Max and Big Ben might be the shortest PG/C-combo in the league but they make up for it by also being the worst combo in shooting, ball handling and passing. Split them.
Daye sitting - (has he really made 8 consecutive 3 pt shots on his current streak? hard to sit a guy like that - especially since he's clearly a key to our future) - and Maxiell getting significant minutes at 6'6" really screams for how badly this team needs to open up minutes for Daye by trading Tay for a big and sitting Maxiell.
didn't get to see the game tonight, but by looking at the box score, it looks like the workload was very evenly distributed. Lots of different players having good nights without taking a lot of shots. Overall efficiency. Stuckey with a very nice line. Win on the road! A few more of these and we may be a dark horse for the 8th spot in the... ah I don't want to jinx us.
You forgot free throw shooting. Sure, you probably lumped it in there with shooting, but as bad as it is, I believe it deserves special mention. Now, Q knows what works. When it comes time to winning the game (or just attempting to in many cases so far at the end of the game), this season you often find a logical combination at power forward / center. On the other hand, otherwise Q has been apt to have no sense when choosing who plays as his bigs. Starting Daye at power forward? Absurd. Sure, Daye has height - but is typically outweighed by 30 pounds minimum at that position. Outmuscled extremely. Much of the season, we have seen the combination of Ben Wallace with Daye, or CV with Monroe. Neither of which works. Except at crunch time, when he makes sense all the sudden. I don't really care how he goes about it, though I have my best guess scenario - Ben Wallace paired with Monroe, while JMAX gets paired with CV. Always have someone strong in there, so you don't get pushed around, and someone with height to simply snag the rebounds before they come down to ground level or so. The person with height must have some size too, so that leaves Daye out. I do like to see Gordon and CV stay paired up, so if Gordon ever moves in as the starter, I say go with CV and Ben Wallace to start games. Which would pair up JMAX and Monroe. (Of course, you could have Ben Wallace come off the bench, and stay paired with Monroe in that case. But then you might have a game with zero rebounds from your starting bigs. Ouch. Better start Wallace (or JMAX) and Monroe as the starters.) And the best scenario - have Daye backup Tay, giving you more rebounding help from the small forward position in the 2nd unit. And with TMAC being the backup shooting guard, wow, more rebounding still. Start: Stuckey, Rip, Tay, Monroe, Ben Wallace 2nd unit: Gordon, TMAC, Daye, CV, JMAX. And the alternative, which might work even better as it balances out the rebounders better. Start Stuckey, Rip, Tay, Monroe, JMAX 2nd unit: Gordon, TMAC, Daye, CV, Ben Wallace And who finishes the game? Stuckey, cause he can drive the ball to the hoop. Gordon and CV, cause they can shoot. By season's end, TMAC may beat out Tay for this role. Ben Wallace for the last 2 minutes - after they can't play hack-a-Ben. Maybe JMAX in there for the 3 minutes before that, although him and CV paired might have trouble with the rebounding.
Monroe's free throw shooting is very odd so far. Perhaps he is nervous? He is 5 for 16 (31.3%) at the line this season. In his 2 seasons at Georgetown, he shot 68%. That isn't setting the world on fire, but it's a long way from 31%. This will be something to keep an eye on.
Glad to see Charlie is starting to break out and silence the negative nicknames we've been giving him. I was never a fan of the piling on.
His FT shooting will, I think, be fine. His form looks good. I'm guessing that he's just nervous - pretty normal stuff for a 20 year old at the start of his career scrambling for PT.
That was a good game. Every Piston who played - played well, did their job and contributed to this win. Sure Sacto abused us on the glass but that's what they do, they have a team full of tall players who can get off the floor (unlike CV & GM). We shared the ball and spread it around. Please don't nit pick this game, enjoy this win, who's knows how many we'll get this season. Westphal says we definitely look like a playoff team (I agree, 6th seed here we come!!!). Q had a great quote in the post game, when T-Mac was suppossed to sub for Tay in the 2nd half Tracy suggested Q leave Tay in the game because he'd just made 3 straight shots, Q said NO, we need Tay to finish the game, By George I think he's got it!!!!! If this team will play smart, play together, share the ball, don't worry about minutes-points-shots etc etc, they can really make some noise this year, but each player is going to have to committ to sacrificing for the team.
Stuckey is pretty good at staying in front of his man and contesting and stripping when his man tries to post him up.
Watching the replay and for the record I'm tired of Stuckey getting ZERO respect from the refs. Grant it he needs to stop double clutching but the defense gets away with mauling him sometimes.
Yeah, he definitely takes a lot more physical abuse than his free throw attempts per game would indicate.
Especially compared to Wade, you can't even breath on that guy and he doesn't take near the amount of contact in a game that Stuck does. To Wade's credit he does fully extend on his drives as compared to Stuck who double clutches too much.
That is actually very encouraging. This was a good win, because we played well as a team. The ball moved well and so did the players. There were very few isolation plays and those that were run were mostly successful. The team played to its potential today. We keep this up and we can be back to having a winning season. Not much hope for 2nd round of playoffs, but baby steps.
Neither is Bynum. He was pestering the Sacto guard bringing the ball up to half court when he ran into a Thompson. He got the wind knocked out of him on a MOVING SCREEN in the 3rd and the refs just didn't call it.
Even worse, I think it was Charlie V's late single assist that put me over. Nice game from the Pistons though. With so many guys at more or less the same talent level someone is going to have to sit some nights.
I really enjoyed the game. Cousins looked like he has a long way to go. He was getting angry and showing that attitude. He got the ball stripped a couple of times. They made hime the face of the franchise a bit prematurely. Monroe seems to know what he does well and sticks to that. He doesn't try to do too much.
I like Cousins a lot. He is asked to do a lot more than Monroe is. He didn't play well yesterday though. I would have been happy with 1 win on this trip so the potential to go 3-1 is great. I think the Pistons chemistry is starting to come around. They are starting to believe in one another. Ben Gordon key in the clutch as Pistons beat Kings | detnews.com | The Detroit News
I dont like Stuckey's public comments about his "team mates". What is the point of that? Does he say these things to their face, or expect them to read about them in the paper? Because quotes like that lead me to believe me he is posturing.
Anybody else see Stuck try to waive off a time out by Q late in the game when he had just fed Tay in a mismatch in the post? Q called the timeout any ways and Stuck yelled out "God D______! Thought for sure he was coming out after that. Oh; they didn't score out of the timeout either. Turned into a rushed shot to beat the clock.
