The team is just bad right now. Rip and Tay may need time but the problem is a lack of a real NBA front line. David Lee isn't the first big this season to tear the Pistons apart. We knew that this would be a problem but the repurcussions is more than imagined. The team can't play good defense with a front line not there as a fortress. But while the personnel is not there to be a good defensive team, there is not as much of an excuse for the poor offense. There is no concept on offense. No, don't throw the ball into the Piston bigs--how often has that worked this year??? Usually it is a turnover. And teams are playing a box zone against the Pistons so one guy driving into four won't work and or then dishing to one of the bigs who are not scorers. If they give you the open three better take it. Give guys some roles on offense. Gordon should be popping threes not Rip. And CV needs to work on his spot up three instead of all the fancy stuff. Watch other offenses--guys have their roles. Still, even the bad offense goes back to not having any big who can score right now. It is like playing with one hand and not the other.
The injured guys should have a few games to work back into the mix b4 we throw them in the snake pit.... this season has been one big disruption so far. A couple more weeks like this and Joe WILL pull the trigger.
Well, that was ugly. Without Rip the team shot 48%, without Rip and Tay, 50%. Pushing their 25 shots - 25 SHOTS!! - around to others might have won this game. Not sure what Rip is thinking - 21 shots himself, 34% shooting - but I guess the notion of gradually working yourself back into playing shape is foreign to him. At some point though maybe the coach just needs to sit him down. It seemed like a lot of the minutes Gordon was in the game was also when Prince was laying the four. On the whole I don't have much problem with Prince at the 4, especially against a team like the Knicks, but the effect of Prince at the 4 with Rip and BG in the game is that Ben doesn't get any shots. They run some plays for Prince, and a load for Rip, and Gordon gets nine shots. That has to change. Very nice game for him BTW - 17 points on 9 FGAs, 67% shooting. I am so happy to see Wilcox playing instead of Kwame, or Max for that matter. 7 & 4 in 13 minutes is a nice run.
Didn't see this game, but noticed Kuester does this a bit. I understand players may get tired, but if they're still performing, leave them in! (in the context of the game of course). Like with JJ - on a number of occasions I've seen JJ's hustle and good play get baskets, him miss one shot and then Kuester sits him. I just hope JD knew what he was doing with hiring him. I groaned when he went with another rookie coach after last season - surely he could see it didn't work with only the distraction of adding AI. And that is only minor in comparison with the roster overhaul this season.
Have to give the returning players a chance to get into game shape. We had a lot of open shots last night and just missed them. The defense is another story. We have to stay away from small ball unless the opponent goes there first. I like JJ at the 4 to start with Ben but his shot has gone cold. Would Kwame have helped in this game to limit Lee??
Interesting post game take from nypost.com about the Pistons free agent signings and their lack of interest in David Lee:
True, but watching Rip last night was irritating to say the least. That Sir, is the understatement of understatements. Sir, if it ain't rough- it ain't right. That's the part that PISSED me off the most. When BEN GORDON is your backup, there is no EFF'n reason anybody should be allowed to play that badly for that long. Funny, Bengo is our most talented offensive player by far, and unfortunately he seems to have no problem deferring to Rip and Tay, especially Rip. I don't want to rush to judgement but I'm not sure if Rip will ever accept being 2nd fiddle to Bengo. This is the 2nd time in as many games that this has happened. As bad as we played last night Bengo was -2 for the game, Rip -20!!! And many of Bengo's mins were with Rip on the floor. Had Q had enough Balls to leave Rip on the bench and limit his mins to about 24, we could have won this one. Wilcox can do some things Put him on the floor with JJ or Max, Tay and 2 guards that can throw a lob or hit a roller on the pick and roll and he'll easily get you 8&5 in limited mins. It was never really warm.............JJ's all hustle and garbage points with the occasional three, but hey that's all we need from him, he does his job and he does it well; which is more than I can say for some of his higher paid colleagues.
Rip was 5-21 and Ben Gordon was 6-9. I'm not a basketball coach, but on the surface it seems like Ben Gordon should have taken a few of Rip's shots.
Go watch that Tor game again. In the 4th qtr we started to get something that looked like continuity, Bengo scored or created a scoring opp on 3 straight possessions, close game at this point, looks like it's going to be a dogfight. JJ fouls out (on a bad call), Rip comes in for JJ, and we immediately start running plays for Rip instead of Bengo and we go back down by double digits............... Houston we have a problem...................Me thinks the pecking order on this team is OUT OF WHACK!
Even the team that had only won 2 games this season, the NJ Nets were even able to beat the Knicks.....I only saw part of the game, but it never seemed our team could compete with the Knicks. Wonder what would happen if we were playing the Nets in the next week or so?
