most interesting. He came in with a few minutes to go in the 3rd quarter. Again, our offense went into one on one mode. But again, we did ok. For a moment. But to start the 4th quarter, we started off 1-10 before Evans was taken out of the game. We found ourselves struggling to win a game we had in hand. Was this Evans fault per say? No. What was going on, is that since we had a big lead, and the game in hand, coach decided to work on Evans and his ball handling skills. Evans was allowed to handle the ball up top several times. Well, you know the result. Stalled offense. A few times during this stretch, we see other Pistons or the coach explaining things to Evans. School was in session. The good news here is that we had SA beat so badly that Flip decided he had time to do some teaching. Only problem I got with that is I think he has the wrong student. Well, last year, I thought no way Brown would ever make a serviceable point guard out of Hunter, but he did. So of course I could be wrong about Evans. Meanwhile, I want to convey to the people not getting to watch the games just what is going on here.

Great win. Holding them to under 70 this time after just giving them exactly 70 last time was sweet as can be. But don't fall asleep and thing we are sending in our ring sizes to the league quite yet. One, SA missed every three they took tonight but one while the game was still in doubt. Ginobili played, but did not start and is not 100%. If SA gets a free throw coach, and we replay this game later, heck, it would have been tied just about thruout. SA was that bad at the line. And they could not get a rebound to save their lives. Tay, Sheed, and Ben all got double digit rebounding numbers. Tay by the way had a nice double double with 11 bounds and 13 points. I think he nailed about 3 outside shots.(Side bar: People have complained in past games about Tay shooting to much. Thats called practice. In game practice. Tay never got enough of that in years past. First Carlisle would not let him play, then Brown hated on outside shooting. I expect several more truly horrible shooting games for Tay yet this year. Failure is part of getting good at something.)

CB had at least 5 turns. He played the entire 2nd half. One time, our offense was stalling there and he hit a shot. It was a big shot. Killed their momentum at the moment. Rip gave us all the scoring we got for the 1st half of the 4th quarter. His shot to start the quarter was the only one we hit, and his shot with about 6 minutes to go stopped our scoring drought. (of course, Evans going out of the game helped. Any more schooling and this game would have been tied.) GO PISTONS!!!!!

One comment to add. We had Rip, Delfino, and Tay in the game. Tay acted as the point, but Delfino acted as a shooting guard and did some ball handling there. The thing I want to point out is how tall that setup is, with Rip being the shortest guy on the floor.

Dude I noticed the same thing with Rip vs Bowen and the design by Flip. Last year, most of Rips curl play (his bread and butter) consisted of two screens--the baseline screen then the top. Bowen could close enough to jump the middle and force Rip way outside, thus is offense suffered. Flip is putting a third screener on the other side and bringing Rip across a longer distance. The result is the same and from a far look it looks the exact same, but that extra screen is just golden.

Lee.

3 paragraphs for Evans. Rip, Sheed, Dice, Ben, and Chauncey each get one.


If I didn't know better, I would think that you are playing favorites with Mo.

:nod:

Flip is a smart 'on the court' coach...meaning - whover is in the game . Flip will run plays for. h is not a good "bench" coach- as far as showing confidence in resting his starters effectively....NOW I am still drunk, but I must say that I fear NO team in this league now and I see our guys getting very lakadaisaical this month, cuz maybe they'll be thinking it aint no big deal beating Spurs in The aAlamo!My bruddhas....i luv yall

Lee.

3 paragraphs for Evans. Rip, Sheed, Dice, Ben, and Chauncey each get one.


If I didn't know better, I would think that you are playing favorites with Mo.

:nod:

To me, our bench is the biggest story right now. Our starters and Dyess have been performing at a very steady clip all season while our bench has been in a state of constant change. Other than Dyess, the only time the bench saw was 7 minutes for Delfino and 14 for Evans. Pretty much makes Evans the main story tonight.

Flip is a smart 'on the court' coach...meaning - whover is in the game . Flip will run plays for. h is not a good "bench" coach- as far as showing confidence in resting his starters effectively....NOW I am still drunk, but I must say that I fear NO team in this league now and I see our guys getting very lakadaisaical this month, cuz maybe they'll be thinking it aint no big deal beating Spurs in The aAlamo!My bruddhas....i luv yallTHAT PASS and DUNK by Snow AND LeBron at the half , was the second best pas sand dunk I have EVER seen!!!!...what's the first?

To me, our bench is the biggest story right now. Our starters and Dyess have been performing at a very steady clip all season while our bench has been in a state of constant change. Other than Dyess, the only time the bench saw was 7 minutes for Delfino and 14 for Evans. Pretty much makes Evans the main story tonight.


