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Dec 11th
9:00pm EST

TV:WDWB/WB20
Radio: WDFN-AM 1130

http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/pistons/ben_wallace.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/pistons/rasheed_wallace.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/pistons/tayshaun_prince.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/pistons/richard_hamilton.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/pistons/chauncey_billups.jpg
VS
http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/clippers/chris_kaman.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/clippers/elton_brand.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/clippers/corey_maggette.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/clippers/cuttino_mobley.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/clippers/sam_cassell.jpg

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Comments on this game?
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Reserved

Tickets go on sale 10/8 and I will get mine then. I hope the real Pistons show up, not the ones that had to go 2 OT's to beat the Clipps last year. They should be at least 12-4 by then and will be in the middle game of a mini 3 game west coast trip then. I should be able to give you full report especially if it is a positive win on 12/12. :laugh:

I hope the real Pistons show up, not the ones that had to go 2 OT's to beat the Clipps last year.

I remember that game. I was listening to it on Audio League pass as usual and for some reason the pistons radio side dropped out so i had to listen to the clippers guy. He was de-va-stated...

It will be interesting to see how the clips go. They now have a couple of vets, but not really the kind thats gonna help out the young kids I don't think...

I think I like this Clippers team compared to previous years.

Kaman had an impressive offseason in the summer league
Brand consitently gives all-star performances
Magette is a strong offensive threat that gets to the line often
Sam Cassell is a great candidate for a rebound season (find it hard to believe that a guard can go from his best season as a pro to his worst in one fail swoop without coming back to some middle ground)
Cutino Mobley is an underated offensive presenceHell, if this was an Eastern Conference team they would have a legitimate shot at the playoffs.

I remember that game too. Ben had a big tip in when we were down by 2 in overtime, and Chauncey hit a big 3 early in one of the overtimes too.

The Clips are 9-0 when they shoot 48% and better. Key to a Pistons win is holding them below 44%; the Pistons need to shoot better than 45%; and control the boards while shutting down Brand's inside game and Cassell's dribble penetration. :confused:

The Clips shut down DWade and company tonight so this maybe the Pistons biggest road challenge since the Mavs. I will be there in my "M" jacket and 2004 Pistons Championship cap to cheer the Pistons on, and hopefully I will make the long drive home smiling.:) :nod: :laugh:

Why did the league give us a day off after the Warriors? We should be fresh. The Clips may have a good season this year but history says next year they degrade.

I hope the Pistons didn't fly back home after GS. Acclimate to Cali. we got Clipps then Jazz.
...Dre we shot 44% at GS and GS shot 40%. A 3 pt. win. Still a little tight for me. But CBill was fresh in the 4th and inserted daggers thanks to CarArr.

I hope the Pistons didn't fly back home after GS. Acclimate to Cali. we got Clipps then Jazz.

LOL. No worries. They didn't fly home.

yeah the team would not be stupid enough to pull that one off.

Well the Clips beat the Suns to retain 1st place in their Div... all of their starters played major minutes with a 6:00 (West coast) game against the Pistons.

Brand = beast
However Sheed's length could bother him
I think Magette will be out with his foot injury... Tayshaun should clean up tomorrow.
Cassell is crafty but C.B. will bully him down low.
Rip has to stay up tight on Mobley
Kaman shoots equally with his right or left hook.

Merc's keys to a victory:

Play at a fast pace to test their legs.
Rip to test their lack interior quickness
Sheed... do your thing down low brother.
They got no answer for Prince at SF.
C.B. back down the mouth
Switch on Cassell's picks.. he's as good as Rip at mid range shots.
Keep Brand off the "O" glass
Don't play off Brand he's really developed a perimiter game.

I'm in LA, and a few of the players and Flip were at the Clippers/Suns game tonight scouting. They even interviewd Flip during a timeout. This is gonna be a tough game to win. Clips are 9-1 at home, and their only loss was to the Pacers in a tight one where Croshere went off for 17 points on 7 shots. Hopefully the Pistons bring the "D" for 48 minutes tonight. No messing around with this team.

I'm really looking forward to this game. The Suns were the hottest team in the league until the Clippers beat them tonight. They are really looking good this year.

It's good timing to be catching them the night after they had to chase the Suns all over the court. Of the two games (Suns and Pistons), it is more likely that the Clips looked at the Suns game as the bigger one, since it was a conference game. While they would surely like to win, their weekend is already good. They should naturally let down, especially if the Pistons get off to a quick start.

