How to win this series

1) Quit playing Dyess. Replace his minutes with a combination of JMAX and Amir. This makes our whole rotation quite a bit quicker, more able to play defense. Better transition D. Better defensive rotation. Better defense against cutters / drivers to the basket. More bigs showing on the perimeter, to disrupt Cleveland's perimeter game.


2)Play Sharpe some. Just to get another tall, quick player out there that James has to think about. These minutes will come directly from Tay's minutes - unless Tay finds a way to actually guard Bron. If nothing else works, play Afflalo more on Bron, even if it means Tay sits 2 minutes into the game.


3)Providing that JMAX and Amir can play all the minutes at power forward while keeping out of any serious foul trouble, play the front line of Sheed, Amir, JMAX.


If nothing else works, just start this group:


Bynum, Afflalo, Amir, JMAX, Sheed. Play some defense.


Subs: Stuckey, Rip, (Tay or Sharpe, depending on which one bothers Bron the most), Kwame. With Amir and JMAX taking turns sitting now and then, but never both at the same time.


What Curry should absolutely not do. Go out weakly, never trying anything new, and making excuses at the end of each game.

It is still hard to believe, with the core we have, we are pretty muc a lottery team. Heart...we need to find the Wiz!!!

Yeah, that's the ticket. Absolutely brilliant.

Play all the mediocre rookies/young guys who normally sit on the bench for most of the game. They will beat Lebron James.

Amazing none of the pro coaches thought of that before. Hell, just grab some college kids expected to go in the 2nd round of the draft this year.

Break LBJ's leg.

This board does not allow the level of ridicule I am feeling toward your post to be written.

So what are your ideas. Change nothing ?, lose weakly in four games? Please read the title of this thread. How do we win this series. Ideas please. Skip the ridicule. It does nobody any good at all.

I like jzchen's idea. Other than that it's over. It was lost months ago. Too late now.

When I believe an idea is utterly preposterous, I'm going to say so.

Your solution to everything, for years, has been to play the rookies and the bench guys. Rodney White, Darko, etc. If they were any good they would have played in this league. They rode the pine for a reason. They are losers (by NBA standards).

You insult others in your passive aggressive manner and then immediately cry foul when it comes back on you. If you can't take the heat...

Our offense wasn't bad......We need to play tougher D...maybe if one of our bigs becomes an intimidator inside the paint...

You guys might laugh but Kwame was showing flashes of good D in the paint...Jason Maxiell has the ability to become that guy..Amir plays decent D mostly due to his length and good timing. Only reason were not seeing Amir play more is due to his other weaknesses, mostly on the offensive end...seems like he gets a bit nervous/tries too hard and ends up committing a turnover or another miscue....Makes me think if whether too may people got in his head about improving his offensive ability.

For now, we need a Lebron stopper! Who can it be? anyone remotely close? This reminds me of Ron Artest being a free agent this summer. But that's a different topic. Who needs Artest especially with Tayshaun, who by the way knows Lebron's tendencies because they played in the Olympics together LOL....Tayshaun couldn't guard Lebron and couldn't score if his life depended on another contract...But wait he's our glue guy so let's keep him starting at small forward when other teams in the East are improving at the position....Salmons, ehmm.

For now were using a 2-guard (Afflalo) to slow Lebron. Worked out great didn't it...Poor Aaron. At least his three-point shot is becoming a threat.


Hopefully Curry will lead us to a championship next season !!!

Tayshaun was pathetic against LeBron yesterday. Afflalo was even worse and Sharpe against LeBron would be a massacre. The Pistons need a plan, but I'm afraid they do not have the personnel or the braintrust at this point to compete against the Cavs.

jzchen's idea of breaking LBJ's leg is far and away the best idea I have heard so far.

I don't think there is anything we can do to win this series. Cleveland is just way better than us. They have great chemistry and it shows.

Playing Sharpe against Lebron? Seriously? He never even played in the regular season. He would be destroyed. I do think Curry will give Max and maybe Amir more minutes before the end of the series if we keep getting beat down, but I don't think it will matter. We don't have the players to beat Cleveland (or possibly any team in the playoffs at this point).

Am I the only one who thinks CLE front line is pretty big? They normally start DET's old C at PF and the C they do start is 7'3. Varejao is big as is Smith. I don't really see the need for this elusive PF that some were calling for throughout the year.

CLE has one player who is looking to drive and he is bigger than both Max and Amir. Everyone else they play is either big or a shooter.