The reason for this is flip is new to the team he knows the starters 1-6 because he use to coach against them he knows Evans because he coached him. Imo it is easier for flip to coach mo now because he has prior experience with him. If he were to give other players a chance and got to know their tendencies he might be better off rather than lying solely on prior experience. tonight’s game only solidifies 1 thing for me flip is scared to try out his bench Acker could have played he could have helped in this game but flip is so worried about wins at this point he would rather use Tay at point over Acker. It would have been a good test to see where our rook was and now we know on the bench. Hell it could have been his only pt all year. Forgive a drunken fan but flip is pulling an lb trusting only 1-7 how much different will we be when hunter comes back??? I think if we don’t use player 7-12 we should try to find better players for that role or cut them so we have more cap room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005_11_20

hey brother hq i LUV the new avatar but i want to point out your link does not work

Ok, we know where we are at. Wow! We play on both sides of the ball now and SA doesn't have an answer for that. Sheed inside, Sheed outside. Wow! Yes, Lee, have to watch the film on how we got Rip open on Bowen. I am not going to complain one bit. Flip for coach of the year???

I mentioned in chat that Doug Collins said something ive been saying for awhile (and I am paraphrasing here so don’t jump down my throaght if it is not word for word)
Chauncey came down and nailed a jumper on the break and Collins says" that is something the pistons are trying to do this year get off quicker shots because their is no sense banging for 82 games it is long season and it puts a lot of strain on your body to play that kind of basketball"

Now it could just be me but it is not this guy coached mj grant hill in his prime and other all-star players. His point and mine is if we can win games without standing toe to toe punch for punch with other teams then why should we. We can win games with our execution and with shots not just with our brawn. The pistons may not play the same game that many of you guys fell in love with but they are still winning games. Yes the truest of tests will come in the post season but this team is doing it the easy way right now.

I don’t agree with everything flip has done so far but I cant argue with wins right now flip has him team playing record breaking basketball for the franchise best start ever by a pistons team so yes we can sit here and nit pick about how much burn the bench is getting but how do you discredit the results.

Abe, we played SA last year virtually refusing to take the open look or go after cheap baskets. Now we play like every other team in this era of offense and guess what: our offense is near championship level. And you saw what our defense can do. If we score, it is very hard for even Miami or SA to beat us. In fact, Miami has played us tougher than SA. We dismantled them in the first quarter. Pretty impressive Piston team. Flip for coach of the year.

Everyone complains about the bench, but let me ask a question? Do SA big men get rest because Pop loves his bench, or that he has a scrub named Nesterovic STARTING thus the bench is no worse. When you have 5 great players you play them. Iverson has always played 40 a night, so has Kobe, Garnett, Jordan etc etc. I don't want to discredit the bench guys, a minute more here or there for the starters doesn't cause that much extra fatigue.

I mentioned in chat that Doug Collins said something ive been saying for awhile (and I am paraphrasing here so don’t jump down my throaght if it is not word for word)
Chauncey came down and nailed a jumper on the break and Collins says" that is something the pistons are trying to do this year get off quicker shots because their is no sense banging for 82 games it is long season and it puts a lot of strain on your body to play that kind of basketball"

Now it could just be me but it is not this guy coached mj grant hill in his prime and other all-star players. His point and mine is if we can win games without standing toe to toe punch for punch with other teams then why should we. We can win games with our execution and with shots not just with our brawn. The pistons may not play the same game that many of you guys fell in love with but they are still winning games. Yes the truest of tests will come in the post season but this team is doing it the easy way right now.

I don’t agree with everything flip has done so far but I cant argue with wins right now flip has him team playing record breaking basketball for the franchise best start ever by a pistons team so yes we can sit here and nit pick about how much burn the bench is getting but how do you discredit the results.

Amen! and its not like they have forgotten how to play DETROIT BAAAAASKETBALL, they are just not having to do it every night for 48 mins... some nights they don't have to do it at all. I think though if you ask SA they would say we showed the defense we know how to play for 48 mins TWICE now. Our starters are playing a tad less minutes and you would think that as the season goes on the bench will get more burn, but the minutes they are getting are not as hard as minutes as they had to have last year to win.

Here's a summary of the last Pistons-Spurs game by Kevin Pelton, who predicts a Spurs victory in the rematch.

http://www.82games.com/pelton12.htm

The guy takes the reader through an microscopic statistical analysis of each team and its players, then in the end his three reasons for a San Antonio victory are basically from gut feel.

Unbelievable

There's obviously a substantial drop off in our starters & the bench...
BBall, what are you complaining about Evans vs Delfino for... seriously.... was either a significant factor tonight or during the year for that matter... there's not a big difference in performance from either... just different skills (or lack of)
i think there is a big difference in performance but it isn't so evident with delfino getting limited minutes. delfino is a better defender right now. delfino is a better ball handler. delfino can create his own shot. delfino creates shots for other players. evans is just a better offensive rebounder.

What this showed me is that we are not sunk without Arroyo... probably better defensively without him.
i don't think we are sunk without any of the pistons except chauncey.