We should take advantage of the Clippers playing back to back game. In addition, with Magette out, we should have the edge. The Suns has no Stoudamire to stop Brand but we have Sheed who is having a lot of fun the last few games and playing well to stop him as well as playing him in the post and get Brand in foul trouble. We must try not to be outrebound again which seems to be a trend recently. Although we still able to win such games, it may come back to haunt us.

this is going to be a tough game. it's not as big of a deal with the back-to-back imo since the clips are at home and play well there. let's hope the stones pull it out :D

Tay comes home with all his friends and family watching. He should be motivated

If the clips had Maggette It would be a good match-up but the Clips may struggle matching up with him as most SF's normally do.

Sheed Vs Brand is going to be a war inside.

Also feel Cassell is going to struggle with Chauncey

Here's to a good game.

I make this Piston-Clipper game every year and usually the Pistons fans will out-cheer the home crowd. :nod: However with the Clips leading the division and looking like a conference finalist, the home town fans will be out there tonight to motivate their surging team. You should still here enough of us DEETROIT Basketball fans to know that we are in the house!!!:eyebrows:

Let's hope that our boys got the one night rest and back-to-back will take a toll on the Magette less Clippers. Sheed is playing his best ball during this stretch as is Brand, so that match up could offset each other. If the rest just play their game we will win, but it will be a toughy.

Be at Staples shouting Deetroit Basketball!

Highlight of the night so far: Delfino got a haircut! FINALLY! I always felt weird rooting for a guy with hair like that.

We're in chat with a few folks.

Members welcome. Link is next to the log out button or follow the image at the top of the forums...

Still going up up up. 15-2. And the right way. On the front end of a back to back, Flip used his bench. Man he used it. Great job of Flip trusting his bench players. Now we not only have another win, we are well set up to win again tomorro at Utah.

I believe Detroit tied a record tonight, getting just 3 turnovers. Amazing. And we scored well over a hundred points. A whole lot of scoring. A whole lot of passes. And just three turns. Got to salute CB and Arroyo on that.

Evans had a great game, specificall the first half. He had two offensive rebound putbacks, a nice score inside against seemingly all their bigs at once, an outside shot made, a dive to the floor to get us a loose ball, other rebounds. All in one half. Great game.

Delfino played too. In both halves even. Other than Dyess coming in for Sheed early due to foul trouble, Delfino was the first bench player in for the 2nd half. Quite a change. Delfino had done some pretty good stuff in that first half and clearly earned some more time. Delfino rebounded well, nailed his defensive rotations perfectly, hit a couple of outside shots, got an and 1 with a scoop. Basically, added well to the ball handling chores. Tay got good long rests both halves due to the very capable play by Delfino. (But with Magette not playing, I won't get too excited about this game. I would have liked to see Delfino guard Magette.)

Dale Davis came in for foul trouble and simply played good solid D. Nothing else, just good solid D, something we all know he can do quite well.

More on Arroyo. Cassell is a pretty darn good scorer and made Arroyo look bad on several occasions. But Arroyo in the end managed to do well enough on Cassell by making Cassel get the ball well away from the basket. Not a bad job altogether, and you know what? It actually was helping us having the Clips go against Arroyo rather than go to their bigs for scoring.

Rip just was Rip. Hitting those shots. And CB hit shots. Tay finally hit one outside shot in this game. He has not been connecting of late. Still staying quite aggressive going inside though. Sheed did some scoring. It all helps. That bench scoring was sure a welcome sight though.

Dyess is still not hitting any outside shots. The slump continues.

They tried something stupid, Hack-a-Ben. Never works. Not unless one time or two done strategically. This was nuts. They completely gave up trying to get into the game the old fashioned way. You know, good offensive execution and really working on D. Instead, they sent Ben to the line over and over. And over. Ugly basketball. Ben did not connect on many. But between the ones we made, and the points we got off offensive rebounds from it, it was an effective 40 something percent. Pretty much giving us automatic offense. And then they still could not score at their end. Worse, after it had all failed miserably, their coach still kept going to it.

Other than that nastiness, a good entertaining game against a worthy opponent. Another week at 1 in the polls. All for now. GO PISTONS!!!!!

Great game. Kaman and Brand are excellent.

It's hard not to get excited about this Pistons team. Barring a serious injury, 60 wins seems pretty attainable.

Great games by Sheed, Tay, Rip you name it.

A little D Square for good measure.

Still going up up up. 15-2. And the right way. On the front end of a back to back, Flip used his bench. Man he used it. Great job of Flip trusting his bench players. Now we not only have another win, we are well set up to win again tomorro at Utah.



I sure hope you're right because I'll be at the game cheering for them.

Good recap, Lee! :nod:

GO PISTONS!

Quality win on the books.... Piston's offense tonight = La machine
Flip made the comment that after Utah our road schedule is already 33% complete in early December.

