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Dec 19th
8:00pm EST

Fedex Forum, Memphis

TV: FSN Detroit
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/grizzlies/lorenzen_wright.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/grizzlies/pau_gasol.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/grizzlies/shane_battier.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/grizzlies/eddie_jones.jpg http://www.pistonsforum.com/img/resources/grizzlies/damon_stoudamire.jpg

http://www.pistonsforum.com/images/picdump/mem121905-1.png
http://www.pistonsforum.com/images/picdump/mem121905-2.png
http://www.pistonsforum.com/images/picdump/mem121905-3.png



Game Preview

The Grizzlies coming off a win against Phoenix (after dropping 3 in a row) had success going with a small lineup of Gasol, Miller, Battier, Jones & Stoudamire.
They have several 3 point threats that are also slashers.
Gasol has bulked up over the summer. With his huge wingspan (7'6") he can shoot over most PF/C's.
These are not the old Grizzlies... they have veteran players that share the ball.
The Pistons have clear mismatches on offense with Chauncey vs. Stoudamire and whoever Mike Miller guards.

Comments on this game?
~~~

looks to me our starters are better than there starters. How did we lose both games against them last season?

looks to me our starters are better than there starters. How did we lose both games against them last season?

Stoudamire and Jones was not in this team last year.

Should be an interesting game since they are in top 5 in the west.

Billlups should be able to post up and shoot over Stoudamire all night. He better be. Rip has Jones numbers last year (Det-Miami series). Battier is playing 6th man recently, so would not know if he will start for the Grizzlies. Only interesting match up is Sheed and Gasol. If Sheed can stay away from foul trouble, it should be Pistons 19-3.

This will be a good game. A tough defensive team on the road (We'll see how the offense goes). I think the bench is key. If they start taking bad shots and turning it over a lot this will be tough to win. Hopefully Arroyo bounces back from his worst performance of the year. I'd like to see Dice or Sheed get the ball in the post with Delfino/Rip/Tay/Evans cutting to the rim on almost every possession when Arroyo is in. It will limit mistakes and if the cutters aren't open they are both money in the post anyways, so they can just go to work. Especially whoever Gasol is guarding.

This game against the Grizzlies isnt going to be easy, They lead the league in fewest points allowed per game and have beaten the pistons in their last 2 meetings... Pau Gasol is struggling right now and the Grizz have only managed 76ppg in their last 4 games, all of them losses. If the Pistons can have a decent offensive game tonight they should come away with a W. I say if we score at least 92, its a win.

yet again i don't know what to expect. last season the pistons lost to this team twice, but that was the don't care about the regular season pistons. we lost the season series to charlotte last year, and we killed them yesterday. sheed plays good against good PF's although i wouldn't say gasol is an all star or an elite pf yet. still i think sheed will take it to him.

What i do know is that pau needs to clean up that nasty beard of his.

What i do know is that pau needs to clean up that nasty beard of his.

:laugh:

Yeah, that thing is ugly. Is he Amish?

Yeah, that thing is ugly. Is he Amish?
Spanish. I think he is going for the "genuine" Three Musketeers look.

Game Chat is open. More info here, http://www.pistonsforum.com/news/853-pistonsforum-com-game-chat-debut.html

the pistons just can't let damon and eddie get hot from outside, and i think they'll be fine.

I am really curious how we play this game. Memphis is the biggest front court we've played this year, with Shane at small forward, Pau at PF and Lorenzen Wright at center. We need to keep the rebounding close, and as long as Shane is playing the 3, neither Evans or Delfino matchup defensively against. Sub patterns will be interesting to see. And we'll need good games out of Tay and Sheed.

Fire Millen
Free Darko

yay!!!! Pistons 32-23!

I am really curious how we play this game. Memphis is the biggest front court we've played this year, with Shane at small forward, Pau at PF and Lorenzen Wright at center. We need to keep the rebounding close, and as long as Shane is playing the 3, neither Evans or Delfino matchup defensively against. Sub patterns will be interesting to see. And we'll need good games out of Tay and Sheed.

Fire Millen
Free Darko

Well, you are getting your answer, we are getting dominated in the paint.

yay!!!! Pistons 32-23!cud be 21-1 ....what an effort!!my bruddahs!

We escaped with one tonite. Great shot, CB.

PHEW!! it took me closing the chat window, my dad not watching the game, and my buddy stopping working out combined to win this one...as those are all bad luck omens for the pistons. so you can thank us for this one :P harhar

warthog you get the 6th man award for the game. We thank you and the PISTONS thanks you. I think after the game Flip mentioned something about how darko could learn from your example.

