Detroit Pistons at Utah Jazz Monday January 3 9:00 pm Local TV: FS Detroit Nat'l TV: Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket Chat is open!!!! http://www.pistonsforum.com/playoff-chat/
HUGE coaching match up tonight. Can you picture any kind of scenario where Jerry Sloan gives a quote to the local paper about how his office is always open for his players to come in to express their opinion on how adjustments are being made?
When oh when will Jerry Sloan win a championship? Dude was coaching at Utah when the Bad Boys won their first title....in 89
Nice first qtr, but things started to go down hill when Stuckey entered the game and everyone out there with him fell flat with the exception of Rip. Blaha said Stuck probably wouldn't play at all because he was still weak, and on the next sequence he was out there playing. He stepped in front of a pass meant for Ben Gordon and took a flat shot and then missed another jumper. Then Daye missed four straight shots. meanwhile the bench of CJ Miles and Ronnie Price came in and victimized the Pistons with a couple of threes and dazzling layups. Another second qtr meltdown in progress....lets see if they can come out of this funk on the next time out. Pistons down six 45-39 with 5:54 left in the half.
Tracy McGrady was one rebound away from scoring us all a free order of curly fries. I'm not complaining though; we've actually come close a few times this season. Good effort, T-Mac.
Good rotation. Close game against a team that has had our number for a long long time. If Stuckey was healthy - and if perhaps that 2nd unit had played together at all - ever, prior to tonight, we could have won this one. They got it together toward the end of their stint in the first half, and did fine in the 2nd half. Good move by Kuester to stick with them rather than pull them the first sign of trouble when the 2nd quarter started badly. Lots of promise. Can't see Stuckey ever getting his job back with TMAC getting near a triple double. Of note, with TMAC and Daye both playing some small forward minutes - Tay ends up having a great game. All for now. Till tomorrow night. GO PISTONS!!!!!
We have one of the great 3 pt shooters in history. He's a Piston. Late in the game we needed a 3. He was sitting on the bench in favor of a guy who isn't anywhere near as good a 3 pg shooter. Trade Rip. Play Gordon. I just don't get why Q won't play Gordon down the stretch - the guy is one of the best clutch shooters around. Whatever. I guess this season is about the ping pong balls. BTW, it's nice to see Daye playing more, I hope it'll last, but fear it won't when Stuckey's back to full strength. And it really is great getting Monroe serious PT every game. At least we're developing him the way we should. I like that kid's game a lot - he's going to be a good one.
Nice effort, but as usual, fell short in crunch time in the house of horrors for the Pistons (though to be fair, Utah owns us at the Palace too). T-Mac played really well tonight. Not sure why Stuckey played at all... he is still clearly battling that flu.
This starting lineup (TMac, BG, Tay, CV, BenW) isn't too bad. Those guys were all on the PLUS side. The subs (Stuckey, Rip, Monroe, Daye, Maxiel) were all MINUS.
I thought when Villanueva fouled out, that Qeuster would put Gordon back in there just in case we need but nope he forgot he may need another three point shooter in there, and yep we did. Two keys plays that may have loss this one in crunch time. The two stops on Al Jefferson (who was killing both Ben and CV in the first half with his step back jumpers) at about the 2:06 mark with the score tied at 93. We got the stop but failed to capitalize on the other end. First Daye missed on a three ball and then Rip missed on a turnaround jumper...only to see Deron go right down the middle in the lane on a running jumper with literaly no defense on him. Then after a time out and Tay ties the score, and everyone but Tay converges around the hoop to quadruple team Paul Milsap and it leaves Raja Bell wide open to hit a three that after the Blaha-Kelser review proved to be a foot on the line two. ..and it was never reviewed by the officials. Couldn't the assistant coaches bring it to the officials to review a three bal attempt with less than 2 minutes in the game?? That was the killer bucket as other than Monroe's first dunk of the year, every Piston shot afterwards to tie or go ahead was long.....and Mr Long-gun Gordon was stuck on the bench... Great game, but no moral victories here
Great game, very competitive and good rotations tonight. I understand why Q went with Rip down the stretch tonight, at 6'7" Rip gives us more length and better team defense. Gordon has been solid defensively, but down the stretch Gordon can get caught on switches and hurt us, really not that big of a deal. We're 3-2 with the T-Mac/Gordon starting backcourt and we've played 4 of our best games (yes even though we lost, tonight counts as one of our better games). T-Mac starting and Stuckey coming off the bench is going to make this a much better team if Tracy can play consistently and stay healthy. Think about this, our backup PG just went from a liabilty (Will Bynum) to one of our greatest weapons! Now when T-Mac comes off the floor we can bring Stuckey in to punish 2nd string PG's, I truely think this is the role best suited for Rodney, he can flourish in this role and the team can win too!
TMAC flirting with a triple double. How many guys earning $1.3M or less will do that this year? 11 assists and only 1 turnover, which is also very unexpected.
Only 7 turnovers tonight vs the 24 assists....which mean they did play a good game. The difference stat wise was the discrepancy in FT shooting where they were 29-32 and we were only 16-21. We may run into the same FT issue at Staples tomorrow, trying to stop Bynum, Kobe and Gasol.
Could just be me watching the game too late, but... Gordon - Yeah, he finally had a game where he shot 50%, but he is utterly clueless on defense. He's always a step late and once rotations start his movements are completely random. His best role is as a scorer off the bench and on a good team that's all he'll ever be. Daye - Also generally lost on defense. He has the stature and the physical ability to get better, but unless he's scoring, he's a net detriment right now. Monroe - Working, but still a rookie and still a long way to go - not that you would expect much else from a rookie at this point. He showed some heart last night coming back against Jefferson after getting stuffed, but he also made Al look like a high flyer - hard to do. Villanueva - Knows what to do on defense, but just can't lay off the silly play. He's made some Sheed-like slaps on the ball over this season, some impressive plays, but as long as he fouls when he can't make the play he'll never get the respect he needs from the refs. Still, a close game in Utah is a rare thing.
