Detroit Pistons at the Atlanta Hawks

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7:00 PM EDT

TV: FSN Detroit / NBALP
Radio: WDFN

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Comments on the game?
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There is no reason the hawks should pull off an upset. The pistons are rested and every game after a loss they blow opponents out. this shouldn't be the pistons first losing streak of the season.

Its my wife's, father's, uncle's, cousin-in-law's and friend's birthdays tomorrow, so hopefully that will be good luck for a Piston's W!

Its my wife's, father's, uncle's, cousin-in-law's and friend's birthdays tomorrow, so hopefully that will be good luck for a Piston's W!

:eek: How exactly does that happen?

:eek: How exactly does that happen?

Think it has somethin' to do with growin' up in Tennessee:confused:

:eek: How exactly does that happen?

Twins...nunjutink? (pardon my reverse-osmosis Italian-American vernacular for 'don't you think?'...it saves a few keystrokes :doh: )

Think it has somethin' to do with growin' up in Tennessee:confused:
lmfao :pound:

I think he was talking about 5 different people.

Still, with so many February 7th birthdays, I would imagine May 7th must be a very fun day in Jammer's neck of the woods. :wink:

This is a bounce back game and it should show as we should expect a huge double digit win. The Pistons want to use this game as a transition game for the bench.

As being reported Hunter has made the trip and should be activated for this game. The two players Detroit wants to get going now is Davis and Hunter it is time to get the bench going for Febuary and have the Starters fresh for the stretch and Playoffs. This is a good week to to get the Pistons bench going.

Look for this game to be a little closer not a 28 point blow out but the Pistons showed win 108-90 a little bit closer than the first game. Pistons should go 3-1 this week.

lmfao :pound:

I think he was talking about 5 different people.

Still, with so many February 7th birthdays, I would imagine May 7th must be a very fun day in Jammer's neck of the woods. :wink:

Hahaha, yup, I was talking about 5 different people. No rednecks here.

And Tater, that's just gross man. I don't even want to think about what my Mother-in-Law or my Grandma were doing on May 7th!

bench will see a lot of pt. flip said that on the radio. lindsey might play.

bench will see a lot of pt. flip said that on the radio. lindsey might play.

I hope you're right, but I'll believe it when I see it. This isn't the first time Flip said the bench would see good minutes.

The second the game looks close, Flip panics, goes into his rooster neck twitch and wears out his starters.

A discussion with my former Flip player friend led to these obsevations about Flip's substitution style:

Flip's about winning. When you are payed 2MM+ to win, you are not going to play weak players. The Piston's starting five is MUCH better than any of the subs (except Dyess). There is a significant drop-off in skill when the other bench players come in. So, he will only play them to give the starters a brief breather. (As an aside, Carlisle kept Tay on the bench and played Curry - much to our dismay - until Tay finally demonstrated that he was actually better than Curry). Until one of our bench players demonstrates he is the equal of one of our starters, he's not going to play much. Therein lies the catch-22. How can you demonstrate your skill if you don't play? The history of the NBA suggests that that happens only when a starter gets injured and then you are forced to play someone else. This develope-the-bench idea is simply NOT used by any coach. Only if the starters are so weak that they are no better than the subs, then a coach will be forced to try different players. Developing the bench is for the CBA, NBDL, and College. Top-of-the-line NBA teams look for established veterans (Zo, Finley, Van Exel, Walker, etc.) for the back-up postions. Rookies have a very hard time breaking the line-up of really good teams.

Flip MAY cut back on starter time as the play-offs approach, but don't expect much of it. In the play-offs, there is actually frequent time-off between games, and no back-to-backs. And both teams get the same time off. Really good players expect to play lots of minutes. Iverson, Jordan, Magic, Bird, etc always played big minutes in the playoffs.

