Denver March 18th, 7:30PM

TV - FSDHD, NBALP

The high flying Denver Nuggets come to the Palace fresh off of a 168 point performance against the lowly Seattle Supersonics. Denver averages 108.8 ppg, but give up a whopping 104.9. The Nuggets are fighting for their playoff lives, currently (40-26) 1 1/2 games behind Golden Stae for the eighth playoff seed.

The Pistons defeated the Nuggets last month in Denver 98-93 behind a double double (16 points 13 boards) from McDyess. A win for Detroit would give them a 4-1 mark on this five game homestand.

First team to break 150 should win this game.

First team to break 150 should win this game.

It will be a loooong night then...

As long at Jarvis keeps shooting 90%, we'll be very hard to beat. We just need to make sure that he doesn't overexert himself of defense.

I wondering if they'll match the 186-184 game they had back in '83.

PISTONS: Highest Scoring Game Ever (http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/highest_score_071211.html)

Not good, look for a slow start again being off for couple of days.

Not good, look for a slow start again being off for couple of days.
The team has fallen into this habit of starting slowly. They seem to want to make things more interesting. Maybe Flip should have the warmups extended by 5 minutes so that they are starting off the games like they should? :MusicBigGrin:

Gotta be daylight savings time early this year.

Heard that "coach" Karl just let his players play it out with no let up in the 4th as even the scrubs got into the act of running up the score on the Sonics who must of quit defensively....Would be nice if the Pistons played smack down defense and held the Nuggets to below 85!!!

Headline tomorrow "Pistons cut Nuggets scoring in half beating them 102-84" :MusicBigGrin:

This is a nice stat to keep in mind for tonights game.

The Pistons are 29-1 when scoring 100 points, however, they are 8-10 when allowing opponents to score 100 points.......hmmmmmmm!!!

Maybe we can go old school and hold them in the 60's.

" u call me?".....:MusicBigGrin:

pistons 127, nuggets 95!! nuffsaid'

Night off for me, no game on my TV. :(

Chat is open...

http://www.pistonsforum.com/misc.php?do=flashchat

Pistons 108 Denver 101

Well, that was certainly a Denver pace...136-120...were Kelly Tripucka and Kiki Vandeweghe in the house, from that 186-184 game? Pistons D in the first half was actually pretty good, as the Nugs scored just 51 to the Pistons' 73(!), and several Denver buckets just came off sloppy turnovers by CB and Rip early in the first quarter. The Zoo Crew was AMAZING in the first half, with 36 points between them! The defense utterly vanished in the second half, but fortunately the lead was big enough to withstand a parade to the rim by Melo and AI. JMax ended up being the only Piston with more than 30 minutes.

The Pistons led 34 - 25 at the end of the first qtr and I posted in Chat that we were on a pace for a 136-100 game. Well our offense kept it consistent but the starters got lax in third qtr possibly thinking the game was over allowed the Nuggets to ring up 69 points in the second half, which was possibly one of the highest totals we have given up in a half this season. As Dumars said, where's the Deef? Well with a fast pace game, TO's will be up for the Pistons and 18 was way above their league leading aveage of 11.5. Billups had 3 in each half, as the Nuggets had 12 steals which kept them within 20 for most of the game.

If I recall Melo and AI had 4 points each in the first half and finished with 27 and 20 respectively. When is the last time we allow a team to shoot 57% and dish out 31 assists and we still won? Well when you shoot 60% and have 42 assists yourself you should win. Oh yeah we controlled the boards too.

Hayes had another impressive game and once again Max had another +20 + differential for the second game in a row. Much to most of the posters chagrin Dixon was a +16:). Theo rested for his battle with Ben and Z tomorrow and the rest of the starters should be well rested too.

Here's the boxscore from the last time the Pistons put up this many points in regulation. There's been a few roster changes since then.

Pistons 140, Magic 109 (http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199002210DET.html)

Here's the boxscore from the last time the Pistons put up this many points in regulation. There's been a few roster changes since then.

Pistons 140, Magic 109 (http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199002210DET.html)


How can you lose with a bench of Aguirre, The Microwave, and John Salley who had EIGHT blocks!!!! Funny, they only had 30 assists and only made 3-three pointers....

I did not think the Pistons were capable of putting up 136 points. Won today 136-120 right after winning 86-85 on Sunday. Team is proving to be able to play at any style. 42 assists last night.

Back to the winning formula. Our starters take a nice lead and the Zoo Crew breaks it wide open.

This can work in the playoffs.

Stuckey finally hit some real jump shots! This is great news. I thought this was one of his most complete games of the year. He hit a 3 and a nice long jumper. He also got to the rim a couple times as he was aggressively attacking. His 6 assists were highlighted by a spectacular pass to Amir in the lane. And he filled up the stat sheed with a steal and a block.

