Phoenix At Detroit

Early Game ~ 1:00 PM

TV: ABC
Radio: WDFN

This is the last game for the league leading offensive team ( 108.4 PPG) PHX on their 5 game East coast swing. They are 2-2 with wins in Indy on Thursday and TOR on Friday where they put up 140 points in the win after suffering 2 blowouts against NJ and Milw. Milw put up 132 points against them on Tuesday.

With a day of rest and virtually no travel time will they be comming into the Palace fresh and ready to play or will the 5 game in 7 day road trip catch up with them? PHX will attempt to avenge the 111-104 loss to the Pistons on their homecourt earlier this year.

PHX sports a 21-14 road record - one of the best in the NBA. They are 6-4 over their last 10 games.

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Pistons win #59 of the season 109-102 and clinch East homecourt.
http://www.nba.com/games/20060402/PHXDET/boxscore.html?nav=scoreboardhome

The Pistons will have to make their jumpshots, not something that's historically come easy to them in the morning games.

It should be another big game for Dice, too, if they try to guard him with Marion again (and who else would they use? Tim Thomas?)

When you have Pat Burke on your team and the guy actually plays you know your frontcourt is hurting. Pistons must crash the glass and use their size to get the W. Hunter definetly will help slow down Nash.

Pat Burke is the pride of Ireland Max! He's the Irish Darko!

Seriously, gotta hope Ben can cover Diaw. Boris D is now the best undersized (all around) center in the NBA. Keep in mind, he was a throw-in during the Joe Johnson trade, and is now easily a candidate for most improved player.

Tayshaun and Sheed have a tall order shutting down Shawn Marion who would be a MVP candidate if not for being on the same team as Steve Nash.

Micro - Marion is kind of the Millenia's answer to Charles Barkley. Undersized rebound/offensive forward.

I guess there are several ways the Pistons can attack this game. Try to muck up their O by forcing TO's turn it into a half court game. I hope we don't try and outscore them by turning it into a jump shooting contest. Slow it down and post-up Sheed and Dyess.

One advantage will be the offensive glass. Besides Marion and Diaw they really do not have any decent rebounders. As a team PHX only averages 9.5 offesive boards/game so the Pistons can use that to get more shot attempts. If it goes high tempo then the Pistons will need more shot attempts.

Can you imagine if Stoudemire was playing? Next year.

Look for the Pistons to win this one big. The Suns come in giving up an average of a whopping 120 PPg over their last four! They actually won two of those games.

Talk about trying to outscore somebody. It`s too bad the injuries they had this year really hurt them on the defensive end, because their scoring is only down to 108 ppg this year from 110 ppg last year.

The addition of Brian Grant, Boris Diaw, and Tim Thomas has not been as succesful as the Suns had hoped due to injuries and inconsistent play on the defensive end. Hey, this is the "West Side", where offense ids the name of the game, unless you`re the Spurs.

Phoenix gives up 102 ppg a night, look for the Pistons to get just under that in a win. I agree, you still don`t want to run with these guys. I hope they dont bait Sheed and CB to start launching up the 3`s in a wide open affair. Loo for that to happen in the early going.:ohwell:

Bottom line, got to play DEFENSE to win this game. Can't be trading baskets with them. This team put up 140 pts in their last game, on the road.

However, this team without Stoudamire and Thomas has ne defense int he paint. Our bigs should pound the ball inside most of the time. Would like to see more post play, offensive rebounds by our big 3 (Wallace X2 and Dice). If we do this, we may draw a lot of fouls on them too, esp. on Marion and Diaw.

We win this game and we will have home court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs. So GO PISTONS! GO D!

Chat is open, I'll try to be by soon. I really want to get my PC DVR rolling for this game.

GO PISTONS!

the last time we faced them was a great game. we tried outscoring them and it worked, but we have to play on both ends. Expect chauncey to be very aggressive.

PHX in town and you have to score, I don't care what tempo you want to set PHX forces you to score, and when I say forces you to score that means they will not play defense, only offense. even when they lose games they score alot of points so if the Pistons come out flat and play switch on basketball look for double digit leads by PHX in some points of the game.