My contact at the gym, who played for Flip, gives me the following helpful answer:

Flip designs his offense to make the maximum use of his players STRENGTHS. Since we have no player whose strength is playing post-up in the paint, he doesn't run those kind of plays. Lets face it, we don't have a Shaq, Hakeem, Kareem, etc. type player. Ben is no offesive post-type option. Neither is Darko (even though LB tried to teach him how to do it), Sheed, or Antonio. Flip's offense is designed deliberately as a motion offense giving our jump shooters clear looks at the hoop. Rip, Sheed, Antonio, get baseline and mid-range jumpers. Tay, Chauncy, Sheed, and Rip get 3's, and Ben, Tay, and Sheed get lobs. We don't have the talent to play a post-up game, so Flip doesn't run those plays.
(http://www.pistonsforum.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=18297)

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Game Chat is open. I'll be along later. nJoy!

Wow, when they lost At NJ I thought they'd be in trouble if they lost another that week, they lost at Indy, but they were tired. But on 2 days rest they lose in Atlanta as well?

Something is wrong, this isn't just a skid because the past 10+ wins have been by slimmer and slimmer margins, and now we are losing.

Dallas wins #12 in a row tonight.

The first half featured offense. No defense. Our starters ran the offense like a top, but did not seem to think defense was part of their job description. They got the lead to 10 at one point, but only because of a whole series of three point plays, and three point shots made, not from stopping them much at all. Arroyo did just fine too. It seemed he was under a microscope in this game.

Both teams played better D in the 2nd half. Detroit could not shake Atlanta, not getting better than an 8 point lead. In the end, the experienced team, Detroit, was suppose to come out the winner. But gee, it was not to be. And no, that was not a bad call from the official, the ball was off Ben. (I checked it frame by frame. From one angle, you got a false impression that the ball was off Pachulia, but Ben got that long arm of his inside of Pachulia's arm and knocked the ball away.

CB and Rip had it going, producing several assists to go with their league leading assist combination, a new stat someone is apparently tracking. Sheed was doing some scoring, at least in the first half. Dyess also was scoring, in the first half. Tay was our scoring hero though, getting just shy of 30. Man, those two missed free throws in the 4th quarter by Tay came up huge. Tay was nailing about every shot he took, from inside, outside, and inbetween.

Yep, we had five guys at least near 10 points in that first half. And only had a three point lead from it.

Ok, now for the story. Did Flip play the bench more. Not really. Especially not CB. CB got a 6 minute rest in the first half, and about 5 more, maybe just 4, in the 2nd half. And it did not help. A 6 point lead left by Arroyo in the first half, and a 4 point lead in the 2nd, did not last. CB ended up playing the last 12 minutes of the game. Anyone want to listen to my opinion on that: You bring your starters in for the last 6 minutes. Six, not 12.

Delfino played some good D, was on the boards some, but thats about it. He should have had an assist but the shot was missed inside. Delfino missed a triple, and a somewhat forced shot closer in. He did not play a ton, but he did play more than Evans, who I doubt would have played at all in the 2nd half except for some foul trouble on Rip.

Dyess played about his usual, and again went to his pattern of scoring for us, but only in the first half of the game. Hunter played 12 seconds, the last 12 seconds of the first half.

Maxiell is the guy who did not dress. Dale Davis and Darko did not play. Basically, this notion that several players would start getting more minutes did not happen. Anyone out there think it still ever will? Yes, its getting very easy to doubt Flip's ability to stick with a plan.

Basically, nothing much changed. But we did get an earful about Darko. Kelser interviewed Darko, and Joe Dumars about Darko. First he spoke to Dumars. Dumars said absolutely he still believed in Darko, and if that was not the case, Darko would be long gone.

Darko said he really thinks he deserves to play, that he has been working really hard. Kelser liked the fact that Darko wanted to play. Kelser cited Flip saying it was not Darko, but the guys in front of Darko that kept Darko from playing.

About all for now. GO PISTONS!!!!!