Prince, our point forward had 9 asissts to only 1 turnover. Let me know if Mello ever does that.

Rip was on fire for a long while.

Sheed made 3 three-pointers that I officially did not approve of... until they went in. His 2 threes when he was trailing were good. He seems to be the best on the team at those. His D was solid as usual.

Chauncey with a double-double, but a rare 6 turnovers. Those first 2 weren't really his fault though as it looked like Rip and Sheed were still waking up.

Maxiell has a heck of a game. 8-11 shooting with a mixture of dunks, post moves, and mid range jumpers. He even racked up a few assists. He shared the team leading 7 boards with Dyess. +23 for the night.

Hayes backed up his previous breakout game with a much more well-rounded game tonight. He was still on fire from deep, but he also passed the ball well, drove into the lane for a nice finish when the Nugs overplayed him. I really really hope that he can be half this good in the playoffs. He seems to have the confidence needed to be good off the bench. Finally the game is catching up with it.

Dixon was adequate. I thought he took good shots, but he was fairly invisible for the amount of time that he was out there (17 minutes). In such a high scoring game, you'd think he could rack up some assists like everyone else. Random unluckiness maybe.

Amir has his usual solid effort and got some nice 2nd quarter minutes.


The first half was one of the most fun halves to watch all year. The 3rd quarter was frustrating and we easily could have let this thing slip away, but we just kept hitting shots. Overall, this was our best shooting night of the year by a mile.

It's beginning to look like Denver won't make it to the Playoffs. I really like the Denver team so much. It's the only team I have followed besides the Pistons this year. Last year I followed about eight teams, but I don't have that kind of bandwidth anymore. Anyway, I'm glad we won, but I do still hope somehow Denver can get in there instead of Golden State. Of course they would have to play the #1 team and would exit from the first round but stilll....

I thought we looked fantastic tonight. I like the way we play against these uptempo teams. I like to watch our defense operating at a faster pace. It's very exciting basketball to watch. Unlike the Pistons/Spurs yawnfests that are like a ritual with both teams now.

Did anyone record this one? Sounds like I missed a barn burner.

I dunno why, but it wasn't on Canadian TV, even with my fake League Pass package.

Sorry I missed chat, I figured, no game, might as well catch up on some sleep and reading so I can rock CLEVELAND tonight! :D

Here's the boxscore from the last time the Pistons put up this many points in regulation. There's been a few roster changes since then.

Pistons 140, Magic 109 (http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199002210DET.html)

You get a glimpse of what's to come with Bedford in that game...7 pts and 2 rebs. in only 7 minutes...if there were a forum then there might have been some posts calling for Bedford to start and Laimbeer or Edwards to come in off the bench... :pound:

roscoe you missed an awesome game. pistons were unstoppable in the first half. it's funny how few responses there are in a game thread when there's nothing to complain about!! i mean, denver is DESPERATE for wins and yet the only guy who played over 30 minutes was maxiell.

could it be that flip saunders *might* know a little about what he's doing? we've complained about rotations, but it sincerely looks like he's changing it up every game and giving extended minutes to a couple players to see what they can do. today he threw AJ in the 2nd quarter for 6 minutes (there ya go lee!) and he produced 4 boards. dixon was also playing better and stuckey got the entire 2nd quarter as he, hayes, and maxiell sparked a huge run.

again i've been saying all year that we need game-changers for the playoffs, for games that our starters might not be doing all that well in. max can do it with his energy plays/putbacks/blocks, jarvis can do it when his shot is on, and stuckey can do it in an overall game (btw he got totally hosed on so many fouls last night). lindsey can with a few key defensive plays. i think amir/ratliff/afflalo/dixon can do it but you can't play everyone, and hayes/max/stuckey/hunter are our best chance in my opinion.

I agree that the first half was a healthy rotation. I would have personally played Dixon less and Afflalo more, but Amir's first half minutes were such a pleasant surprise that I'm not even going to mention it.

We do have a lot of game changers off the bench.

Amir- shot blocking, offensive rebounding, easy put backs
JMax- energy, points in the paint, shot blocking
Ratliff- shot blocking
Stuckey- driving and finishing ability, athleticism
Afflalo- defense galore
Hayes- streak shooter with quick release and great range
Herrmann- energy, 3-point threat, can lock down German 7'ers!
Hunter- ball hawking

Dixon- no special talent that I can see. Maybe heart. 3' jumpers.

We don't have any boring bench players. There is no Jenkins, M. Curry, etc. A blessing for us and a curse for the coach.

There is always the possibility that Theo's run was simply finding out if he could still play and could be ending. He might be back on the bench for 5th big spot duty for a while.