I must say I was very impressed with LeBron's play yesterday. If he can knock down that 18-20' shot consistently then no one is beating them. I've never seen him display that type of diversity offensively with his post ups & mid-rangers.

You're making an effort Lee...that's cool...but I'm on board with the leg breaking.

How about trying to win the game by going to the middle and getting to the free throw line??

The Pistons are not going to beat the Cavs watching them being the only aggressive team on the floor and all you do is settle for jumpshots.....and that is all that Tay, Rip, Dice and Sheed do....

All four of them can hit at least 72% of their FT's ,, get in the paint and force the refs to their jobs. There is no way that Lebron should out score the whole Pistons team at the FT line like he did yesterday.

Also, doesn't hurt at this point to try Amir and even Walter Sharpe to spell some minutes to those so called starters...you never know if either will have a Trever Ariza moment and throw the Cavs off based with their supposed athleticism.

Lee if there was a dream contest between me and you, you trying to solve the Pistons and me trying to fix the Lions, it would be a dead heat.

Not interested in arguing with you. If you have no ideas, thats fine. Have a great day.

One on one matchups are one thing. For that, sure, Sheed and Dyess can do the job. But so can any of our bigs.

The problem is other Cleveland players are routinely getting to the paint area, and we are not playing a power forward - so we don't have anybody that can get over to the play and stop an easy bucket at the hoop. Transition D is bad too. Without a power forward who can get down on transition D, and bring the size and height needed, Cleveland gets too many easy scores that way. Defensive rotation also suffers. Two centers? What if someone has to run out to the perimeter. With 2 centers, you got twice the chance of asking your center to try to get out to the perimeter. How about the bigs showing? How often is this going to happen if you got two lumbering centers in the game, neither of who can do much showing and be able to get back to their guy.

Basically, with a lack of defensive speed, good team defense is not played. Outside shots are too easy. They get way too much advantage by driving into our paint area. The announcers said we were not giving effort. Nope. Wrong answer. The group of players out there could not do the job, for lack of speed. We'd look a whole lot more "full of effort" with a power forward out there who can move well.

JMax, Amir, and even Stuckey are the reason we are in this position. Joe thought these guys were the future, and either dumped better players at their positions, or failed to upgrade through trades/fa.

The only hope in winning this series is for Tay to grow a pair, play Hermann against LBJ because he can't be worse than anyone else, Rip to go into a complete zone, or for Sheed to start abusing Side Show and Z like he would have a few years ago.

You give JMax and Amir more time, and this loss is going to look competive compared to the upcoming beatdowns.

Walter has no athleticism. But Sharpe truly does. It can't hurt to try him on Bron. With a power forward backing him up. Tell him he just has to play up on the guy and make it hard for him to shoot. If he gets past, don't foul, let the 2nd line of defense work.

As far as going inside, absolutely both Dyess and Sheed should be doing more going inside. In general, we rely too much on Rip's jump shot game. Tay? James is quick and strong. Trying to back him down does not look like an option. But maybe using a pick to free him up for a drive in. And playing Kwame more, someone who actually likes to play inside. And this would have to be directly a substitution for Sheed or Dyess, the guys who are not doing their jobs in this regard.

Stuckey does have to establish his jumper, but he still needs to keep driving inside primarily. And absolutely he should be driving in before Sheed, Dyess, or Rip take an outside jumper. Maybe he can concentrate on driving in and pulling up for shorter jumpers. Something so they can't commit totally to stopping him at the hoop. And of course, he must know where the other players are going to be so he can kick the ball out if he gets shut off.

Your opinion is that playing JMAX and Amir more would make it worse. How many more games like the last one before you think they should get a chance? You want to wait until we are down 3-0? Ever?

CLE is a phenomenal offensive rebounding team and Max and Amir are poor defensive rebounders. That is a recipe for disaster.

I'm not sure what good getting back on transition D is when you don't know who you are supposed to be covering or what the game plan is (assuming there is one) defensively.

The Cavs had 10 fast break points to 8 for DET and 36 points in the paint to 28 for the Pistons.

DET needs to get LeBron to be less efficient and Rip to score like he should. They have 0.0 chance of winning if he score 15 points. Stuckey needs to be a little more efficient and can't get blocked constantly also.

I agree with this. He needs to keep attacking the defense, and the short pull up jumper will always be there if they keep him from getting all the way to the rim. Yesterday, I think he fell in love with his outside jumper a bit too much after he hit a couple early ones... three 3 point shots is three too many for him.