A discussion with my former Flip player friend led to these obsevations about Flip's substitution style:



Flip MAY cut back on starter time as the play-offs approach, but don't expect much of it. In the play-offs, there is actually frequent time-off between games, and no back-to-backs. And both teams get the same time off. Really good players expect to play lots of minutes. Iverson, Jordan, Magic, Bird, etc always played big minutes in the playoffs.

Its too bad Flip is about winning, regular season games. Too bad he is doing nothing to get this team ready for the playoffs. In this game, no way did we get any progress at all in developing our bench, nor getting our starters some rest.

I will say one thing positive about tonight. Flip played the combination of CB, Delfino, and Tay for a good long stretch their to end the 2nd quarter. That is a good combination. He has just started to use this combination of late. Although I still feel he must also add to this the Arroyo, Delfino, Prince combo, I am glad to see at least this one. Thats something. Another is that again, Evans was pretty much cut out of the 2nd half. Progress their too. Now if only he would get cut out of the first half, because other players need more minutes that can give us more with them.

woops again lol. not worried about it, but what i don't like is that in closer games the pistons tend to stop running their offense and play a lot of 1v1, rather than staying confident with their offensive system.

Right, we are not playing offense. Tay gets hot so we go one on one. That is not an offense. Sheed has been off for awhile. He should be hitting the offensive glass for some put backs. We are not playing D (even for a quarter) and the offense is not able to just bail us out like before. Ben's offensive game and free throws have totally stagnated. I am not for going in to Ben a lot, but some slant movement to the hoop would help. Teams get all the loose balls on us lately. I can't complain about the bench because I am not sure that we would have won with the bench tonight either. In general, though, Flip needs to pull a starter here and there when they are off. We lost and we are not well rested for the Clips.

I didn't get to see the game but from what I hear my man Zaza Pachulia did well. Still would have like to see a Pistons win with Zaza having a good game for the Hawks.

Reading the boxscore and following the comments in chat and here, it seems that the team is starting to hit the wall.

First bump in the road, back-to-back losses pretty much puts 70 or even 72 wins in serious doubt. Maybe now we can get back to winning East home court with 65 wins and getting the bugs out.

I'm sad to see the Pistons lose the battle of the boards again. 5 out of the last 6 games the Pistons have been outrebounded, some of them by heavy margins. No way the Hawks should outrebound the Pistons by 9 with a lineup featuring only one true center.

Getting outboarded by 9 and give up nearly 50% shooting (49.4) and it's tough to win on the road no matter who you are playing.

Lots of work for Flip and the boys to do. I'm seriously wishing no one from the Pistons will be involved in All-Star weekend. That's a nice 6 day layoff they could use to get healthy and recharge for the stretch run.

Micro, I was hoping that we could keep it going until March. Now SA is right there with us. What worries me is that teams are playing our offense better so we may have to change the mix a bit and play some D. Our defense has been very poor and sporadic lately. Usually the D will give us a good quarter at least. And people say play the bench. I guess you have to--especially with the back to backs. But there is no guarantee that the bench will lead to more wins. Our bench is very on and off.

Oh well. I was expecting a rough patch and now here it is. Lost 3 of the past 4 games. Only consistant factor is Billups playing hurt so I suppose he really is our team MVP. Actually did not sound like he was going to play at all this game. Certainly did not seem to play much less mins.

Prince tried his best to help the team but it was not enough. I am not worried. These things happen. Only thing is it may impact the coaches vote for the all-star game.

I am going to do a thread sometime this week or weekend comparing the starters mins. Quick scanning things our starters rank anywhere from 30-50th place in total mins played. Pistons are not some team that platoons out positions because they cannot decide who to start. So they are going to play more than a lot of other teams.

But when a guy is hurting like Billups its important to take him out so it does not lead to something cronic.

IReading the boxscore and following the comments in chat and here, it seems that the team is starting to hit the wall.

