Absolutely, I just didn't want to overwhelm myself the first time. I think I have a handle on things now.
Yeah the first four times I tried to get in I kept getting script errors that wanted me to debug the page. I finally browsers from IE to firefox and got in. Even though I registered, I jump in as a guest and heard your banter with Roscoe and his canuckiian accent, and then the slightly inebriated Linwood and then got back on later to hear Warts after game recap. I am not sure which combo sounded like Stoney and Wojo but it was good after game entertainment Funny written comments by Dumars and Jammer poking fun at the guests..
Just listening to the podcast now. Pretty sweet! It's cool putting voices to the names. Very impressed by the game tonight. Curry managed a great rotation. He went deep and let guys play through mistakes and they kept coming through with timely buckets, steals, and general clutchness. I absolutely love the current personel. It's all on the Coach this year. He needs to be a master motivator and trust the depth. Also, just a little stat analysis: The Pistons attempted 91 shots to the Pacers 67. However, they got fouled a lot more. So, counting every 2 free throws as 1 shot attempt, the adjusted FGA's were 99 to 81 in our favor. We were +9 in offensive rebounds and +7 in turnovers. That is 16 extra possessions. I believe the other 2 extra possessions were gained from smart clock management at the end of quarters. Stuckey's full court sprint with 5 seconds was killer. We finally held Foster at bay on the boards. He was a non-factor. I thought Indiana should have played Hibbard more. He looked good in that one stint.
Too many turnovers. Shot selection could have possibly been better. We made Troy Murphy look like Ben Wallace.....but you can't have everything. I like how Curry is platooning Cola style. We shouldn't really be surprised, since MC was married to cola for such a long time. I told The Low Cola would coach this team from Dallas...wait until the perimeter pump fake fest kicks in.
First, big screen HD is a truly wonderful thing. The scales have fallen off my eyes. I wish I had figured out the post game was still going on when I got through the recording of the game. I'll pay more attention next time. Some game notes... - I don't like the wholesale blue team substitution to start the first quarter. Stuckey isn't as good with all bench players, maybe tried to do too much. Seems like it ought to be possible to have a rotation with at least two starters on the floor all the time. - But, the distribution of minutes was pretty good. CB a little too long, but Stuckey foul trouble forced that. - How is the world did Kwame get to be the first guy off the bench? - Weak shooting, but rebounding from everybody which is a great thing to see. - Too many turnovers, but 8 blocks, 11 steals, and taking care of the defensive boards makes up for a lot of problems.
Only 1 foul from Amir Johnson in his starting debut, who would have thought? I thought he did pretty good. Solid D with 3 blocks. Walter Herman was another surprise, not only the fact that he played but he also played pretty well. Looks like we have an answer on who your player of game - Tays backup will be. Dogs? My only complaint is with Stucky. I thought he was trying to push things too much and was trying to go alone too many times when there were better options to pass to. Overall, a pretty good effort. Of course a game in which the Pistons should have won.
The team has to walk a fine line with him this year, even if he warrents more mins.... how far do they let him go for fear that he has nothing in the tanks come playoffs... with as deep as this team is, i'd stay on the low side thru the season and if he's warrenting them start to increase a bit come the playoffs.... I watched via yahoo updates, but It was sweet to see not the same old 5 on the floor with no changes the last 5 mins... Did we really have a 4 guards and Prince out there for one short stint?
Low and I talked about Amir in the postgame call. I think Amir starting is mostly symbolic. He and Max will get nearly the same minutes and nearly the same output. The reason why Amir is starting over Maxey is as Dick Vermeil put it when talking about Larry Johnson, "taking the diapers off the baby".
Yeah, he's going to have to work to move beyond 20 minutes or so, and none in the fourth quarter. He starts so fast though that I think having him in the game from the beginning is a good idea. Last night there was a block, a steal, and a couple of offensive boards in that first stint that impacted the game. And who knew about that funky Jamal Wilkes jumper?
If one goes back to his draft profiles and notes, his weird shooting style has been a long time thing. Ironically, he's already hit more NBA 3s than Darko!
I think it is as simple as: MC doesn't feel like we need another scorer in the starting lineup. This was something we identified as being a good idea last year on this forum. There is only 1 basketball and guys like Sheed and Tay need to be more aggressive on offense. 4 scorers and an energetic garbage man who plays great defense might be the optimal combination. The secondary benefit is that Amir will get to develop. At the end of games, when we need to get less predictable, we'll probably add another scorer to the mix in Dyess or Maxiell. Also, I think we will see a lot of Afflalo in the last 2 minutes of games when we have leads because of his ability to shadow his man. As far as Amir's jumper, it looks exactly the same as when he was DL'n it. I think the form works with the low release, which gives him nice arc. The bad part about it is that he has a slow release like Camby. But he should only be shooting those to punish the D when they leave him, ala Rodman.
Nice shot in the third when they doubled Tay...that would have been way out of Rodman's or Ben's range (3-4 foor range).
One good thing about this game was our shot selection. Counting everything within the FT line (so, arcing it around the key like a mini 3-point line to include Sheed's post moves), we took 49 FGA's from inside the modified paint. This doesn't include shot attempts where we got fouled, so there could be up to 8 more. Overall, we didn't shoot a great percentage from inside (20-49), but maybe it got us to the line a bit, put us in position to grab offensive rebounds, and opened up the outside game. Here's the breakout of our inside game: Tay- 5-11 CB- 3-8 RS- 3-8 RW- 2-5 JM- 2-4 WH- 2-3 RH- 1-3 AA- 1-2 KB- 0-2 AJ- 0-2 AM- 1-1 Curry made the comment that he thought we needed to do a better job of finishing when there was contact. I get the feeling he's happy with the shot selection, but not happy about shooting only 41% inside. But the return to inside-outside bball should help us in the long-run. Also, we did a great job in stopping Indiana's fast break opportunities. Maybe because there were less long J's?
And did a decent job on the offensive boards which always helps. Good job getting out on the break by the Pistons too, which is where some of those missed layups happened.
TaShawn, you sir are on point. I too liked the patience MC showed with the bench. I was surprised to see Kwame be the first off the bench. (What a stiff!) It is important to at least get him a few minutes per game though rather than let him rot. There's a ways to go and who knows how this will end up? Amir starting helps DET the same way Rondo & Perkins starting helps BOS. They need someone to make the 1 hustle play. I would like to see them start the game by going to Sheed in the post. They had some nice ball movement and Rip & CB were able to create shots for people by driving baseline. These are the same shots that Pierce or Rondo got for KG that hurt us. They got into their sets quickly and ran as well. They did miss a lot of easy shots. For years it seems the nicer the pass the more likely they'll miss the shot. Their D was OK. It was better on the ball, but they still got hurt by trapping on P & R around the top of the key. I don't think they did a good job of helping on the weak side. I would like to see them pack the paint and force teams to beat them from outside.
Kwame was the first big off the bench to directly counter Hibbert. Amir was at the end of his stretch and all of a sudden there's an athletic 7'2" dude out there. Kwame did a nice job in putting a body on him and making sure that we didn't get out-muscled. Notice that Hibbert was taken out at the end of the first quarter and so was Kwame. Later in the 2nd quarter when they went back to Hibbert, we put Sheed back in to counter. Think of KB as a slightly quicker, less offensively gifted version of Elden Campbell. EC was used specificically to counter big true centers and KB will probably only get those minutes as well. Not a bad option to have.
Unlike Flip, MC spends the bulk of his time sitting on the bench. The STENCH of Giant Turd has to get to him after a while. GT was the first dude off of the bench in order to give Curry and his staff a little fresh air.
