Dixon has not replaced Afflalo yet. Everytime this season Flip has tried not playing Afflalo, we go on a losing streak. If we can win with Dixon replacing Afflalo's minutes, it will surprise the heck out of me. I say all that will happen is what has happened all season long: If Afflalo does not play, we will go on a losing streak. Which will end as soon as Flip comes to his senses and plays Afflalo, our best perimeter defender.
Well so far Dixon has replaced Afflalo. Not sure if that will change or not but that seems to be the case right now. Stucky's mins have not been effected as Dixon has just replace the 10 min that Aaron was getting. So you are trying to tell me that the 10 MPG that Aaron was getting was the main reason why we won or lost? I agree that AA should not have been replaced because I liked the chemistry he and the rest of the guys were developing and why change something that was working? But they do have to start shooting a little better.
What I am saying is real simple. Without Afflalo in the rotation, we can't even win one more regular season game going forward, let alone a playoff series against any team. So far, Dixon has replaced all of Afflalo's minutes once, and we lost the game. (Boston.) Until such time as Dixon playing instead of Afflalo actually wins us a game, you can't say Dixon has replaced Afflalo. You can only say Flip is experimenting with the rotation. An experiment that will fail.
Just won the last game without Afflalo. Just a quick scan but I believe we are 3-1 with Dixon playing and 1-1 with Dixon and without Afflalo.
Afflalo played in the Knicks game, and was in for one of our defensive runs that helped win the game. Dixon tried very hard to lose the game in the 2nd half. edited to add; I figured out part of Flip's problem. He doesn't respect or value the little/underrated things. When teams of even talent face eachother it's often those things that decide a game. A great defensive stretch by Afflalo, or him simply not spotting the other team points. An enery spark from Hermann, etc. He has no handle on the intricacies of coaching. In the case of the Pistons, their overall talent can often cover this up but when they face a good team (ex; BOS), the bad moves get magnified and exposed.
Afflalo played the first 6 minutes of the 4th quarter. Afflalo has only been kept out of one game. We lost that one. For the season, if Afflalo plays 5 minutes or less, we are at 8-7. We are 29-2 if Afflalo plays 16 or more minutes. Jaun who?
When Afflalo actually got those kind of major minutes, it was usually because we were blowing out a time. You have to look a little closer inside of the facts before making judgements like that. When Afflalo only plays a few minutes, it is usually because we are in a very tight game, and it is more likely for us to lose that game. Afflalo is a talented player, but his impact on most of those games is marginal to average, and not monumental like some suggest.
Nope. We have not blown away 29 teams. Guess again. When Afflalo is heavily featured in the rotation, we always win. I watch every game twice at a minimum. Things like this don't escape me too easily. Here is a for instance. The Portland game during our recent 10 game win streak. Yes, that was a blowout. But it was a close game when Afflalo came into the game. We had like a 54-27 lead toward the end of the 2nd quarter. Flip Saunders had played Afflalo a lot. But then, he has turned around and several times tried to cut Afflalo out of the rotation. He tried this when Stuckey started playing, announcing that we were going to an 8 man rotation pretty much. It resulted in a losing streak that did not end until Flip put Afflalo back in the rotation. Rip may be part of the problem. Even though each time Afflalo gets 8 minutes in the first half, we end up blowing the other team away, apparently Rip whined about his lack of playing time. So Afflalo was cut down to just a brief stint in the 1st half. We do not do as well with Afflalo playing less. In tonights game, Afflalo was kept out of the rotation, and we won. But we won with a whole lot of fire power from Billups, Rip, and Tay. (Theo too) Our perimeter D was atrocious. Particularly bad in the 1st half with Dixon in the game. (Where we lost our lead.) This game should have been a blowout for us. Except Afflalo did not play. Its not being blown out of proportion at all. If you don't believe me, go look at the game logs yourself and compile a summary of what has happened this season when Afflalo is or is not heavily featured in the rotation.
It's pretty critical to our defense though i agree he's not the sole reason we win games. I didn't catch most of the 4th. We were up 7, and then i came back we were up 1. Amir was not in the game after he was killing it in the 4th. I turned it off. I plan on watching it later, but we gave up back to back 30+ quarters and Ben Gordon LIT us up. From the looks of it Flip didn't even try Afflalo who IIRC shut down JJ when Rip couldn't as well as bothered AI. We gave up 109 points. If the Original Zoo crew had entered the game when we were up 11, i'm almost positive this would've been a blowout. Sheed's absence is a factor, and Amir didn't play nearly as much as he should, but Dixon was awful in that short stint. I counted 10-12 points he gave the opposition. This isn't going to fly against better teams. It would've have been a loss had CHI not sucked so much.
Slow down and take a deep breath. Shouting and moving aggressively edge-wise, does not give the rest of us confidence on your abilities to see the big picture, which for most of us means: front-and-center.
Lee can back up his Afflalo claim with tangible stats. Is AA solely responsible for that phenomenon? No, but he's gotta be contributing positively for that to happen.
Those stats are silly. The Pistons were something like 31-3 when Darko played in games his rookie year.
It is standard chicken or the egg reasoning. Are the wins because AA played, or did AA play because we were going to win.
Darko never played more than 12 minutes and recorded 12 min only twice in his rookie year. Both were wins. Stats can be used to back up any arguement, but at the same time can be discounted in the same varying ways. How does Afflalo's stats show that he is NOT responsible for the record (I.e. plus minus)
When Theo starts instead of Sheed we are undefeated; Therefore the Pistons play better when Theo starts.
Detroit Pistons NBA stats and data from 82games.com looks like were better with him on the bench.... other interesting tid bits though - Johnson has our best plus minus of players with serious burn so far this season - Were actually better when Hamiliton is on the bench.... - Maxiell is our worst plus minus of players with serious burn - Stuckey has alot of work to do before the playoffs start - Billiups is by far our best player Looks like max should be the 4th big with Rat being used when matchups warrent it, leaving Johnson as 1st big man off the bench Dixon (if keeps up the stats, now has a very small sample) needs to be the back up at the 2 for the playoffs.
Most times when AA played big mins was during all those blowouts when the starters rested in the 4th quarter. Also all those early 1st quarter leads led to a lot of bench play in the 2nd quarter. There were some games though when the bench increased the lead in the 2nd quarter.
This is not true. Afflalo has played a lot of good minutes in non-blowout games. The logs are all right there for anyone to read. I have actually started posting summaries on the other board just to disprove this. We have not even had that many blowouts by the way. I will repeat, we are 26-4 when Afflalo plays 11 or more minutes. We have not had anywhere near 30 blowouts. Those blowouts we did have, Afflalo sometimes did not play in them until garbage time, and did not get up to 11 minutes. If you want to dispute this, you go look at the logs yourself and do your own summary. (Of course, you will see what I already know, blowouts have nothing to do with the above stat.)