Oh yeah, Sheed critics (BBall & Jacktagg)... the ball told the truth in a big game.


yeah. sheed proved my point last night. he doesn't bring it every game. i know sheed is a great player but he has the talent to play like that every night. the only thing i get on sheed about it rebounding and not giving effort every night. these are things i don't have a problem with. the only reason i ever mention them is when someone dogs darko out for doing the same thing. i like sheed as a player.

hah!! i called it in chat last night, lee found a way to blame the pistons 1-for-12 shooting to start the 4th quarter on evans. amazing. i'm not even sure why i read his game recaps anymore, as it is clear he is not watching the same game i am. in fact, lee recaps practically write themselves - i'll write saturday's lee recap before the game even takes place and then we'll compare after the game.

the story of the game is NOT evans, and since the game was practically the same as xmas, the game isn't the story either. the story was that we didn't need arroyo at all to pull out the road victory in SA. the tay/rip/delfino backcourt is a nifty idea, particularly against SA of whom we have a significant height advantage over...but that's not something we want to necessarily rely on.

but it does bring up the interesting question, that if lindsey comes back and adjusts just fine to the new offense, do we even need arroyo?

you know who i would really like to have as a backup point, is eric snow. after watching the cavs/lakers last night, he's a very smart player and an excellent defender.

Last nights game was a feel good win but it goes away Saturday when the Pistons have to take care of Business and beat the Bobcats. I had picked Detroit to lose last nights game in San Ann, but I was thinking after they had lost to Utah last Saturday that Detroit had to win this game. The Pistons showed that this season is theirs to win and that they saw a team they know they have to beat to get back the trophy. January should be the month where the Pistons should take care of business and put more room between them and the rest of the leasgue.

January has two tough road games, and two trap games. THe two tough road games are Minny and New Jersey and these are not tough because the teams are real good its because the Pistons have a hard time playing games in these arenas. The fact that the Pistons spanked New Jersey earlier in the season will make that game tough and the Target Center never has been kind to Detroit. The two trap games this month(actually when I think about it there is 3 trap games) are Knicks, and the Bucks. I think Boston on Monday is a trap game also because Boston will fight hard not to get swept for the season in an afternoon game. These are trap games because these are 2nd games of a back to back nights. If you look at all of the Pistons loses they were energy games three of of them were back to backs. The Pistons can win the rest of their games this month if they come focus but look for another 13-2 finish for January. GO PISTONS GREAT WIN LAST NIGHT!!!!!!

Motown's 10 point run

Sheed takes charge ~ Rahseed set the tone of the game early showcasing his inside and outside game as well as proving why the Pistons frontline is so formidable defensively. Tim Duncan did not look comfortable on offense for practically the entire game. Tim's (and the entire Spurs's team) troubles at the line made it difficult for the Spurs to make any substantial run.
Efficient Offense ~ Another big story of the game was ball movement. This is perhaps where we have visibly improved the most this year. Lots of open shots on offense. In contrast, Tony Parker finished with a dismal O assists for the night. The only negative marks on offense for us this game were Chauncey's bad shot selection, 4-14 from the field (some were down right ugly!) and Chauncey's poor decision making (6 uncharacteristic horrific turnovers). Most nights when Chauncey struggles this badly with his decision making we struggle, but C-Note still managed double digit assists and the rest of our starters had very solid games.
No Carlos, No Problem ~ One of the subplots of the game was the absence of Chauncey's backup, Carlos Arroyo, due to Los's untimely suspension early this week. How did the Stones compensate? Quite well. We saw Tay take over some of the point guard responsibilites. Wow! Shades of the classic Orlando series. The end result was a big lineup that created severe matchup problems for our opposition. I wouldn't be suprised if Flip took advantage of this stragey again in the future as a nice change of pace. On defense, we saw Rip and Chauncey take turns on Parker to keep Chauncey out of foul trouble. Another smart move by the Flipster.
Classic Going To Work Defense ~ The Pistons showed they can still play championship caliber team defense for 48 mins when they want to. Probably our best defensive showing to date. Detroit did an excellent job controlling dribble penetration and eliminating second chance opportunities all night. Although Detroit was not getting the whistle this game, they still played agressively and prevented the Spurs from getting into any type of offensive flow. Impressive, considering that the Spurs are a team that can normally score points with ease when they need to. Two games holding our best opposition for the crown down to 70 points is awesome and gives us a definite mental edge should we meet again during the playoffs.
Rip shakes off Bowen ~ Lee hit it on the head with his analysis regarding Rip's play tonight against Bowen. Flip's offense appears to be one or two screens too many for the defensive specialist to handle. 22 fairly easy points by Rip tonight.
Free Agent Hype ~ The Spurs' free agent acquistions, Finley and Van Excel, had virtually no impact on this game. A combined 3-11 from the field.
Maybe next time ~ Looks like Acker had his mom set up the VCR for no reason tonight. Although the Pistons were winning by a large margin on numerous occasions, it still did not translate to an Acker appearance. This was perhaps his best opportunity to get some clock this season as Arroyo is only out for a game. Oh well, he's a gym rat so I'm sure his opportunity to step on the court will eventually arrive. I like this kid. Great attitude.
Oh, my ankles ~ Rip..Rip...Rip. I'm surprised you can still walk. :laugh: Tony Parker put a move on Rip that turned his legs into noodles and sent him to the floor. You know you got shook when the entire arena goes, "WOOOOAAAAAHHH". That's okay bro. You walk away with the win. :)
Undisputed #1 ~ This last convincing victory makes it apparently obvious to even the staunchish critic that our Pistons are the team to beat this year. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the league adjusts to our style of play in the second half of the season. Hmmm....How much longer until talks of 70 wins begin to resurface?
Lee's Evans obsession ~ Evans was hardly the story of this game. I have never seen so much biased criticism focused toward a player in my life. In my opinion, Delfino clearly outperforms Evans every night...but that does not mean that Evans is the source of every scoring drought or defensive lapse. Give it a rest dude.

