The officiating seemed pretty bad in both directions to me. CB did get away with a couple of plays in the third quarter--one where he assaulted Rondo and stole the ball without getting called for a foul, and the one where he drew a foul while shooting a 3 was questionable as well. But the Celtics clearly got some calls going back their way late in the 4th--Allen hitting a 3 that was really a 2, Sheed getting called for his 5th on Garnett when there was no contact whatsoever. If the Pistons had ended up blowing this game, I would have been mad about those late calls, but I wouldn't have chalked up the loss to the refs because I know the Pistons got the better end of some bad calls earlier.
What a good game! One of my highlights of the night was at the 6 minute mark of the 4th quarter. Celts are bringing the ball up the court and KG sets a hard pick on AA near midcourt...AA gets up right away and throws his body into KG! I like his intensity! I was glad to see Maxiell and AA get into this game and both play in the 4th. Though it seems it would have been a great opportunity to also get Amir some PT in a playoff-like atmosphere without the fear of some mistakes costing us a playoff loss. I expect Chauncey, Rip, Sheed and Tay to play 35+ minutes in a game like this, but I don't see a reason for Dyess doing it. Of the Big 3 it seems clear that Pierce is most likely to hoist up bad shots just for the sake of getting his shots. It also seemed like KG didn't want to shoot in the last few minutes of the game. Just like Sheed, he should be calling for the ball in the post at that point.
I got to watch the second half and that was a highlight for sure...also Sheed's stuff of Perkins under the basket. I loved that.
For those who didn't see this game, the third quarter was actually pretty brutal. Both teams were committing terrible turnovers and generally not executing anything properly. The final score for the quarter was only 16-13, in favor of the Pistons. Both teams generally executed better in the 4th quarter, but it was the Pistons' D that made the difference.
It was refreshing to see the Pistons get some calls in Boston. They did seem to try and make it fair for the most part. Perhaps this is a result of the ref scandle.
Not nearly enough props for Hunter IMO. GREAT job, Hunter. Hunter changed the momentum single-handily. And he gave us 5 points, which is never expected out of him. Here in New England, some radio callers criticizing Doc Rivers for his coaching and in-game adjustments. Something tells me Doc will be watching those Cavs-Pistons playoff tapes and Mr. Billups will see some traps the next time Boston and Detroit meet.
I agree about Hunter. If he could play like that more often, I'd be right back in his camp. But as far as the calls, I honestly thought we were getting screwed. Sheed's first foul was bogus. The foul they called on him when he set a normal screen was terrible. The phantom call at the end when he was guarding KG? It's like they were trying to set him off. The worst part about most of the whistles were how late they were. We were already fast breaking half the time before they called them.
McCrapsky has been working on his adjectives and adverbs. Maybe he took a writing course: The Pistons struggled mightily against the stingy Celtics defense, shooting an icy 40 percent. Good job, Chris!
Instead of what he wrote I would have thought a Detroit News writer would have written something like: The Pistons took advantage of the Celtics "Pack The Paint" defense by getting many open three point opportunities and making 9 out of 20 compared to the Celtics making only 4 out of 14 enabling the Pistons to beat the Celtics for the 14th time in the last 15 tries McKrapsky is a definite troll
I thought we were getting screwed too. Particularly sheed guarding garnett -- it seemed as though subconsciously the refs are so used to garnett making a play (like finishing near the bucket or something) that when he doesn't there's an automatic assumption that kicks in that he must have been followed, which may also be why the calls seemed to come late. the only real break i thought we got was when rondo was trying to keep the bouncing ball away from chauncey and it seemed like chauncey sort of shoved him to be able to get a hold of the ball.
I agree with that. Especially since we got the last call with 0.1 sec's left. There is no way that would have been called in the old days at Boston.
That play would always get called. The defender was in the air coming down backwards with his big butt right into CB's grill.
Its hard to say how that would be called because it looked a lot worse live than on the replay. It was a foul but on the replay it appeared that Billups also did a good job selling it. Adds more fuel to the rivalry I suppose.
too late to remember my game thoughts, but this was a great regular season game. it kind of felt like a game 7, really nerve-racking from start to finish.
I've seen guys get defenders in the air and go for the foul and the foul is on the Ofense. Only once tho.