It's time to give Flip his due... this is a well coached team.

Gr8 to see the bench contributions... Mo, Dos Los... even DD.

Best backcourt in the Association.

I suggested a Brand for Ben trade a couple years back... hmmm

Luved Sheed giving Dunleavy sh## after the hack-a-Ben... Sidney Lowe givin' Sheed luv for the words.

All you folks representin' the D in La La... we saw/heard ya loud and clear behind the bench... nice work!

Next stop a rested Jazz team... Memo will be motivated.

We've turned into last year's Spurs. We can win at any pace, playing any style.

I think with wins at Phoenix, GS, and the Clips, we can put to bed the "we haven't beaten anyone yet" talk.

And yes, it would be hard to find a backcourt playing as well as this one is.

I'm impressed. Now let's not have a letup tomorrow at Utah.

Evans had a great game, specificall the first half. He had two offensive rebound putbacks, a nice score inside against seemingly all their bigs at once, an outside shot made, a dive to the floor to get us a loose ball, other rebounds. All in one half. Great game.

Would this be your way of admiting that Evans has a little more than "no usefulness of the court"?

Nice to see Delfino make the most of his minutes. He may become a regular in the rotation yet.

Was a great game. Even out-rebounded them on the offensive end. Not in total rebs because of all the free-throw attempts by Ben.

I never saw the hack-a strategy fail so badly. Clipps were down by 8 and seemed to be gaining some momentum. Pistons would have won anyway but that decision to foul Ben on every play doomed the Clipps and they even lost Cassell in the process. Pistons almost doubled their lead by the time it was over.

Bench stepped up. Flip tried some different combo's using both Delfino and Evans for extended stretches along with Davis. Davis is a good defender and will bang in the post which we need.

No real complaints. Sheed has been playing great along with all the starters. I have to credit Sheed for getting this game on track by establishing a nice post presence and playing tough on the glass.

During Hack-a-Ben. Ben gets his own board back and passes it out to Billups for a 3. That should be the play of the season so far.

I agree Max. I'm tired of ANY anti-Sheed rhetoric. He's been playing at a high level for the last several games. He's been everything we could ask for from an elite PF who handles his business on both ends of the court.

I agree Max. I'm tired of ANY anti-Sheed rhetoric. He's been playing at a high level for the last several games. He's been everything we could ask for from an elite PF who handles his business on both ends of the court.

Yes he has been on a tear the last 3 or 4 games. I credit him as the biggest part of winning the past 2 games.

actually looking at the box Sheed only had 10 points and 7 boards. Does not seem like much. He mainly got the team off to a great start plus he contributed defensivly. Very good defensive game for Sheed.

Plus he sat for most of the 3rd and the scoring opps were not there during the 2nd half of the 4th with Ben getting fouled.

That's always been my point about Sheed. You can't judge the game he plays by the box score. He's the straw that stirs the drink.

wow i agree with lee's post, even the part about cassell goin after arroyo - and even though arroyo had some difficulty defending him, he made cassell play the whole length of the floor and expend quite a bit of energy.

hopefully delfino will finally get some minutes - it helped that tay looked like he was trying too hard tonight to impress his compton buddies. what i really wish, is that during hack-a-ben, we went to the delfino free throw play and have him slam a rebound home off a missed free throw. but the offensive rebound kick-out to chauncey for a 3 was good enough in its place. :)

best of all, none of the starters logged heavy minutes, we're 10-1 on the road, and pimpin a 15-2 record. there's really nothing to complain about tonight :D

This team is amazing!

I'm wondering if Ron Harper has helped give them a killer attitude in these regular season games. I remember reading a quote by him when they signed him up that basically said that he thought the Pistons needed to play more like the MJ Bulls teams and never let up.

It may be that Flip is making it fun and Ron Harper is pushing them at the same time.

As far as the game analysis, it is hard to not take the starting 5's accomplishments each night for granted. They are just flat out killing. It is nice to only have 2 losses when everyone is filling out their all-star ballots.

So we talk about the bench. Evans has figured out what it takes to get minutes- hustle, rebounding, defense, and high percentage shots. Delfino looked very comfortable. Arroyo is blending his game and his teammates nicely. He's taking the perfect amount of shots and in the right situations.

It will still be interesting to see if Darko, JMax, or Acker get some opportunities as the year progresses. If we are going to go at the 72-10 pace, then I don't really care. If we slow down, I'd like to see what they have.

I sure hope you're right because I'll be at the game cheering for them.