Good work Motown...I'll add some others..

Manu slams his hand on the scorers table...this seemed to be a real crowd and announcer pleaser.

Chauncey draws blood but can't draw a foul...it would seem that 'blood don't lie' but in this case even a gash on Chauncey's head didn't get a call.

Manu??......Tony??....give these two credit for keepin the Spurs in the game.

The swagger...Pistons have it and the Spurs don't.

hey brother hq i LUV the new avatar but i want to point out your link does not workYEAH.....it was a pic of me and Rockets cheerleaders...didnt work though.....how da bear get there? I still like it...LOL

Abe, we played SA last year virtually refusing to take the open look or go after cheap baskets. Now we play like every other team in this era of offense and guess what: our offense is near championship level. And you saw what our defense can do. If we score, it is very hard for even Miami or SA to beat us. In fact, Miami has played us tougher than SA. We dismantled them in the first quarter. Pretty impressive Piston team. Flip for coach of the year.Ur right, me bruddah!! No teams fears me this year, except a healthy Phoenix team-maybe

Kpaav, I will look for your analysis on the extra screen on the tape. If we can indeed get Rip open consistently against SA, then much of our offensive problems with them in the past will go away. To me the key over last year is that they don't know where we will go on offense. Last year, we obliged them by trying to pound it down low. That defense is geared for that. Now,they can not focus in on what we will do. We ran the break and took the open look. We passed. We let Sheed have so many touches. Their bigs are not that mobile. They don't want to stray from the basket as it messes up their defensive sheme. Sheed drifting out puts a big strain on that defense. We played Detroit baskeball defensively last night. But it wasn't enough last year without the offense. Our offense is getting good, really good. We have always had the players just not a superstar. But look at our range with Billips and Sheed and even Rip. The bench wasn't the story at all. The first quarter was. We absolutely dominated them. I was stunned. What a great time to be a Piston fan.

Lee's Evans obsession ~ Evans was hardly the story of this game. I have never seen so much biased criticism focused toward a player in my life. In my opinion, Delfino clearly outperforms Evans every night...but that does not mean that Evans is the source of every scoring drought or defensive lapse. Give it a rest dude.


That's the problem, he's clearly being outplayed, but keeps his minutes. In the scheme of things does it affect the pistons season? No. Does it cost us any games? Maybe a loss or 2. Are us Evans haters overreacting, probably. But it is frustrating to watching, kinda like nails on the black board.

I don't really mind evans' play. He has high energy and keeps a lot of balls alive on the offensive boards.

He would be best in a fast breaking game.

Delfino is not really lighting the world on fire when he is in there either.

Delfino is not really lighting the world on fire when he is in there either.

he has not been in enough to find a rythem. here is a qoute from chauncey in todays detnews

"I personally wanted to get Rasheed going early," said Chauncey Billups, who had 14 assists. "When our big guys get going and they are scoring in the paint, we are difficult to play."
Wallace hit 12 of 20 shots, mostly playing in the paint. He made 3 of 5 three-pointers.
"He is one of the great ones," Billups said. "The great ones make it easier for everybody else. When he's rolling, everybody gets easy shots. They are set to stop me and Rip (Richard Hamilton). When Rasheed gets going, they have to shift their whole focus."

when is the last time someone got delfino "going" to me imo it seems as if they will try and get dyess involved in the flow but the rest of the guys have to "create for themselves" or just make hustle plays to get the ball. if you want better production from your bench try running plays for guys so they can get "going"

[Rasheed's] jump from last year to this year on 3's is real simple. Last year, he was given a guilt trip every time he shot one.

Well put.

Maybe Acker can become a mini-Sheed:

"I got the feeling I would dress as soon as I saw Carlos (Arroyo ) head butt the ref," Acker said. "I knew it was just a matter of time."

In my opinion, Ginobili intentionally struck Rip across the face. He did swipe at the ball, but it seemed to me he then changed directions in his down swing to catch Rip real hard. This kind of goes along with Horry flat out throwing Rip onto the floor. SA fans out there, please let the SA team know this type of dirty play degrades your team and the sport of basketball. Clean up your act.

Concerning Evans play in the 2nd half. We did get an assist out of a time out, when Evans first came into the game. And we got an assist immediately out of the end of quarter break. But other than that, we did not even smell an assist while Evans was in the game. We only scored one time in the first 6 minutes of the 4th quarter, and that was again, rigth out of the end of quarter break. This is not to slam Evans. Detroit was using that time to try to get Evans involved in our offense. Maybe he is a slow learner. Whatever, but that was what was going on. In the first half, we managed to get assists while Evans was in the game, by completely leaving Evans out of the plays.

Probably the most impressive play of the game was when Tay got the rebound, dribbled all the way down, thru traffic, and layed it in using all that length. I guess the 12 rebounds was a career high for Tay.