The key to the win is simply that Eddie Jones had fouled out, leaving tinymouse guarding CB. In the end, we won that matchup. But old tinymouse sure had a good game. After Bobby Jackson gets back, and Ben Cardinal gets back on his feet, this Memphis team is going to be just fine.

Paul Gasol overmatched Ben a lot. What choice did we have cause Sheed was in foul trouble the entire game. Just to show how darn valuable Sheed is. Although I would have liked to see Darko guard Gasol some.

In the first half, Tay could not miss, and actually, there was nobody who could guard him on Memphis. This is the contrast between Tay and Battier. Battier is a good defender. But no height to match up with a guy like Tay. Tay is truly in a leauge of his own on defense.

CB was knocking down shots way too easy over Stoudemire. But Rip was misfiring all night. 5-15 at one point. On nothing from Sheed who was out with foul trouble. Sheed made up for that though. A shotclock running out pure raise and pray went down for a 3 pointer.

Dyess had it going in both halves. His shot is back. Way back. About as good as we have seen from the guy, well almost.

Rip was playing solid D in this game. A lot of solid D. That and this is the 7th in a helacious stretch of games might have had even this dynamo a bit out of gas.

Arroyo did fine for the game. Nothing real great, but man its good Arroyo played a good stretch of the first half. Amazing that CB had anything left to hit the game winner in the double OT period. Note, he was not quite quick enough to deliver that foul on Stoudemire before Stoudemire tied it up with that 3. Billups did swipe at him.

Tay did precious little in the 2nd half, but he did have a great block in OT and 1 score inside. Some clutch stuff there.

Delfino made some pretty good plays in the game. And he was in the game before Evans in the 2nd half of the game. As for Evans, a good play or two. But we happened to lose our cushion with him in the game in the 4th quarter. I saw things he did wrong. I will let the next guy mention them if they wish.

Dale Davis made a brief appearance. No Darko.

CB missed a long 3 to end regulation. He missed on a hook shot driving inside to end the 1st OT. But third time is the charm they say. But like I said, it was the absence of Eddie Jones, still a darn good player, that helped us finally win this one.

One amazing stat from the 1st half was our 17 points off turns compared to just 2 for Memphis. That is Billups and Arroyo doing a real fine job of keeping control of that ball. It was also mentioned that the Pistons lead the league in fewest turnovers per game at around 12. Also mentioned was that the Pistons are 41% on 3's a franchise high. CB was heard giving some comments that the Pistons knew that they could handle the responsibility of when to take or not take threes. I agree wholeheartedly.

Got to give some props to Tay too on that ball handling thing. He helps a whole lot.

Ben is being interviewd. 56 minutes tonight. Man what a game. I hope everyone else who saw the game does their best to write it up. A lot of people are anxious to read about our Pistons. GO PISTONS!!!!! And great job Ben making those free throws. Sheed better get some practice.

LOL slippy anytime :p i've got some thoughts on the game which i'll post after some x-men legends, but i'm not gonna knock on sheed for the missed free throws when he was getting ganked all night on calls and has been shooting 81% for the year :)

Dale Davis made a brief appearance. No Darko.

His attitude has gotten old and I am sure Joe D. now is on the phone looking for ways he can unload this Turkey, (Oh my bad, Memo is a Turkey) LOL

Is it really true???

Mo Evans played 9 minutes and didn't take a shot?!?!?! I think hell just froze over.

Thanks for the early recap Lee. It's truly appreciated by those who cannot see the game.

**makes mental note to let Lee continue to get away with one outrageous comment every time he does a good recap**

**makes second mental note that Lee usually uses up that free pass in each recap** :p

His attitude has gotten old and I am sure Joe D. now is on the phone looking for ways he can unload this Turkey, (Oh my bad, Memo is a Turkey) LOL

LOL! :laugh:

Thanks for the early recap Lee. It's truly appreciated by those who cannot see the game.

**makes mental note to let Lee continue to get away with one outrageous comment every time he does a good recap**

**makes second mental note that Lee usually uses up that free pass in each recap** :p

You almost fulfilled your New Year's resolution a week early.

But despite an early lead, by the end of the post, the score was:

Digs at Lee 2 - Compliments for Lee 1

:laugh:

With all of the energy and effort extended tonight, the starters will definitely need a blow tomorrow night against the 7-18 Blazers who are 2-9 on the road. We beat them by 3 in their crib, with D. Miles going off. He will be MIA tomorrow.