Good recap, Lee! :nod:

GO PISTONS!
Dont 4get 2 wear your colors , my bruddah and dont slack up! We're their in spirit!

oh and kaman could be called for an offensive foul on just about every drive to the basket, he just lowers his shoulder and plows through. brand does it a little bit too but not as often. and it was sweet during the hack-a-ben watching the time left go down and the pistons lead go up slowly but surely

Got in a little Deetroit Basketball with other Piston fans at the game. This game marked the unveiling of Delfino. We have all been calling for it and we got it. The guy can play. Can we get more good games from Evans and Arroyo? They did run at Arroyo on defense with some success which had me worried a bit. Joe has done it again with Davis. He really looked tough out there. The starters actually looked bored. What about Darko? I just saw the 2006 NBA champs tonight at Staples.

@TaShawn - I was thinking the same thing about Harper. If it comes true and the Stones win home court, challenge for the title, he may be the unsung motivational piece.

@Warthog - all good offensive paint players initiate the contact. Anyone who shoots away from contact is considered a finesse player (Ming, Sheed, KG) while the ones who bull their way in (Shaq, Kaman, Curry) are considered bonafide power bigs.

We just haven't seen a player with a legit paint game in the "D" for a long, long time...

Not sure if the camera scanned the crowd, but we Pistons fans were there in force decked out in Billups, Ben and Rip jerseys. The tone of the crowd was set after the first Clipper turnover midway through the first qtr when large bellow went out from seats behind the basket DETROIT BASKETTBALLL!!!:laugh:
The Clippers only had 7 turns so that cheer never really caught on especially since the Clipper fans booed those Pistons Fans. Didn't stop us from cheering the rest of the game though. Still a lot us were yelling for Flip to pull Ben out when it was evident that the Hack-a Ben was in place. :doh: Didn't Doc Rivers try that last season to no avail.

Driving home, the Clipper announcer indicated that there were about 2000 or so Piston fans in-the-house. Normally the Knicks have the big fan based here too and show up enmasse for LA games.

Imagine what it must be like at Auburn Hills!

We just haven't seen a player with a legit paint game in the "D" for a long, long time...

Just wait till Max gets some burn :nod:

Imagine what it must be like at Auburn Hills!

It probably is fun at Auburn Hills, but with the cost of taking the family to Staples, I STILL LOVE seeing them the best from from my home office, family room or bedroom HD DVR TV's. I watched the pistons-knicks game this morning just to get me in the groove!.

Too bad, this was the marquee game of the night, but Shaq's return gets more highlight time. Some announcer on either NBA TV or ESPN said that Shaq was the face of the NBA:doh:

"That's a compliment," Wallace said. "They're just saying they couldn't play with us, that's all. They took themselves out of the flow of the game. Teams do that all the time against me, and they always lose. "Sometimes you outsmart yourself."

agree completely

was a classless move and many Clipper fan are embarrassed by the move.

ben's free-throws have improved up to the high 50's and low 60's and i was expecting him to make the clippers pay for fouling him so many times. besides that everything was great 3 TO's starters AND the bench played really good. dice still doesn't have his jumper going so when he does arroyo and him will be killing the other team with the pick&roll. utah has not been playing well and it would be nice to end the trip on a winning note.

Imagine what it must be like at Auburn Hills!

Yes it gets pretty loud there. They even sell ear plugs during the playoffs. Mason has done a great job getting the fans involved.

We have not had any audible cheering for the opponent since the 2001 1st round series against the Raptors. Surprises me that 2000 Piston fans were there.

I mentioned in the chat that you could see fans clapping when the Pistons would score. That has to be so demoralizing for the home team.

Bad enough the Clips share a building, but to have an out of conference road team come in and split the crowd, **shudders**

I went to a Lions game like that year's ago. Only the Bears fans stayed till the end . It made me ill to sit and watch the game with the enemy.

I suggested a Brand for Ben trade a couple years back... hmmm

Well, we know who shoots better from the line. As pissed off as people were about Hack-a-Ben, and it is a stupid strategy, nobody seemed upset about how bad Ben is from the FT line. It must have been painful to witness. Some strategic fouls late in games could hurt Detroit. I think they have the guys to overcome it, however. I think the other four guys simply get pissed off because they feel Ben is being picked on. Good for us.

Well, we know who shoots better from the line. As pissed off as people were about Hack-a-Ben, and it is a stupid strategy, nobody seemed upset about how bad Ben is from the FT line. It must have been painful to witness. Some strategic fouls late in games could hurt Detroit. I think they have the guys to overcome it, however. I think the other four guys simply get pissed off because they feel Ben is being picked on. Good for us.

I really loved how Sheed gave Dunleavy an ear full at the end about the Bang-a-Ben "strategy". The message sent was more than worth the T Sheed got.