Delfino was fouled by Duncan on that drive. It looked clean around the ball, but Duncan shoved Delfino in his side or that would have been two points for us, and a spectacular play by Delfino. Instead, we got yet another blown call by the officials and Flip took Delfino out of the game after that.

That 2 from the corner off the feed from Dyess after an offensive rebound was a high archer. Looked good. Delfino's one longer range try missed well long. It was from a foot or two inside the line. Note, thats one shot such shot for the game, about all Delfino ever gets. Sure would like to see him get a chance to heat up in a game.

In one sequence, it seemed we got about 5 offensive rebounds. But could not score. Evans got one of those. I guess my question is, what good is getting the rebound if you can't score. Well, if you are way up in the score, it certainly kills a lot of clock. That fourth quarter started with both Evans and Ben Wallace on the floor. Maybe this is a bad combo. One guy who can't handle the ball, and so you would not want to pass to. And one guy who can't shoot the ball, Ben, who again, you really don't want to pass the ball to. Kind of limits the options in an offensive set.

No, I did not count Rip's picks. Probably next time thru. One of Sheed's threes was from a few feet back of the line.

CB did take a lot of shots. Shots he can make, but yes, a little forced too. Here is what I got to say about that. Same as always pretty much. CB is a scorer. To some extent, a shooter. Shooters shoot. It is what keeps their shot healthy. Someday, some defense is going to really tighten up on us, and Billups is going to have take those very same shots. So keep on shooting CB. As long as it is within reason, keep on honing that great weopon you have, your outside shot. All shooters have bad games. But they keep on shooting. Maybe you say Billups is not that great a shooter, and so this does not apply to him. But who is to say Billups can't become that kind of great shooter if he keeps practicing to become one.

In my review of the game, I did not look at Evans defense too closely. Still no sign though that he is capable of guarding anyone adequately. We had him in there against Parker, VanExcel, and Ginobili as they were going small, and Evans for sure can't guard any if them.

As Evans again took no threes, it has been about 6 games now since he made a three.

Early on in the season, we were all quite intrigued by Evans. He was nailing triples, getting some steals, offensive rebounds. And he had a rep as a good defender.

Since then, the triples have seemingly dried up. The defense turned out to be hype. Steals? Mostly from someone else knocking the ball away and Evans picking the ball up. Very few knock-a-ways by Evans himself. And meanwhile, we have fully realized that Evans is absolutely not a guard, as he has precious little ball handling skill.

Whats left is offensive rebounding, and that is the only thing we saw good from Evans in this game. I would welcome anyone else's comments on what they saw from Evans in this game. Specifically, what agreement or disagreement about his defense, ball handling and shots (did he pass up some he should have taken-did he get in position-was the other team guarding him-any observations from this game.

In my opinion, Ginobili intentionally struck Rip across the face. He did swipe at the ball, but it seemed to me he then changed directions in his down swing to catch Rip real hard. This kind of goes along with Horry flat out throwing Rip onto the floor. SA fans out there, please let the SA team know this type of dirty play degrades your team and the sport of basketball. Clean up your act. And this is different from what Laimbeer and Mahorn did how?

I know folks don't like Ginobili. He's like Sheed, Claude Lemieux, Rodney Harrison. You hate him if you play him, you love him if he is on your team.

I don't mind the Spurs roughing up the Pistons as long as no one gets hurt. What I don't like is that no one plants Tony Parker on his keister when he drives the lane.

Sorry, but as a Badboys era fan, it would be entirely hypocritical of me to condemn Ginobili for fighting when his team had given up, and playing physical/hard/dirty. Nothing he did was worthy of a flagrant foul.

Personally, I'd love to see Manu and his flopping, crazy passing, big play-making in a Detroit uniform.

And this is different from what Laimbeer and Mahorn did how?

I know folks don't like Ginobili. He's like Sheed, Claude Lemieux, Rodney Harrison. You hate him if you play him, you love him if he is on your team.

I don't mind the Spurs roughing up the Pistons as long as no one gets hurt. What I don't like is that no one plants Tony Parker on his keister when he drives the lane.

Sorry, but as a Badboys era fan, it would be entirely hypocritical of me to condemn Ginobili for fighting when his team had given up, and playing physical/hard/dirty. Nothing he did was worthy of a flagrant foul.

Personally, I'd love to see Manu and his flopping, crazy passing, big play-making in a Detroit uniform.
the fact that Manu plays the way doesn't bother me at all, the fact that the refs called the game the way they did does. Twice? CB got called offensive pushoffs that were huge flops by parker and not one time did we seem to get the benefit of the call. 2 Ft's with what 2 mins to go last night? If detroit got the benefit of the calls that wade parker and Manu are getting against us... NOBODY would ever come close to beating us.

Refs..... please call it both ways, and let the players decide it. That makes last nights victory look even better. There were a few looks, and comments after the game, but I think we are learning to play thru bad calls... is that experience or another Coaching item that we should be giving credit to the new guy for? :eyebrows:

There is a reason why some teams are so hard to beat on their court. And its not "getting the crowd involved". If anything the refs are influenced by the crowd.