With that being said I think Detroit will have the same type of game the last time these two teams met back i November. PHX was up double digits for most of the game, but Detroits defense got them back and they put the ball in the hole making clutch three point shots.

No matter what you have to score there is no such thing as a defensive battle playing this team they are the best at forcing their tempo on you. If Detroit wins look at them making 8-11 three point shots.

I perdict the final will be Detroit 114- PHX 108

Am I wrong? It doesn't seem that Flip is doing any coaching so far. He is letting Phoenix do whatever they want and is doing nothing to try to counteract it.

That's how Flip always coaches.

Am I wrong? It doesn't seem that Flip is doing any coaching so far. He is letting Phoenix do whatever they want and is doing nothing to try to counteract it.

At least he's consistent. He hasn't done any coaching all season long.

The Suns are shooting the lights out! They Suns will get some points on the fast break, but what is pissing me off is all the open looks they're getting in the half court offense. The fact that all of their shots are falling is just making it that much worse, but the Pistons are giving up too many uncontested shots. Over playing the drive and then giving up the pass.

Its nice to see Sheed posting up and actually playing inside of the 3 point line for the most part. I don't even want to think about what the score would be if we didn't get all of those easy put backs.

What are the chances Sheed will keep it up in the 2nd half? Personally, I think he'll start out the 2nd half going inside, but by the 4th, if we're still down, he and CB will start jacking up the 3s.

That's not all on Sheed - most of the guards, and Chauncey in particular, are completely ignoring Sheed and Dice when they establish position. It's not uncommon to see Chauncey ignore post-ups and cutters, but this is ridiculous. At least he's one of the few Pistons making an effort on defense.

And why has Flip taken 2-chest, the Pistons unguardable pet play to get
Rip a wide-open shot, out of the playbook? I'm sick of watching the hawk series, where any competent defender can stick right with Rip on the curl. Rip has a bit more potential than Wally frickin' Szczerbiak, Flip.

Remarkable change in the second half. Ben Wallace for MVP.

Ben Wallace for MVP.
DITTO!!!

The Piston clinched home court in the East!!!

That was not the question though, we knew they would have home court in the east back in January. Detroit came out and played the game just like I knew they would. Go down double digits win this game playing in the hundreds, and had to make 8-11 threes(9-17 52%).


This team is ready for the playoffs and through the stretch I told everyone to look out for(March 22 to April 12) their 6-1 so far, this team is ready.

The bad, Sheed 16 tech has come just as suspected and will miss the NOK game only if the NBA don't recind the tech witch I doubt big time. GO PISTONS!!!!!!

Remarkable change in the second half. Ben Wallace for MVP.

That, my friends, is the difference between when Ben Wallace plays with energy, and when Ben Wallace is invisible. Ben simply MUST get some huge energy boost in the playoffs or we're in trouble. Teams aren't going to give away games like these in the playoffs.

why is it that you can be great on offense and bad on defense and win an MVP (i.e. nash) but you cant be a great defensive player and a bad offensive player like Big Ben and win MVP?

Many thanks to the person who woke Ben up. :nod: :nod:

Best line of the game, Pistons up 100-98, Billups had just hit two 3 pointers, one of which was the extra long one.

In the Phoenix huddle, Mike D'Antoni tells his guys, "If they are going to make shots like that, God loves them".

Damn straight Mike. :thumb:

Great win. We paced ourselves the first half and then turned it on. Waiting to see us play at both ends for an entire game. That will come in the playoffs. Tay is ready for the playoffs now. Have to tip my hat to that Phoenix ball. Not many teams can stand up to them. They are exploiting the use of the 3-ball and playing small. They realize that they will probably never have a Shaq or a Duncan so they spread it out and exploit their quickness. Trouble is our athletes are better then theirs. With Rip and Tay at new levels and a better bench, this Pistons team can bring back all the glory.

Entertaining game this morning. The problem, if there is one, is that we are being teased....with the "I don't care how bad we play in the beginning...we will get them in the end":doh: . So we don't know what team is going to show up from half to half. I am happy for the win, and it has now convinced me that we are not out of any game no matter what the deficit is. I only we wished we had put a stop to the Nets streak last Sunday.....I thing they are up to 12 in a row now.

