I think people are wrong to automatically assume the Celtics will win this game. They are a much better team, but the contrast in styles between the age of the C's and the yute of the P's can favor the Pistons if BOS doesn't really want to play.
Per NBA-TV scroller , Shaq stayed home to practice more statue poses in the park, so it will be Germ O'Neal that our little bigs will gave to deal with.
Monroe sure isn't bad enough to not get a bunch of minutes every game. I thought he looked pretty solid today besides missing a bunch of tapins. He even showed signs of having a motor.
I don't care if Greg Monroe sucks so bad that he accidentally shoots at the wrong basket each and every time he touches it; Q needs to force-feed the kid minutes.
There was a 4th qtr collapse, but only after we trimmed a 22 pt lead down to 12 and Doc decided to bring in some of his starters to assure that there was no Piston comeback. The Pistons got as close as 92-80 before then were out gunned 17-6 the rest of the way. In all actuality the game was lost in the second qtr and punctuated by Rondo's three pointer to end the half to put up a 13 pt lead. Rondo had 17 assists to the Pistons team total of 13. Monroe played 18 minutes, missed all 6 of his shots, but grabbed a team high 10 boards and had 2 assists. He looked tentative under the hoop and probably should have used the glass a couple of times instead of trying to toss up a pop shot. He got blocked near the end of the game and you could actually hear KG yell to G'Mon to "get that sh out of here" KG tried to manhandle Daye to open the game and quickly sent him to the bench with two fouls. With Gordon fouling out midway through the 4th, Q had an all big lineup out there to close out the game with Daye running the point...The Pistons scored a grand total of six points in the last 6 minutes ~two buckets by Daye, and a FT each by Summers and Max. The plain and simple fact here is our defense stinks as the C's ran by us at will, out hustling every piston willing to dress and get out on the floor.
That sucked so bad nobody even wants to post about it? Total Laugher. Kuester is doing a poor job of managing this personnel. He failed to put players in positions where they could succeed. 2 good things to report: (1) There was an Austin Daye sighting on the offensive end! (2) Greg Monroe played and was able to grab 10 rebs. But you can't tell me that he looks ready to play. 0-6 (all in the lane) and 2 of the 6 shots were blocked, when you're 6'11" you're not supposed to get your shot STUFFED as much as he does, it's just pitiful. But Greg had 2 really nice asts, but here's the deal, he gets asts because he can't score, he's lacks confidence in his ability to put the ball in the hoop so he's always looking to give the ball to someone else to do it. BUT, I believe Greg did enough to take Max's minutes, Max 15 minutes, 1 pt and 2 rebs, PATHETIC! The defense was so disappointing, there is absolutely ZERO chemistry on this team, they do not complement each other at all, they look like an awful mix of players. Rodney Stuckey returned to form, scored 15 points (on 6-15 shooting), 11 came in the first half, 4 points in the 2nd half? He looked slow and tired and The Joggernaught proved yet again, he's too heavy to actually run and be effective for more than 25 minutes, it was the same story in Chicago. I get irked because he defers in the 4th, but I really wonder if he has any gas in the tank come the 4th quarter. He spent the summer working out in Washington at his old high school, he really needs to get a real top tier NBA trainer and just shell out the $100K, because I don't believe he's putting in the right work. Charlie continues to prove that he's an expert at scoring meaningless points, tonight he lead the team with 17! Oh and we need Will Bynum back bad, this idea of Tay or Daye at PG .......................... PATHETIC! One last thing T-Mac's knee broke down in under 8 minutes of action ..................................
Not sure how Monroe got all those boards without jumping. He doesn't look like he'll be a good rebounder, but he'll still help the team in that department just because he's tall and seems to have a habit of boxing out. It really does look like he may lead the team in blocked attempts at some point in the future though. It was sort of entertaining watching our inverse lineup tonight where each player got successively shorter from the 1 to the 5 (Daye, Tay, Summers, Wallace, Maxiell). The only problem was that whoever happened to be handling the ball for us had his back to the basket and was being pestered by Nate Robinson about 10 feet outside the arc. On the other end of the court, we were repeatedly probed against our will as Rondo seemed to be bored with normal dribbling and went with unnessesary behind the back dribbles while yawning. Stat of the night: If you took Rondo off the Celtics tonight with his 17 assists, the Celtics still had 3 more assists than us.
Sad game.. I came back home late and watch the game that I recorded.. man what a waste of time. Charlie Villanueva COULDN'T STOP Luke Harangody (YES! A SECOND ROUND ROOKIE) The only thing that I liked is watching Monroe getting some playing time and getting 10 rebounds in 18 minutes.. yes, i know that he ended with 0-6 from FG .. but it's nice to have SOMEONE to grab 10 rebounds that is YOUNG
That was bad and not just because of the score. The C's picked apart the Piston D with ease and the ball movement the Pistons had displayed went bye bye with Mr. Adjustment Ben Gordon in the starting lineup. Winning the game seemed almost as important as winning his one on one battle with UConn alum Ray Allen. C's play by play man Mike Gorman noted that the Pistons were playing with no enthusiasm. In fairness to Charlie V the Pistons seem to have a lot of Garbage Time All Stars. Ben Wallace has really fallen off from last year. Monroe is no worse than any other Piston big. Smiley Edrin would be the Pistons 2nd best big. I love the #86! Rondo looked like he was playing against little kids the way he was stealing the ball.
Edrin did look decent. After Sheed un-retires, they're gonna have: Perkins Garnett Shaq J. O'Neal Edren Sheed Big Baby Harongody That's a lot of beef.
You still think he's out of shape? He's lost 10-15 pounds and is playing at his lightest since high school apparently. I don't think he needs to lose any more weight. I've already seen the guy dunk the ball as often as he did all of last year, in four games. He looks in way better shape. Conditioning was not the issue tonight, or in Chicago. His head was. He's still too passive in crunch time. Stuckey played like crap tonight, but for other reasons. Number one reason being that the Boston Celtics have the best half court defense in the NBA.
I think Stuck looks lighter this year, he has even been dunking. Wasn't he 0/1 in dunks last season? [SARCASM] With a litte luck we could have been 4-0 now. [/SARCASM]