That was a pretty amazing first half last night. The second wasn't bad, but the Pistons were so smooth in the first. The lead seemed to jump by ten point increments rather than twos or threes - they were up three, then up ten, then up twenty.

Denver was unconscious with the 3-pointers in the 2nd half. Also, I agree with the bad call comment made earlier. It was one of those games where it didn't matter. But if that was close, then those calls would be getting analyzed all day long here. The charge that Maxiell took, which resulted in a jump ball? What the hell was that? The charge that Stuckey took?

dba, if I were the coach, I would have done exactly that with Theo. Give him a lot of time to get him acclimated, then cut it back so that he stays fresh. Ramp him up again right before the end of the season.

I really hope that is the case with Dixon too. Maybe the learning curve is just longer at his position and he will be cut back in favor of Afflalo pretty soon too.

Flip did make the comment that was something like "just because the young guys don't play for a few games doesn't mean that they are out of the rotation." That to me would support the theory that the new guys are being test driven.

There is always the possibility that Theo's run was simply finding out if he could still play and could be ending. He might be back on the bench for 5th big spot duty for a while.

He might play some tonight against Cleveland's big men. It's a better matchup situation for him than a track meet against Denver.

"just because the young guys don't play for a few games doesn't mean that they are out of the rotation."
Is it possible to be in the rotation if you don't play?

He might play some tonight against Cleveland's big men. It's a better matchup situation for him than a track meet against Denver.

That's what I was thinking was that they were giving him the night off to be fresh vs Clevelands Stronger Bigs like Z and Ben on a back to back.

Plus Amir just matches up infinitly better with Denver than "older" Theo does...

Is it possible to be in the rotation if you don't play?

I don't know I'll go ask the chicken, or maybe the egg.

sidenote, i thought dixon did a decent job on iverson

Unusual game. We get up near 140 points and yet there are just a few minutes of garbage time. Our only good defensive run was with JMAX and Amir in the game to start the 2nd quarter. We gave up a ton of points.


Denver started the game up on us a bit. They were getting exactly what they wanted against us, inside scoring. An old story. Slow start by our starters with no inside defense. They did tighten the D up though and get the lead back.


Hayes had his 2nd good shooting night in a row. Good trend. But considering we scored as much as we did as easily as we did, got to wonder yet if Hayes can do it against good D. We should find that out tomorrow night.


Dixon played extensively. Can't say he did too bad on D tonight. Not that he gave us much, but Denver was playing some pretty darn short guards so Dixon could often find someone to guard in this game that was not towering over him.


Afflalo only got a few minutes of garbage time. Gee, seems we could have used some defense in the game.


Amir did get to play, getting 5 rebounds and 4 points in short minutes. His points were inside, two at the line and two on a cut to the basket. Six of his minutes were to start the 2nd quarter where we had our only good defensive effort.


The 3rd quarter was not too great. We lost that quarter by double digits. Stuckey came on early for Billups. I mean real early, less than 5 minutes into the quarter. JMAX came in for Sheed kind of early too.
Stuckey and Dixon both played a lot. Neither Billups nor Rip played any in the 2nd quarter. Dixon had a couple of buckets. Stuckey scored 11. He hit a triple, another jumper, scored at the line, got inside a couple times for buckets. I liked seeing both him and Amir going 2-2 at the line.


Maxiell led us in minutes. He hit a couple of like 12 foot jumpers(Maybe one was 15), scored on a fast break. The rest was inside work. Ok at the line, not great. Eighteen points in all. One fairly spectacular block.
Sheed did some work inside and was on fire from 3 land, getting player of the game honors. Tay just missed a double double with assists and points while Billups did get one. Rip showed no ill effect from playing short minutes in the first half, hitting everything he threw up in the 3rd quarter.


Again, an unusual game. Little garbage time, yet only Maxiell got over 30 minutes. All four of our stars put up some seriously good stats in short minutes. Dyess hit a couple of outside shots and did some work inside. (8 points.) So why did we give up about 120 points? Simple enough. We have to replace Dyess in the starting unit. Just no inside presence at all from him. No lateral movement. The inside was way too open for Denver with him in the game.


Dyess can be helpful against a team with a big strong center or two. But Denver? No such person. Dyess did not fit at all in this game.
Our 24 point lead we enjoyed in the 2nd quarter shrunk to just 10 with lots of time to go in the game yet, mostly due to that bad 3rd quarter, in which Dyess played the whole time.


Playoff preparation. First good news, another game where Hunter did not play. That is good. Bad news. Another game of trying for no reason at all to cut Afflalo out of the rotation. Dixon did not show much for a ton of minutes he got tonight.


Stuckey and Maxiell got good solid minutes. Amir got 6 minutes in the rotation. We'll call it 75%, a C for this game.
Theo did not play. He would have fit in about as good as Dyess anyway.