The Sheed tech will undoubtably sit him out a game and end the fab five streak at 72 games or whatever it is. Maybe some quality time with the wife will calm his temper for the rest of the season.

The two negatives for today's game was the lack of defensive intensity in the 1st half which allowed the Suns to shoot over 70% and our FT shooting at on 55% > Ben 1-6 and Dice 0-3. If Ben is going to play down low he has to shoot better than 40% from the line. I think ABC threw up a graphic indicating he was only 28% over the past 14 games. I think we won 11 or 12 of them, so aint that mad, but I hope this is not a liability come playoff time.

Usually when the opponent shoots 68% in a half they run the other team out of the gym unable to comeback. Even with the last sec 3 the Pistons were still in a position to comeback given the 11-0 edge in offensive boards.

Credit Flip for making some half-time adjutments. The Suns did cooloff but the Pistons out-scored them by 20 in the second half.

Maybe some of the ABC guys took notes in this one to not annoite the Pistons opponents #1,#2 players as league MVP and runner up until the complete game is played out.

Well, I managed to record the game and watch it. Then I watched what I recorded. Man, is that a trip watching a game with rewind capability less than 3 hours after it finished. You notice so many little nuances.

The sheer amount of "arguing with the refs" footage is hard to dismiss. It's almost like a subliminal "look at the Pistons whine" hatchet job. There is hardly any Phoenix complaining, or shots of their coach talking to the refs.

And I have to watch it again, but I could have swore that Tim Thomas got 2 high 5s after hard fouling Ben. Isn't that kinda bizarre behaviour? I haven't seen an on court celebration for fouling before.

Any chance folks don't like our Pistons?

Whew, this one was a roller coaster. Collins18 asked in the chat if we thought the Pistons would win when they were down a lot. Motown and I replied that we "believed they could win".

Nice lesson for Phoenix to learn. Come into Zeke's house and try to punk our franchise player, you will leave with an embarassing loss. Because it was embarassing. The way the Pistons ratcheted up the pressure midway through the 3rd was amazing.

Lost in all of this was great supporting performances by Rip and Tayshaun. It seems like Rip is the only one who can get Ben going offensively, and we know that when Ben starts dunking, his defensive energy picks up as well.

And Joe's plan to have long players makes ball deflection and denial a piece of cake. When this team gets active defensively, they cannot be beat by anyone. And they did it tonight. Suns should be embarassed and ashamed to blow a 17 point lead.

Go PISTONS!

Micro - I was thinking after that hard foul in the old days Lamb would have decked Thomas in return - but this is not the old days. Not worth a 3 game suspension and besides we don't have any enforcers.

Yes I think there is a degree of animosity from other teams to the Pistons namely as a result of the national support the Pistons get from other fans. Every game you see at least some Piston gear in the audience and a small degree of applause for the Pistons. That has to get to the other teams players. In the PHX game earlier this year I am sure there were some Piston fans down there bugging the Sun faithfull. And it has to be very frusterating giving up that kind of lead.

You got the points pretty close VTP. And the 3s. This team is a lot like the BBZ in the way they come out in the second half. I can remember many a BBZ game where they would be down 10 to start the the 3rd and be up 10 to start the 4th.
...Eventually Flip will have to admit he doesn't coach much. All he does is tell them to be on the same page. Cause whatever style game the opponent brings and trys to exzert the Ps can do it better.

We paced ourselves the first half and then turned it on.

I wonder how much is pacing and how much is just having your pre-game schedule thrown completely out of whack by the 1:00 start, which was really noon by anyone local player's body clock. I think it's easier for a road team to play at odd hours since they've already messed up their body clocks.

A quick look back at the schedule shows the Pistons winning two of three early starts (San Antonio and Phoenix, losing to Boston), and also beating Charlotte at 3:30 once.

I wasn't able to find quarter by quarter scores for past games anywhere to compare first quarters between games with early and regular start times.

one of the most entertaining games i've watched all year - and whoever i sold my tickets to sure got their money's worth!! lots of spectacular individual plays as well. ben was the catalyst, chauncey finished the job, and everyone else supported beautifully - especially tayshaun, who has been playing fantastic lately.

not much else to say :)