That was the best Piston win of the season. We did it without Arroyo. Last game some said yea but Ginobili was out. This game Ginobili played, looked good and the Pistons had to play without a backup point for the 1st time this season. Prince slidding over to the point with Evans and Delfino having to fill in.

Actually I thought the big offensive draught we had early in the 4th was due to things just being out of balance with the rotations that had not been played before. Team toughen down on the D, crashed the boards and got the job done.

How weird is it that the Pistons two best defensive and rebounding efforts come against what is widely considered the best or second best team in the NBA?

We get our butts handed to us by Utah in 4th quarters, and then go out and own the Spurs on their court or ours.

When the Pistons play with discipline and focus, they can't be beat. The trick is having that energy and effort each night.

San Antonio is better than they have played. I'm still anxious to see a Pistons-Spurs/Suns/Mavs final.

How weird is it that the Pistons two best defensive and rebounding efforts come against what is widely considered the best or second best team in the NBA?

We get our butts handed to us by Utah in 4th quarters, and then go out and own the Spurs on their court or ours.

When the Pistons play with discipline and focus, they can't be beat. The trick is having that energy and effort each night.

San Antonio is better than they have played. I'm still anxious to see a Pistons-Spurs/Suns/Mavs final.

We definately haven't seen the best from the Spurs yet. I think they've still got a bit of the Championship hangover.

Manu is healthy again, but is playing off the bench right now and Finley and Nick the Not So Quick Anymore are still finding their rolls on this team.

They have a scary record for a team that has yet to hit high gear.

I think both teams are better than they were last year. The Spurs and Pistons are BY FAR the best 2 teams in the NBA. It should be one hell of a battle!

How about 6 seconds. Apparently, the league has extended Shaq privileges to the big men on SA. Nesterovic, twice, got to stay in the lane 5 to 6 seconds, camping out. And it hurt us twice. This was early in the game. And also early in the game, Duncan got nearly 5 seconds in the lane, and again, to our detriment. Without this craziness, SA does not score but maybe 1 point in the opening minutes of the game. This game absolutely should not even have been as close as it was.

Does anyone know how often the Pistons get away with 3 seconds in the lane. Personally, I ain't noticed an instance of it. Far as I can tell, they give us 2 and a 1/2 seconds. What gives here?

I wanted to highlight the differences in offensive philosophy from this year and last. 1st quarter, Ben screens for Tay in the corner who hits a jumper. Last year, we try and post Tay or drop the ball in to Ben. SA loved that. Sheed, after taking Duncan down low, becomes a passer in the high post. Rip does a one man break for a layup. Chauncey who did force up a lot of shots later and tried to drive into the teeth of the defense (shades of last year) took and hit a three in that first quarter blitz. Last year, he usually did not take the long look early. What this does to the SA defense is that they can not rely on our habits to defend us. Further, their defense is geared to sag in and it weakens them to spread it out. I actually think we get more mileage with Sheed outside on this team. Teams now know that the Pistons can score like every other team in the league. In fact, we are one of the better offenses in the league. They also know, that we can lock down. Look what we did to SA. 68 points. We killed them on the boards. We can't do this every game but for key games and the playoffs we can. As Magic said, our offensive tempo is now geared to our talent level.

We did get some play from the bench. Delfino hit a shot. Dyss of course. Arroyo is better than Tay running the offense. Evans made a major, major play in that first quarter rebound and put back. The score was just 18-13. Lee, if you ride this guy, ride him, but that was one of the highlights of the 1st quarter. You have got to report that--we don't always get to see every game. On Delfino, a drawback is that he is only 23 and still lacking in experience. But the bench wasn't the story in this game. Our first quarter- plus blitz was and then our relentless defense in the second half. SA has to be thinking, we never were able to score on them much and now we can't count on stopping them or as Pop says, "We have to play a near perfect game to beat them." SA will be better later but I am now more worried about Shaq-Wade as we don't always stop that duo.

We did get some play from the bench. Delfino hit a shot. Dyss of course. Arroyo is better than Tay running the offense. Evans made a major, major play in that first quarter rebound and put back. The score was just 18-13. Lee, if you ride this guy, ride him, but that was one of the highlights of the 1st quarter. You have got to report that--we don't always get to see every game. On Delfino, a drawback is that he is only 23 and still lacking in experience. But the bench wasn't the story in this game. Our first quarter- plus blitz was and then our relentless defense in the second half. SA has to be thinking, we never were able to score on them much and now we can't count on stopping them or as Pop says, "We have to play a near perfect game to beat them." SA will be better later but I am now more worried about Shaq-Wade as we don't always stop that duo.

Evans putback was indeed in my report.

I write a ton about the starters too. Nobody makes much comment about that. They just concentrate on what they don't like. How much of a story is it that Sheed is going into the post a lot more this year, or that he is doing great on his threes? That story I have told over and over in my reports. Or that Tay continues to work on and stay aggressive on his offense. He continues to try to establish his outside shot, making them come out to guard him so he can blow by them to the basket. How much of a story is Ben Wallace pulling down 20 rebounds. Nothing new. Or blocking Paul 4 times in the N.O. game? Old. Rip coming off screens? He does it game after game. Rip going inside more. Rip hitting triples well. CB hitting triples well. CB going to the line all day in so many games. You can only tell the same story so many times.