First bump in the road, back-to-back losses pretty much puts 70 or even 72 wins in serious doubt. Maybe now we can get back to winning East home court with 65 wins and getting the bugs out.

I'm sad to see the Pistons lose the battle of the boards again. 5 out of the last 6 games the Pistons have been outrebounded, some of them by heavy margins. No way the Hawks should outrebound the Pistons by 9 with a lineup featuring only one true center.

Getting outboarded by 9 and give up nearly 50% shooting (49.4) and it's tough to win on the road no matter who you are playing.

.

Micro, it's the defense that has bcome lax and the fact that three ball is not falling. The starters seem to be hitting on all cylinders when the game starts. The defense is just Ok at that point, but we are looking good enough such that we can pull ahead. As soon as the second unit comes in we seem to stall. It happen in both of the last two games. We give up that lead and then cannot seem to hold it or pull away further letting inferior teams 'hang around'.

Don't want to point the finger at Arroyo, but the only player he can seem to pass to for an assist is McDyess and everyone he passes to either turns it over or misses their shots. (Rip missed a uncontested bunny and a wide open jumper from CA tonight.). Sometimes it appears that it is two man game with just CA & Dice , and Evans and Rip seem to be out of the picture. CA played better in the second half, but for a six minute stretch in the second qtr, the 10 point lead was wiped out with shoddy defense and missed opportunities with him controlling the 'O". Like you said our bigs are being out rebounded with only Ben doing his job. :confused:

Yeah Flip should get the bench more involved, but the bench ain't producing when they come in. The starters are Ok, but thire fatigue is affecting the 'long gun". IMO, a new piece needs to be added to the bench as soon as possible so that he can be ready lead the second unit effortlessly by playoff time. 70 is out of the question now, but it will be a battle down to the end on who will get HC advantage. Darko is not going to contribute this year, so he is expendable!

Bye Bye Arroyo. Darko will probably go with him. This team NEEDS a backup point guard now.

Bye Bye Arroyo. Darko will probably go with him. This team NEEDS a backup point guard now.

tell me about it. he had 3 TO's in 10 minutes, and they were all stupid ones: palming, walking, and i forgot the other b ut it had to do with ball handling as well. this atlanta game isn't different than some of the games in the last half of our 12 game winning streak. The pistons have not played there hardest except now they're losing. with the mavs winning they're first in the west and now only 1.5 games behind us. I'll be happy for this loss if it helps flip realize he has to play the bench even if they make mistakes, and if it gets these guys confidence down because every team is not better than us we all know that but thre pistons are too overconfident right now.

We don't need to keep HC throughout the season we just need to be ahead at the end.We can't wear ourselves out trying to run in front of the pack all season,yes would be nice to be in drivers seat but it's taking it's toll on the starters.

Ben needs help rebounding Sheed needs to get his big head away from the three line and campout down low more often.Like the three but it needs to be takin in the flow we jackup way to many forced lately and Sheed going 1-6,1-11 ain't cutting it.Sheed is a better player than he has shown lately.Slump or whatever I'd consider throwing Dice in to start the way Sheed has played.Shake it up he shouldn't get a free pass,play like crap come off the bench til you refocus.

Need to really get back to work and get the bench some heavy burn even if it costs us a few games it will payoff in the playoffs.I smell a trade coming too, Joe gots that look in his eye.

Play some defense, ya bums.

No way Atlanta should score as easily as they did. Hamilton made me want to puke on the game-winning basket, ignoring Joe Johnson on the drive and relying on Ben to clean up from the other side of the court. Too late. All night long guys were playing off their men and allowing easy midrange jumpers, or letting their men drive by them without a fight.

Overall it's good that our guys tend to be even-keel personalities, but right now I'd like to see at least one of them go off on a Zeke-style rampage to shake everyone out of their complacency. Odds are it will have to be Ben (again), which is why I don't really buy the Chauncey for MVP talk. "Smooth" is prone to let things drift, but the team responds when Ben gets mad.

