Game 3 and the Start of a 4 game/city in 6 nights trip out west.

Can this years Pistons possibly do any worse than last season out there? We will see.

This ones on FoxSports FSN Detroit. Blaha will be back.

Big game from Okur tonight.

21 points
12 rebounds
2 assists
2 steals
2 blocked shots.

These guys can really fill up the stat sheet.
AK47

4 points
5 rebounds
3 assists
3 steals
4 blocks


We have our work cut out for us in this one.

Big game from Okur tonight.

21 points
12 rebounds
2 assists
2 steals
2 blocked shots.

These guys can really fill up the stat sheet.
AK47

4 points
5 rebounds
3 assists
3 steals
4 blocks


We have our work cut out for us in this one.

Looks like they are still unbeaten. We lost badly to them at the Salt Lake City last season. Certainly a tough match for us.

Remember when his Herman Munster brown locks graced the streets of Detroit?

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/2148/42991935af130200015cyf5.jpg

It's time Detroit. Let's play some MEMO BALL!

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/3779/sporspal116yb0.jpg

(http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061106/SPORTS0102/611060323/1127/rss13)

Wish Memo was still here (well, ok, maybe not at his current contract). Unibrow can ball.

Utah gives us all kinds of trouble. I'm betting on serious foul trouble tonight for our bigs, so Max may be a difference maker (either good or bad).

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo... Not Utah again. Anybody but Utah.

Put me down as a big fan of Baby Fats. This should be a great game.

linwood secretly wants utah to play well with 3 guys on his inherited fantasy team :D

I'm staying home this time. Chauncy will need to find a different Pistons fan in the stands to point to this year.

First test of the season. I watched the Jazz on Saturday and they looked like a confident bunch. The front court will be the key tonight as our bigs will have to stick around in the point and stay honest. Boozer averaging 15 boards a game and Memo 9.

If they take care of the jazz tonight, I think they can run the table for the wild west :gun1: coast trip, especially since the LA Kobes have come back down to earth.

I am looking to see how Flip plays the bench, especially tonight. Look for Utah to play their bench, they have a pretty good one.

As stated the Jazz gives us fits, however I look for CB to abuse Fisher. Let`s match the Brahma against Boozer and see what happens!!!!!!!!

Chat opening soon, Roscoe? Bulls-Bucks is on at 8:30.

Chat opening soon, Roscoe? Bulls-Bucks is on at 8:30.

Bucks have been doing very well. I never even really looked at their team, but it's very solid right now. Once they get Simmons back they could be a team that could very likely pull off a series victory in the playoffs. I don't think Stotts is a good coach though. Porter was better.

CHAT IS OPEN!

Wow, Alaa Abdelnaby in the house on NBATV.

So Joe D is traveling with the team... I don't recall him going out west before... scouting trip?

This trip should show the metal of the bench... keeping an eye on how other teams benches score.

Great game... no problems... well maybe a better job of switching the picks.
Sometimes ya just gotta give the other guys credit... they shot the lights out tonight.

Tough loss tonight. Can't fault the effort. Lost by 2 with a near miss by Billiups if it would have counted.

Lost 3 points on no tolerance free throws and a bit of home cooking in crunch time when Sheed backed off on Memo causing him to take about 5 steps but Memo threw it up and in plus got the call.

One of those road losses. Still a lot better than last season against this fully healthy and playing great Utah team.

The good news is that there is a lot of talent on this Piston team.

We were out executed by a slower, less-talented group.

At times, Chauncey, Rip and Dice should have sat as they were out-of-sort at certain moments. Where was the leadership from the bench?

The defensive concept is lacking including time times that we zone. We can't allow that many easy baskets even in the regular season.

Our offensive sets get jammed up at key times and we turn the ball over.

We played well enough to win by 10 but lost.

well... you cant win em all. seemed like offensive fouls, missed FT's, and sketchy calls killed us down the stretch. looks like sheed had a monster game and our bench was solid. if rip hadn't been having an off-game we probably would have won. but i only saw the second half, what did we look like in the first?

I wish CB would attack the basket more. He can take most PG off the dribble, if he doesn`t finish he can at least get to the FT line, he does shoot near 90%!

Sheed seemed to be quicker on defense tonight, now he needs a little help. Boy, I hate to say it but now you can see how effective Sheed and Ben was/could be together defending the paint.

Some help for Sheed with the interior defense and some agressive - attack the basket offense and we could be alright........

Lost 3 points on no tolerance free throws and a bit of home cooking in crunch time when Sheed backed off on Memo causing him to take about 5 steps but Memo threw it up and in plus got the call.
Man that's true... I didn't think of that but this could be labeled a "Stern loss"

Anyone get blacked out on League PAss? I just bought it last week and experienced my first blackout. Im in Atlanta so I thought the West Coast trip would be fine? anyone have experience with this and can offer some insight?

Tough loss tonight. Can't fault the effort. Lost by 2 with a near miss by Billiups if it would have counted.

Lost 3 points on no tolerance free throws and a bit of home cooking in crunch time when Sheed backed off on Memo causing him to take about 5 steps but Memo threw it up and in plus got the call.

