At the end of 3, Pistons lead 81-70 in an unintentional nail-biter. Pistons had a 16 pt lead in the second and led by 13 at the half, but the Cavs came within 3 71--68 courstesy of some brick play by BenG and Tay and a couple of three balls from Jamison and Boobie
Once the Q took out Bengo and TMac near the end of the third, the Pistons got serious and put it away. Once they got up by 16 they decided to play in garbage code mode and scored only 7 pts the last 6 minutes of the game to make it interesting enough to keep Tay in there until the end. The pistons bench was dominating outscoring the Cavs bench 61-17. Stuckey had 8 free throws and that what we were missing in those losses last week when he was sidelined. Big Ben played some D good tonight and was the recipient of some nice feeds to come up 2 pts and 1 board short of a double-double. The Pistons had a ton of steals and you can see why the Cavs have not won a game in 2011. I tuned into the Cavs post game show, and their announcers really thought that this was going to be the game that the Cavs would stop the losing streak. Some of the ARTH and PTI guys thought that they would win too, so that tells you how bad our rep is around the country.
If you notice, there are usually more posts in the game thread after losses than wins, as we tend over analyze losses and take wins for granted
Good second quarter by Stuckey, maybe. He was trash besides that. No one turns good games into bad games quite like him.
Good night for the playoff race. And if anyone wants to be daring enough to start such a thread, go ahead. Me, I don't want to jinx anything. We gained on all the teams ahead of us that we can possibly catch - save one cause two of them played each other. On a back to back, nobody got overplayed. We split the back to back, which is par. Rotation wise, yeah, still no Rip tonight - but just maybe Kuester will loosen it up a bit an include more players. Not everyone has to play every night. Won't comment on the game too much, except to comment on Cleveland. No confidence, and at times you could see why they have lost 26 straight now. We won a game we should win, and that is something good teams do. A much tougher nut to crack Friday night.
Stuckey led the team as much as anyone in this game. And since you mentioned Bynum getting a plus number tonight - nothing unususal against the poorer teams of the league. Let me know when he has a plus game against a good opponent - like say San Antonio.
Well, we are the highest scoring bench in the league I believe, and at the slowest overall pace just about. And the Cavs have to start their bench. Then, they have to put the walk-ons in after that.
The Pistons have just 7 quality wins this season. I am defining a quality win as a win over a team that is currently (as I write this) at least within 4 games of being a .500 team. Dec 14, Atl. TMAC + 23, Bynum DNP Dec 19, N.O.TMAC -9, Bynum +5 Dec 29, Bos TMAC +11, Bynum +3 Jan 8, Phil TMAC +5, Bynum DNP Jan 17 Dallas, TMAC +9, Bynum -2 Jan 22, Phoen. TMAC +3, Bynum +5 Jan 24, Orl TMAC +15, Bynum -10 Total: TMAC +57, Bynum +1 Both players are coming off injuries during this time span, so the comparison is pretty fair in that regard. For the most part, its TMAC that has helped us get quality wins, not Bynum. Good nite all.
Bynum at an overall +1 against quality opponents in wins is considered a negative because we have another player on the team who is better? I'm not in any fantasy leagues, so I'm just going to root for all of our players.