Odds are it will have to be Ben (again), which is why I don't really buy the Chauncey for MVP talk. "Smooth" is prone to let things drift, but the team responds when Ben gets mad.
And how... It was my pet peeve last year. I know he's banged up, but if there is one guy (besides Sheed) who coasts it's Chaunce. Sheed's just lazy at times, CB is the one who gets overconfident.

I didn't get to see the game but from what I hear my man Zaza Pachulia did well. Still would have like to see a Pistons win with Zaza having a good game for the Hawks.

Reading the boxscore and following the comments in chat and here, it seems that the team is starting to hit the wall.

First bump in the road, back-to-back losses pretty much puts 70 or even 72 wins in serious doubt. Maybe now we can get back to winning East home court with 65 wins and getting the bugs out.

I'm sad to see the Pistons lose the battle of the boards again. 5 out of the last 6 games the Pistons have been outrebounded, some of them by heavy margins. No way the Hawks should outrebound the Pistons by 9 with a lineup featuring only one true center.

Getting outboarded by 9 and give up nearly 50% shooting (49.4) and it's tough to win on the road no matter who you are playing.

Lots of work for Flip and the boys to do. I'm seriously wishing no one from the Pistons will be involved in All-Star weekend. That's a nice 6 day layoff they could use to get healthy and recharge for the stretch run.
Thank u for changing your avatar...my bruddah...thank u:laugh:

And how... It was my pet peeve last year. I know he's banged up, but if there is one guy (besides Sheed) who coasts it's Chaunce. Sheed's just lazy at times, CB is the one who gets overconfident.and u know what...i love Big shot, but,,,,Chauncey is no Steve Nash!!!!

Play some defense, ya bums.

No way Atlanta should score as easily as they did. Hamilton made me want to puke on the game-winning basket, ignoring Joe Johnson on the drive and relying on Ben to clean up from the other side of the court. Too late. All night long guys were playing off their men and allowing easy midrange jumpers, or letting their men drive by them without a fight.

Overall it's good that our guys tend to be even-keel personalities, but right now I'd like to see at least one of them go off on a Zeke-style rampage to shake everyone out of their complacency. Odds are it will have to be Ben (again), which is why I don't really buy the Chauncey for MVP talk. "Smooth" is prone to let things drift, but the team responds when Ben gets mad.When was the last time u saw a Piston take a charge...I miss MikeJames/Lindsay Hunter for 10 minutes a night!

it had to happen- our beloved Pistons in a slump. Losing 3 of the last 4.
There were to many games only won because Chauncey took them over. Now that he doesn't, the Pistons lose.
Where are the others to step up when needed? What about the interior D? Their fast fella's been able to penetrate as will while they cleaned up the glass.
Sheed being on the guard position, leaving Ben alone on the boards.
But he has been weak rebounder his entire career and this won't change. And Ben can't have 16 rebounds+ game every time. There will be games we love Sheed for hitting 3s and then there are games in which he just doesn't make his damn shots.
Chauncey's FG% is decreasing, I was hoping he'd start to be REALLY consistent this year. His TOs are also increasing.
Getting worried...

Its the DEFENSE!

Bringing in the bench won't help because they play poor defense. If we rest the starters, and play the bench big minutes, we'll be so far behind it'll take five quarters to catch up.

When was the last time u saw a Piston take a charge...I miss MikeJames/Lindsay Hunter for 10 minutes a night!

According to 82games.com, the Pistons are 4th from last in the charge-taking category. Part of the reason could be that we don't allow the penetration in the first place, but it could also be that we just aren't trying very hard.

and u know what...i love Big shot, but,,,,Chauncey is no Steve Nash!!!!

you're right, he's better. he's in a slump right now you can see he's hurt. flip doesn't like how carlos turn the ball over a lot so maybe we''ll see a lot of lindsey starting tonight.