You say the bench is not a story? With our "bench" in, to start the 4th quarter, we went 1-10. Rip hit a shot to begin the quarter, and then we not only did not get a bucket the next 5 minutes, we did not even score a point. Don't you think that is a story? Don't you think people would want to know how that happened? After all, we only had 2 bench players in the game. CB was still running the point. Either Rip or Tay were in the game. Either Ben or Sheed was in. So how come we stalled? That is a story.

And now, contrast that opening of the 4th to the opening of the 2nd quarter. No Carlos Arroyo. CB sitting on the bench getting some rest. Quite a story. Did we falter. Crash and burn. Nope. We ran the lead from 13 points up to 20 points. How did that happen? Here, again, we had 3 starters and 2 bench players. Who ran the offense in the absence of Arroyo? This is a story, pertinent to this game.

By the way, Prince brought the ball up for us, but Delfino was also quite involved in our ball handling in those opening minutes of the 2nd quarter. Tay passed the ball for instance, and Delfino drove toward the top of the lane, drawing 2 defenders, kicked out to Dyess for an assist. And a couple more times Delfino handling the ball led to us scoring.

To open the 4th quarter, in contrast, it was Evans getting a few shots at handling the ball. Each time, he simply lost some time on the clock and passed the ball off, not giving us a thing for the time the ball was in his hands.

We are talking about quite a hunk of the game time. Stuff not hardly ordinary, run of the mill stuff about the Pistons. Stuff that is different. New.

And what happened after Delfino sat for Evans? SA scored every time down, and the last two times it was on Evans. Evans came out of the game and we righted the ship, so to speak. You call it riding Evans. I call it reporting to people who might want to know what happened in the game.

Specifically, Nick the Quick shook Evans off real easy and hit a jumper. Next time down, he shook off Evans easily and got right in the paint. Sheed had to challenge him, leaving Duncan open for a dunk. That is what happened right before his coach took Evans out of the game.

We did have two periods in the game where we scored, and gained some lead, with Evans in. In both the 1st and 3rd quarters, Evans was in while we pushed the lead up. None of this was really Evans though. He did get the one offensive rebound putback, and thats it really. His other rebounds did not lead to us scoring. Other players on the team did some good stuff on offense, like nail threes, hit their teammates for good assists. With Evans out of the way. On defense, Evans was ineffective on anyone he gaurded.

If you disagree with what I am writing, you tell me just where. Can you tell me the player Evans guarded well. Can you point out where Evans made a good pass that led to scoring for us? Any positives you want to add about Evans, go ahead. I am listening. I plan to watch the game a couple of more times yet and I will be sure to look for whatever you mention.

the fact that Manu plays the way doesn't bother me at all, the fact that the refs called the game the way they did does. Twice? CB got called offensive pushoffs that were huge flops by parker and not one time did we seem to get the benefit of the call. 2 Ft's with what 2 mins to go last night? If detroit got the benefit of the calls that wade parker and Manu are getting against us... NOBODY would ever come close to beating us.

Refs..... please call it both ways, and let the players decide it. That makes last nights victory look even better. There were a few looks, and comments after the game, but I think we are learning to play thru bad calls... is that experience or another Coaching item that we should be giving credit to the new guy for? :eyebrows:

Its pure comedy they called that an offensive foul on CB. Parker never got position at all. Indeed, his body was turned sideways as he approached CB, who really did not touch the guy. Parker just basically threw himself on the floor, and got the benefit of the whistle for it. Worse, the announcers applauded Parker for how great he did getting into position. They even said CB lowered his shoulder, which he did not. he was going in with a low stance, but never changed a thing at the time of the imaginary collision. Just a horrid call with the media blindly (we hope blindly) cheering it on.

I watched that 3 times; their feet weren't set.

Lee, no way Evans was a big story in the SA game. He is not that important a player in general and was not in this game. I agree that talking about the starters is not a story as much since we know what they can do. I agree that you have been pointing out the better use of Sheed this year something that I have been harping on too. I have no problem with your reports in general. In response to your analysis of why we did well in the beginning of the 2nd quarter and not the 4th quarter leaves out the element of momemtum. We were on a game-winning blitz from the end of the first into the second. By the 4th quarter and the 2nd half, the entire offense was stalled except for Sheed and Rip on occasion and if anything, you should be critical of Chauncey. We only scored 33 points in the second half. If there is a story there, it could be that SA still stopped our offense in the second half (not just because of Evans) but I choose to look at this game in its totality and I think that they can no longer stop us for a whole game. Back to Evans, I don't disagree with a lot of your criticism of Evans. But, for accuracy, that play in the 1st quarter was huge. Call it lucky if you want, but it was huge and the SA players themselves are pointing to the offensive boards for their demise. As I said, we don't always get to see every game and I wouldn't have picked that up if I didn't see the game. Ok, Evans had his usual poor game but he got a lucky big play rebound in the 1st quarter. Finally, Tay did not impress me at the point--I would rather have Arroyo in that role.

here is a summary of lee's reports:

delfino in the game:

- if we score points, it's because delfino helped
- if the other team scores points, it wasn't delfino's fault

evans in the game:

- if we score points, it isn't because evans helped
- if the other team scores points, it was evans' fault

here is a summary of lee's reports:

delfino in the game:

- if we score points, it's because delfino helped
- if the other team scores points, it wasn't delfino's fault

evans in the game:

- if we score points, it isn't because evans helped
- if the other team scores points, it was evans' fault

And thats the truth, as I see it, in a nutshell. So far, I do not see why Flip likes to play Evans. Maybe some potential he sees in the guy in practice that so far is just not translating into game time. Heck, we were all very hopeful about the guy at first. But I see more and more posters posting negatively about the guy. So just maybe I got something right?

