At Chicago January 19th, 8:30 PM TV20 Detroit, NBALP The Pistons pay a visit to the dysfunctional Bulls who currently hold the 11th seed in the Eastern Conference. However, they are 2-0 against the second seed Pistons this year.
Bulls had their best games against the Pistons this year, and Pistons, so far, weren't up to the challenge. Hopefully this trend reverses this time. Kick them while they're down.
They were down since the season started and we still were not able to kick them, let alone beat them. Anyway, i hope your wishes come true though.
They're even having problems with their D-League guys: ESPN - Bulls rookie Curry arrested for urinating in public, resisting arrest - NBA
For some reason, a couple of Pistons seemed intimidated by Ben or even Ty Thomas in the middle in those first two games. Now this isn't a proven fact, but let me throw some numbers at you. Game 1 Bulls win 97-93. Tay and Dice take only 7 shots between them and hit 3 of them. They do however go to the line and hit 6/10. Sheed tries to be the one man gang vs Tyrus Thomas and took 24 shots for his so far season high 36 points Pistons get out PIP'ed 42-26. Game 2, Bulls win 98-91. Tay and Dice shoot a combined 4-19 with only 1 trip to the FT line and 8 points between them. Ben grabs 13 boards and has four blocks, and to make matters worse hits 8-9 FT's. Which means that Been had as many points at the FT line than Tay and Dice combined. Oh yeah, Pistons get out PIP'ed again 34-26. To make a long story short here, we got to get more production out of our two starting forwards if we expect to win this game. We know that will not be an easy task as they will probably be worn out the night before battling with Kmart, Salmons and Artest for 35+mins....
My pants are my property, but urinating in public usually means "damaging" somebody's property and that's crime. If you urinate in your own backyard, you are not criminal but (in most cases) drunk.
dice confessed, that they tool sactown lightly, if so, they were rightfully punished. Hope, they punish bulls, rightfully, or not. GO PISTONS!
dice confessed, that they took sactown lightly, if so, they were rightfully punished. Hope, they punish bulls, rightfully, or not. GO PISTONS!
My guess would be a week before or at the trade deadline. Brezec and Herrmann can't be packaged before then.
I took a peak at the boxscore. I had a friendly bet with someone. I won the bet. Stuckey only played 8 minutes tonight. What is Saunders excuse this time? (This guy actually thought Stuckey would get 20 minutes. Doesn't he know Saunders coaches this team?) Our team was doing fine, a tie game, when Stuckey was pulled way too early in the 2nd quarter. There was no reason for that. Of course, as I predicted, Stuckey did not get 6 first half minutes. This was a 2nd game of a back to back set. Time to rest people big time in the 2nd quarter. Now, things were not that bad. But Tay played pretty much the first 18, maybe 19 minutes of the game. He was absolutely useless in the 2nd half of the game. Now, Stuckey did not get his development time, but Afflalo did play. Flip did show some common sense tonight, pulling two starters very early in the 3rd quarter as this game was heading toward disaster. Afflalo and JMAX helped get us back to within 1. Mysteriously though, Afflalo was not out there to start the 4th quarter. Our perimeter defense broke down immediately and Chicago pushed right back out to a double digit lead. Afflalo was then brought back in, and was expected to save the Pistons a 2nd time. But we went with three guards when he came in, something that seemed nuts in a game where we could not get any boards. Still, at least Stuckey and Afflalo each got 8 minutes of playing time. Amir did not play. Flip would much rather lose a game vs. let Amir play. We had deep, serious foul trouble in this one, and the best Saunders could do was trudge Herrmann out there as a power forward. Hmmm, just how many points did that lose us to Chicago at the end of the first half. Got to review that. Hey, Flip, use a power forward if you need a power forward. Preferrably someone who can rebound and block shots. But at least Saunders added someone to the rotation. Billups had a fine game. Got to the line a lot, made plenty of shots. Rip did some scoring in the first half at least. Sheed? Not much. Dyess did have some rebounds, but he was scoreless in the first half, and was in there while they were killing us on the boards. No defense. At least he had the boards. This was a back to back. I believe Dyess played about 67 minutes between the two games. No way he can handle that. Stuckey spelled Billups for just under 6 minutes, stretching from the last two minutes of the first quarter to about 4 minutes into the 2nd quarter. He made a jumper. He had a good feed to Maxiell under the basket, but Maxiell got blocked. Stuckey in all was doing just fine there; he was taken out solely because Flaunders does not understand the game of basketball. Stuckey was needed to continue to add energy for us. We did quite badly the rest of the quarter. Rip was rested more than usual compared to lately. Hayes and Prince played as a tandem about 6 minutes into the 2nd quarter. But this is a back to back. Rip still should not have come back into the game. Afflalo should have played the end of the first half, because we needed his energy. Amir Johnson should have played in this game. Extensively. Chicago beat us in the 2nd half by playing a rookie, full of energy, as one of their bigs. We could not match their energy. This was a coaching loss. Another failed attempt at cutting a very deserving player, Afflalo, out of the rotation. Hey, Flip, good job of bringing him in, but next game, drop the non-sense. Play Afflalo a lot. I highly doubt it, cause as of yet, Saunders won't admit there is such a thing as fatigue, but just maybe, just maybe, Saunders will get it after this one. Do what Dumars wants, play the young guys. Hayes did hit some shots tonight. But like the last 2nd quarter where he played most of it, the other team scored 30. Thankfully, at least Deng was injured and not playing tonight. It would have been far uglier.