One of those road losses. Still a lot better than last season against this fully healthy and playing great Utah team.

Definitely a walk by Memo that gave them 4 points including the Cowens tech. Difference maker here in a closely played and officiated game.

Despite the less than inspired play by Rip and CB, the bench looked good and Sheed is played his 3rd good game in a row. Their guard play of Williams, Giricek and Fisher were pesky and outplayed our guards. Williams and Fisher had more assists (14) than our whole team Ouch!!

Once again we even out rebounded the opposition for the 4th straight game, but a key block and a TO killed us in the last minute of play.

Based on what I saw tonight, the rest of this trip should produce W's

Just as a reminder... lotta folks said they'd gladly take some early losses to develop the bench more.
I've been critical of Carlos... but if he can continue to play at this level then he's EARNED his right to play.

too annoyed and PO'ed to post my recap. i'll snag it tomorrow when i'm calmer, but we got screwed outta this one.

Anyone get blacked out on League PAss? I just bought it last week and experienced my first blackout. Im in Atlanta so I thought the West Coast trip would be fine? anyone have experience with this and can offer some insight?
Hopefully someone here chimes in with some advice. Sorry to hear you missed the game. I listened on the radio.

too annoyed and PO'ed to post my recap. i'll snag it tomorrow when i'm calmer, but we got screwed outta this one.
Something that new school fans will have to accept is that this team will always have ref trouble. It is not a sexy team the league wants to promote. If they are going to win, they will have to do it at a disadvantage some nights.

If the Bad Boys could do it in Boston Garden, this team can do it in OooooTaaaaaH.

Anyone get blacked out on League PAss? I just bought it last week and experienced my first blackout. Im in Atlanta so I thought the West Coast trip would be fine? anyone have experience with this and can offer some insight?
There's no legit reason to be blacked out... if it happens again you gotta get on the phone right away... they usually will reprogram it for you quickly (at least directv does)

Hello to all ...a single difference this evening has decided the result....shoot jazz 48 pistons 41(2) and 50 vs 33 (3) ...assist 28 - 11...mah


Sorry for my english and .....

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PISTONSSSSSSSSSSSSS FOREVERRRRRRR

Anyone get blacked out on League PAss? I just bought it last week and experienced my first blackout. Im in Atlanta so I thought the West Coast trip would be fine? anyone have experience with this and can offer some insight?

No problems here, Kpaav. I have had League pass since 1998 and have never had a game blacked out that I can recall. :noidea: On occassion the NBA TV has been blacked out when it was playing a Laker or Clipper road game, but then we could find that game on a local independent station. Call your provider and complain like Mercury suggests as soon as you experience it and they should be able to fix it right away.

This is a game of pure Irony. On one hand as a Piston Fan I hate we lost, you never want to see your team lose.
On the other hand as a hoop fan, they don't get much better than this. 2 good teams, playing hard coming down the stretch, and players making plays.
On the other-other hand, man the refs just....just.......:gun1: , that's how I feel. I really like the fact the team has to shut up and play, on the other hand I hate we can't argue the OBVIOUS F'd calls, man oh man. It seems as if there is a Hitler type of dominance by the refs now, at times I felt like calling the ACLU. I really think that the league needs to hold the refs under a magnifying glass now. Their should be a ton of pressure to get it right seeing as how they now have eminent domain over the game.
On a good note, when Tay, Rip and Chuancy can suck it up as bad as they did and we can go on the road and get 100+ against a team as tough as Utah and almost win, that's a damn good night. This is one of those games that I don't mind losing for the sake of developing. I pray that we have a Larry Brown/ Pat Riley type of season, start off decent, the team starts to gel and then WHAM!!!!! The chemistry comes together full circle just as the playoff season rolls upon us.

glad to hear flip not lying down and taking it...see below

From the AP report:

Wallace was still unhappy, to put it mildly, after the game and said he got the technical more on his reputation than what he said after thinking he was fouled when he made a shot that got the Pistons within 44-42 in the second quarter.

"I was just running down the court and said 'And one," Wallace said. "This cat (referee Steve Javie) is looking at me from the other side of the court and he bangs me up."

Wallace and coach Flip Saunders had a few other adults-only words in their postgame comments.

Saunders said the game shouldn't have been decided by technical fouls.


"My comment is that we might as well play 'PlayStation' if we are going to take the emotion out of it," Saunders said.

I don't care what the result was tonight, it is good to see that the Pistons can still play smash mouth power ball when they really want to. Sheed, Dyess, JMax, Nazr were all playing HARD. They were getting their paws on everything.

Delfino looked very tough as well.

If we play like this even half the time, we are going to win a lot of games.

Just as a reminder... lotta folks said they'd gladly take some early losses to develop the bench more.
I've been critical of Carlos... but if he can continue to play at this level then he's EARNED his right to play.

Yes thats something we are going to have to keep in mind this season. The bench helped tonight, especially with Billups lethargic play, but there will be plenty of other times when we lose a close one and play armchair coach wondering why Tay or whoever did not play more. The theme of this season is to win enough games while developing a solid post-season bench.

