vs New Orleans Hornets Monday Feb 11 2013 - 7:30 PM EST Palace of Auburn Hills, Detroit, MI TV: FS Detroit RADIO: 97.1FM GO PISTONS!
Three wins in a row would be a great step. Lets keep the pace up tonight, and not get caught in this trap.
Tell me weren't favored in this one?? This game never looked close. Even when they were ahead by five midway through the second it felt like they were ahead by 15. No Singler, noCharlie, No JJ, No Max, NOBODY could stop Ryan Anderson. How do you let a guy get open enough to take 21 shots.....especially when he his making 65% of them? 5 for 9 from beyond the Arc? He was the invisible man out there as far as the Pistons defense went....he just appeared out of no where shooting uncontested bombs. Then there was Robin Lopez on the the inside..along with Aminu dominating the boards.. Their starting front court out boarded ours 32-18. Our 18 rebounds included 2 from Max. Will Bynum was 0-8 from the field Another meaningless double-double from Moose. The Hornets did not seem to miss any shots and won every quarter and seem to have grabbed every loose ball and if Eric Gordon had played more than 2 mins, they may have won by 30....
To those who still think Knight is a shooting guard in any way. I ask this: What is his shooting percentage from the outside since becoming the shooting guard for Calderon? It ain't pretty. Tonight, when asked to function as a shooting guard, clang, clang, clang. He did later nail a three, but look, he was left so open he might as well have been the only guy in the gym for that shot. He can make wide open shots. And if the ball is in his hands as a point guard, there are often times when the other team backs off him, and he can nail those shots. You could see it play after play. Calderon looking for someone to pass the ball to. Monroe - hmm, paint packed. You might get a bucket or two a game from an outside shot from him. Knight? See above. Singler? Covered of course, since he and Calderon are the only guys the other team really has to cover. And you got JMAX occasionally hitting a jumper. Really? These are long range two point shots, of which JMAX does not make enough to counter the high rate of threes put down by the other team. Basically, Calderon has nothing to do with the ball. In the 2nd half, English was brought in for a hot second a couple of times. But coach's main answer - play Bynum more. Bynum can't shoot either. There is no point of having Bynum on the team at this point. But that is coach's answer to his problems. Stuckey scored plenty in this one driving to the hoop or posting. Nothing he could not do as the backup point though. And he could have done more of it. Especially if you played a shooting guard along side him to spread the floor instead of guys like Knight and Bynum, who are not shooting guards. Of course, Knight is a fine point guard, he could do fine as our backup point - if he had a shooting guard along side him. Basically, we have 3 quality point guards, and some think Bynum is a fourth (not me - witness the poor shot selection from him tonight for instance). Trade deadline is close. If you don't want to play the rookie shooting guards we have, trade for one. Coach actually used JJ and CV as his bigs at one point. CV did not hit his outside shots tonight. But perhaps against this team, CV could have started, giving Calderon someone to pass the ball to? English or Middleton as the shooting guard. Singler at small forward. (or Middleton.) Change is needed.
Just wasnt our night. The body language and energy was all flat. Moose didnt run hard until it was under 3 minutes in the 4th Q. A write off. On to the next game...
I agree. This was the first time in a while that the Pistons were dominated by another team athletically like that. They used to lose this way frequently. They played slow across the board for some reason. (And Calderon still had at least 8 assists.) Charles V has been a frequent punching bag here for his defense, but wow was he bad on Anderson in the 2nd Q. Anderson looked like a young Shawn Kemp. What about the dunk he had on Chuck?
As I watched the game I started to really like the NOLA alternate uniforms and think they'll go well with the Pelicans team name. They should use them full time.
It's amazing to me how much of a loss Drummond is from a defensive standpoint. Nobody could defend Lopez, and although they held down Davis (he hasn't been playing well), the team had to adjust and give the bigs help. We were just discussing in another thread how the Pistons' defense is predicated on collapsing and leaving three point shooters open - well, New Orleans burned them on that last night, as Anderson and Mason came off the bench and continually buried key threes that kept deflating any attempt at a comeback. Calderon/Bynum/Knight couldn't stay in front of Vasquez, and when he drove, guys would collapse the paint, leaving NO players open to shoot 10-21. Add in the fact that Maxiell (2-7), Knight (3-10), CV (2-7), Bynum (0-8), and Stuckey (4-12) all shot under 35%, and the bench combined to shoot 0-8 from three-point land, and you're in a nearly impossible spot. Nobody had a particularly good game - even though Monroe went for 17/11 on 8-15 shooting, he was only 1-7 on his FTs. The lack of free throw shooting by the bigs is going to be a problem long-term if they don't get it fixed. Side note on how +/- doesn't tell the whole story: Bynum shot 0-8, had 2 points, 2 assists, 3 boards, 2 steals, and 4 fouls in 17 minutes, but was +3. I like Kim English, but he doesn't do a whole lot out there, but he did shut down Vasquez and Roberts while he was guarding them. If he can develop an offensive game at all, he'll have a role. I think the Pistons had a bad game. They didn't shoot well (sometimes the shots don't fall), and they just don't have the defenders to gut out a tough victory. When Frank sees that it's going to be "one of those nights" and the other team is in their offensive rhythm, he should give serious consideration to this lineup: Calderon/English/CV/Maxiell/Monroe Aminu's rebounding burned them a bit last night, but he's not good enough offensively to worry about him blowing by CV, and CV has the height to match up with him on the glass. Put English on their point guard and let him just be a gunner on offense. When Anderson came in, CV was guarding him and he's not a good 1-1 defender; Anderson torched him repeatedly. Sadly, I'm not sure they have a great option for guarding a guy like Anderson - nobody has both the quickness and height to take him. The only way to do it is to have a guy like Singler shadow him and not let him get the ball in the first place, make him take contested shots and get inside his own head.
The problem is, our two best bigs, Villanueva and Monroe, can't defend anyone big or fast. The game got out of hand fast.
No problem. Frank just needs to find a way for the Pistons to play teams without big or fast players. Of course, this would go against his agenda...