56 mins by Ben on supposedly bad wheels may make him a liability tomorrow. Time for Flip to throw Dorko out there with the other starters and bring in Delfino and Dice after the 7 minutes.

I think we may see a good bit of Dale Davis tomorrow.

I think we may see a good bit of Dale Davis tomorrow.

Davis is fine, but if Flip doesn't have confidence enough to throw Darko out there now with the starters rubber legs then he needs to be traded and we can cut our losses now.:confused:

Davis is fine, but if Flip doesn't have confidence enough to throw Darko out there now with the starters rubber legs then he needs to be traded and we can cut our losses now.:confused:

Time for AJ to get in there. I am sure his legs are very fresh and right now he could probably leap over both Ben and Sheed without a problem.

Howabout Gasol? What a game by him.

But the Pistons are just a five-headed monster. Sheed had a bad game... but he still found a way to keep himself in the game in the OT's and hit a huge 3-pointer when we really needed it. Rip was a little off (possibly due to the three jammed fingers on his shooting hand), but he still found a way to hit a big shot and some clutch free throws. So of course, Tay, Ben, and Chauncey have a great game, and we get another W.

Off the bench, Dyess was the man. Delfino played very hard I thought. He quickly realized that he needed to do something besides shoot the J. So he had a few nice drives and played relatively good D. He was 2 for 2 on stopping Memphis fast breaks tonight as well. Arroyo, Davis, Evans all tried hard and gave somebody some rest.

If you give Chauncey 3 shots to beat you, he'll probably make good on one of them.

What a player Gasol is. People can say that he's playing tougher this year, but I think he's always been underrated because of his nationality/skin color. That block where he instantly closed out on Delfino's jumper from 10 or 12 feet away was incredible, and on offense he's like a super-sized Prince. Ben just doesn't have the length to deal with him, but he managed to get some steals at the right time.

Still a little hoarse from yelling at the TV. Didn't work -- the Pistons just kept getting burned on that stupid screen/roll at the top of the key. All you need to know: Detroit won the first quarter by 10 and the second overtime by 2. Otherwise we were giving ground.

Terrible game by Sheed, the Grizz did a nice job jamming up all our screens for Rip, and Prince cooled off after a torrid first half. How we won with starters shooting 3-11 (Sheed), 3-8 (Ben), 6-18 (Rip) and 8-18 (Chauncey) can only be explained by championship experience. Memphis started to wilt and lose focus in the second overtime. They were celebrating so hard at just hitting game-tying shots, I kind of felt they wouldn't have the composure to get over the top.

Pretty decent clutch free throw shooting by Ben, and as pointed out earlier, getting Eddie Jones out of the game made it a lot easier for Chauncey to sink the game winner on his third try (misses at the end of reg and 1st OT). Still, this game reminded me of the wins we were getting just before Dallas crushed us. Some bad habits and a very good Memphis club.

after the game i forgot how the pistons lost a very good lead. oh well a win is a win. now tommorow i think sheed will do good because he carried us throught that chicago game which was the second game of a back to back because he was dissapointed in his play against the knicks the day before. rasheed couldn't get into a flow, but he did hit that huge 3 if that didn't go in the grizzlies would of won that game.

The trend is still there: big men that can shoot mid range jumpers do a mess on scoring on us.

Is that new avatar Darko in his firemen's helmet? :cool:

in the 4th we were playing to protect the lead too early, instead of running the offense. there was no ball movement and just dribbling until 10 seconds left on the clock and then trying to get a shot off. no biggie, that hasn't happened often this year.

sheed didn't play a lot of minutes tonight which bodes well for the blazers tomorrow

The trend is still there: big men that can shoot mid range jumpers do a mess on scoring on us.

Big men who can shoot mid range jumpers do a mess of scoring on everybody. Fortunately, there aren't many who can also put it on the floor like Gasol.

Man, that dunk over Ben and Sheed last night was insane!

The key to the win is simply that Eddie Jones had fouled out, leaving tinymouse..... ........Ben Cardinal gets back on his feet, this Memphis team is going to be just fine.

Good report Lee.

Too things bothered me though...

Stoudamire is called Mighty Mouse not "tinymouse" :)

..and I believe the former Piston know as "The Janitor" is called Brian Cardinal not Ben Cardinal. lol!