After reviewing the game a few times, I got around to looking closely at how Prince did as our point guard for the 6 or 7 minutes from the end of the 1st quarter to halfway thru the 2nd quarter. Not bad. Delfino was less involved than I thought the first couple of times I watched. He really only had the one drive toward the top of the key with the dish to Dyess. Otherwise, Tay kept the ball, and made the passes to trigger the plays. We zipped up to a 20 point lead (from 13 up) with Tay in at point. Can't complain about that. We still had an 18 point lead well into the 2nd quarter. And without a blown call by the official, it would have still been an 18 point lead. (Assuming Delfino makes his free throws after Duncan shoved him to the floor.

Man, the more I watch that play, the madder at thr refs I get. And the league as an extension. This shove was way too obvious. Getting superstar calls is one thing, but both Ginobili and Duncan got away with seriously endangering our players in this game with on call at all. Horry should flat out got a suspension for throwing Rip to the floor too. No way that was jus a routine foul. A hard foul is one thing. Grabbing a guy and throwing him on the floor is way out of line. Ok, got that out of my system.)

And thats the truth, as I see it, in a nutshell. So far, I do not see why Flip likes to play Evans. Maybe some potential he sees in the guy in practice that so far is just not translating into game time. Heck, we were all very hopeful about the guy at first. But I see more and more posters posting negatively about the guy. So just maybe I got something right?

There you have it. Digest the game reports with that in mind. It ain't changin.

In my opinion, Ginobili intentionally struck Rip across the face. He did swipe at the ball, but it seemed to me he then changed directions in his down swing to catch Rip real hard. This kind of goes along with Horry flat out throwing Rip onto the floor. SA fans out there, please let the SA team know this type of dirty play degrades your team and the sport of basketball. Clean up your act.

Concerning Evans play in the 2nd half. We did get an assist out of a time out, when Evans first came into the game. And we got an assist immediately out of the end of quarter break. But other than that, we did not even smell an assist while Evans was in the game. We only scored one time in the first 6 minutes of the 4th quarter, and that was again, rigth out of the end of quarter break. This is not to slam Evans. Detroit was using that time to try to get Evans involved in our offense. Maybe he is a slow learner. Whatever, but that was what was going on. In the first half, we managed to get assists while Evans was in the game, by completely leaving Evans out of the plays.

Probably the most impressive play of the game was when Tay got the rebound, dribbled all the way down, thru traffic, and layed it in using all that length. I guess the 12 rebounds was a career high for Tay.

Delfino was fouled by Duncan on that drive. It looked clean around the ball, but Duncan shoved Delfino in his side or that would have been two points for us, and a spectacular play by Delfino. Instead, we got yet another blown call by the officials and Flip took Delfino out of the game after that.

That 2 from the corner off the feed from Dyess after an offensive rebound was a high archer. Looked good. Delfino's one longer range try missed well long. It was from a foot or two inside the line. Note, thats one shot such shot for the game, about all Delfino ever gets. Sure would like to see him get a chance to heat up in a game.

In one sequence, it seemed we got about 5 offensive rebounds. But could not score. Evans got one of those. I guess my question is, what good is getting the rebound if you can't score. Well, if you are way up in the score, it certainly kills a lot of clock. That fourth quarter started with both Evans and Ben Wallace on the floor. Maybe this is a bad combo. One guy who can't handle the ball, and so you would not want to pass to. And one guy who can't shoot the ball, Ben, who again, you really don't want to pass the ball to. Kind of limits the options in an offensive set.

No, I did not count Rip's picks. Probably next time thru. One of Sheed's threes was from a few feet back of the line.

CB did take a lot of shots. Shots he can make, but yes, a little forced too. Here is what I got to say about that. Same as always pretty much. CB is a scorer. To some extent, a shooter. Shooters shoot. It is what keeps their shot healthy. Someday, some defense is going to really tighten up on us, and Billups is going to have take those very same shots. So keep on shooting CB. As long as it is within reason, keep on honing that great weopon you have, your outside shot. All shooters have bad games. But they keep on shooting. Maybe you say Billups is not that great a shooter, and so this does not apply to him. But who is to say Billups can't become that kind of great shooter if he keeps practicing to become one.

rip and sheed would of killed horry and ginobili if they fought it out. even though chauncey had the biggest match-up advantage, he didn't totally take advantage but the pistons still won goes to show you how deep this team is. chauncey still did way better than parker with 14 assists to tony's 0. chauncey had a very uncharacteristic 6 turnovers though.