That 4-point play (okurs non-travel 3-pt and Cowens T ) did hurt and never should have happened. What can you do? There is a reason why there is so much disparity between home and road losses.

On the plus side this should translate over to a W when they visit the Palace and as for the rest of the trip stops in LA and SAC are not what they used to be.

I thought Sheed and Dyess have been doing a good job after game 1 trying to establish somekind of paint defense. Now the guards have to step up more and stop letting their guys blow by them. A couple of plays there Chauncey was just not paying attention. Overall the Pistons continue doing a good job reversing the precedent set in game #1. You can tell Utah was trying to really take it inside and had to back off a bit as the game went on.

If the Bad Boys could do it in Boston Garden, this team can do it in OooooTaaaaaH.


Took the Bad Boys a few years to do it in Boston, at least when it counted. I hope we don`t have to wait that long!

The refs are so inconsistant, how are you going to call a tech on Sheed for saying "And 1". This is BS. I don't really care about the loss right now. I know that Sheed and Nazr were the only starters doing good, and if one of our perimeter players had an average game the Pistons would of won. I hope this stops soon.

No doubt we outrebounded the Jazz but we gave up too many offensive rebound to them. If we have limited them to one shot, we would have won the game easily. Hopefully, we will improve on this.

CB had a bad shooting night and so does RIP. But CB has not been shooting well since the season started. If he is not shooting well, he should be distributing the ball better. He's the PG and should make more plays by moving the ball around.

Instead of being victims to the new rule in the NBA, CB should take advantage by driving to the hoop more against bigger guards or post up against smaller guards. He will definitely go to the line more doing stuffs like that and he is a 90% FT shooter.

So far the bench has been doing well, hopefully they will be more consistent all season.

I agree with ya jz. We were unsure of how our bigs would play as a unit and saw first hand the problems we were going to face from the PIP in the first game. They have however played well in the last 3 games and our weakness today was with our guards. Flip played well but our starters were certainly not up to par. Someone has to let CB know that he must take advantage of his size. Even tho we are .500 i have a good feeling about this team. I dont know how AJ is progressing but i would love to see him play 6-10mpg and brahma 12-15mpg. Any thoughts?

This is a game of pure Irony. On one hand as a Piston Fan I hate we lost, you never want to see your team lose.
On the other hand as a hoop fan, they don't get much better than this.

I'm with you. First game this season I actually let let myself enjoy. At some point in the fourth I realized I wasn't thinking about Flip or rotations or contracts or changes in the rules on defense and was just having fun watching basketball. You know, I like games when they score 100 points. A win would have been nice though.


...it is good to see that the Pistons can still play smash mouth power ball when they really want to. Sheed, Dyess, JMax, Nazr were all playing HARD. They were getting their paws on everything.

Yep.

CB had a bad shooting night and so does RIP. But CB has not been shooting well since the season started. If he is not shooting well, he should be distributing the ball better. He's the PG and should make more plays by moving the ball around.

He was doing that in the first 3 games--his totals were 29 assists against only 3 turnovers. But he only had 4 assists against 2 TOs last night.

This was a game that comfirmed my beliefs in this team. I'm excited about this team but I'm a little down on the league and the season.

I think this team can gel and be great make it to the ECF, but the NBA and Stern would rather burn in hell than to be in the Palace of Auburn Hills to give rings out.

Utah is as tough as they come and they always shoot well vs Detroit no matter what. I sorry guys I'm just not into it as much as I used to be I like talking about the Pistons but My honest feelings is that it will be hard for this team to win a game on this road trip. I think they will have alot of games like Utah and get the short end of the stick.:yellowprison: GO PISTONS!!!!!

Photos Quotes: Detroit @ Utah (http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/DETUTA_061106.html)

My favorite quote...

No excuses, that’s one thing that I don’t do I don’t make excuses.

:rofl:

:laugh:

Hello to all ...a single difference this evening has decided the result....shoot jazz 48 pistons 41(2) and 50 vs 33 (3) ...assist 28 - 11...mah


Sorry for my english and .....

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PISTONSSSSSSSSSSSSS FOREVERRRRRRR
nene, mio amico!

Yes the Pistons did not shoot well. Il sfera di gomma!

I didn't get to catch this game work has been horrible. But from what everyone has said we got the shaft along with some uninspired or off play from a few. I love basketball and this team.On the other hand Stern is really making it hard to watch the NBA especially when he makes rules that put this team in a hole before the whistle even blows.

BigD, it definately was not uninspired. That was one of the best effort-games from everyone on the team. We just didn't shoot as well as the Jazz. We made up for it by getting to the line a lot. But Okur and the gang were cold blooded.

And of course, they got some help.

He was doing that in the first 3 games--his totals were 29 assists against only 3 turnovers. But he only had 4 assists against 2 TOs last night.

That's exactly what i meant. He has not been shooting well since the season started. If he is not shooting well, as a PG, he should be making better plays by moving the ball around for a higher % shot for the rest of the players. 4 asst from him is not acceptable esp when we score more than 100 pts. He should be averaging 9 to 10 asst with Flip's new offensive system where our scoring average increased.