Otherwise job well done. :)

This is one game where I think Flip really didn't play to his strengths... he made a few mental errors....
He didn't foul Stoudamire to prevent the 3 (2nd guessed himself)
He used Ben on Gasol instead of Sheed (worth the foul out risk)
He didn't insist on posting Rip on Stoudamire and getting Sheed down low on a clear mismatch.
I just thought we could have made this game a lot easier than it was and saved the legs for Portland.

Now for a little Crow stew...Y'all know I've been tough on Delfino (lack of "D")... but he really moved his feet well in this game... that's what has been lacking (not the offense)... I really hope this continues so that our search for a backup SF ends... you can see the confidence growing and as long as he understands the importance of staying in front of your man the job is his.... Nice job C.D.... I might buy him a playstation for X-Mas.

Now if we could get Lee to admit that not all of the Piston mistakes relate to Evans.

Our honorary fireman could give jump shooters fits if he could just learn how to play basketball.

I think DS looked more like tinymouse than Mightymouse trying to defend Chauncey on the last shot.

I think DS looked more like tinymouse than Mightymouse trying to defend Chauncey on the last shot.

Oh, I get it. Intentional sarcasm. :)

I forgot to note that Carlos Arroyo pretty much sucked last night, and I wanted to make sure it was mentioned.

Can't they put an Invisible Fence transponder in his jockstrap or something? If he's still standing around dribbling when the shot clock goes under 10, Flip just presses a button and -- zzzpt! -- he gets the message. There is no excuse for monopolizing the ball for two-thirds of a possession when you're not doing anything with it.

I think DS looked more like tinymouse than Mightymouse trying to defend Chauncey on the last shot.

Yeah, but DS was able to run circles around CB a couple times and CB wasn't getting any help in the paint

I forgot to note that Carlos Arroyo pretty much sucked last night, and I wanted to make sure it was mentioned.

Can't they put an Invisible Fence transponder in his jockstrap or something? If he's still standing around dribbling when the shot clock goes under 10, Flip just presses a button and -- zzzpt! -- he gets the message. There is no excuse for monopolizing the ball for two-thirds of a possession when you're not doing anything with it.

The excuse would be that he is waiting for the play to develop and screens to be set. I think that Chauncey has an easier time, because his defender can't sag off him at all, or bam, 3-pointer. That is why I think that Carlos needs to be a bit more selfish offensively, so that the defense respects him.

I doubt there's a play in the NBA that requires 10 seconds to set up. And even if there is, a point guard standing 30 feet from the basket is in no position to execute it. His job is to use movement to lure opponents into the right position for screens and cuts, not to stand around like he's surveying a building foundation.

Carlos has plenty of quickness and skill for that job, even if he doesn't end up taking the shot.

The key to the win is simply that Eddie Jones had fouled out, leaving tinymouse guarding CB. In the end, we won that matchup. But old tinymouse sure had a good game. After Bobby Jackson gets back, and Ben Cardinal gets back on his feet, this Memphis team is going to be just fine.

Paul Gasol overmatched Ben a lot. What choice did we have cause Sheed was in foul trouble the entire game. Just to show how darn valuable Sheed is. Although I would have liked to see Darko guard Gasol some.
So what you are saying is the reason why the game was so close is because Sheed was in early foul trouble. Cool.

Just what the doctor ordered a tough game against a team with good D and a great frontline. I hope the moxie that it took to win last night will continue into 2nite and we get one over Portland, No D Miles should be a good thing. Sheed will be very motivated from the bad game lastnight and having the student Zac in town.

This is one game where I think Flip really didn't play to his strengths... he made a few mental errors....
He didn't foul Stoudamire to prevent the 3 (2nd guessed himself)
He used Ben on Gasol instead of Sheed (worth the foul out risk)
He didn't insist on posting Rip on Stoudamire and getting Sheed down low on a clear mismatch.
I just thought we could have made this game a lot easier than it was and saved the legs for Portland.

Now for a little Crow stew...Y'all know I've been tough on Delfino (lack of "D")... but he really moved his feet well in this game... that's what has been lacking (not the offense)... I really hope this continues so that our search for a backup SF ends... you can see the confidence growing and as long as he understands the importance of staying in front of your man the job is his.... Nice job C.D.... I might buy him a playstation for X-Mas.

Now if we could get Lee to admit that not all of the Piston mistakes relate to Evans.

yeah we should of fouled, and we've seen flip pull that off against GS when we were up by 3 so it's not like he doesn't know about that. delfino had a couple of very good slashes.