Atlanta Oct. 23rd, 7:30 PM TV - FS Detroit Radio - WDFN 1130 The preseason comes to a close against the Hawks at the Palace.
Bad night to have to do a server move. Sorry folks. :( EDIT: I have changed the time of the server move to 11:00. The forum will be open during the last preseason game.
The group that we had out on the floor in the second quarter: Walt H., Walt S., Max, Rod, and Alex needs to learn how to gel with each other on the floor if they all get on the floor together at one point in the game because their defense is very "unorganized" and "hideous" along with the offensive set-ups. The Hawks were down 28-18 and the let them 16 points; a very easy 16 points. You can definitely tell before Rod runs the team, he's going to need more guidance as the leader cause he looked non-vocal.
rod rod has never been a playmaker and will not ever be. All his play is to slash and either try to score or to pass out.
looked good for awhile and then another end of the quarter meltdown.... where is the defense in the paint??
Just a tuneup where our stars played little. Sheed and Rip did not play. Dyess and Afflalo started. Amir fouled out. Played well while in but only played around maybe 14 minutes before fouling out. JMAX showed to be an awesomely good fit when we play Atlanta. He basically just pushed around the Atlanta players all he wanted. He scored well enough, as his free throw shooting was a lot better tonight, but he can do better. JMAX also kept helping them dribble the ball, and they did not appreciate the help one bit. Kwame again did not play. I assume precautionary reasons from a minor injury. He did not make the injury report. Samb missed several outside shots, played some decent helpout D in his first stint, but was found to be too weak against Atlanta's front line if they decided to just take it at him. Herrmann hit some shots. His D? Well, look at the 2nd quarter where Atlanta continually fast breaked and Herrmann never caught up to a play. Now, Atlanta was playing a couple of guys, former Pistons, who are in no way team players. Just because Herrmann was not exploited a lot tonight does not mean a better team won't the next night. I do not like poor D. Not at all. Acker hit a bunch of shots, but again, showed little in the way of D. Another good practice player. Offense just does not impress me that much if the defensive side is not there. (And yes, I will make exceptions to that, if someone brings something really exceptional to the table on O. Dantley remains one of my favorite all time Pistons.) Stuckey, hard to tell. He was playing along side quite an odd collection of players at times. Sharpe showed some nice D here and there. He is tall, quick, and willing to put in the effort. I thought Maxiell should have had that pass Sharpe gave him after driving in to the basket, leaving nobody to guard Maxiell at all. Should have been a dunk. Darn nice play by Sharpe in any case. Afflalo, you guessed it, played good solid D. And hit a triple, and repeatedly caught the other team knapping and scored at the basket. (and was flawless on quite a few turns at handling the ball. Just good solid play all around from the guy. Rebounds too.) Bynum. Not bad on D. Not that bad handling the ball. Still, in all, I would rather Tay be the emergency point guard. No need to dress Bynum for most games this season. More or less an insurance policy against one of our other point guards getting injured. Tay hit a bunch of shots in his exactly one quarter of work. Dyess got some bounds. Got free inside once for a score. If I remember right, he too only played the 1st quarter. The first quarter was a very good defensive quarter, as we won the quarter 24-15.
With Sharpe and Acker (along with Samb) in street clothes every night, we will never see that lineup in a real game. Good point.
I had to resort to watching the game on justin.tv again. Only this time, it was actually a video of some guy's crappy TV in his living room with Spanish announcers and a chatroom of non-English typing 12-year olds. You could actually see the owner's hairy arm reach out and turn the volume up on the TV at one point. When a Piston player would drive to the hoop, I'd just see a while streak with tracers and then have to wait for the replay to figure out who it was. Gave up at half time and did something slightly more productive. From looking through the box score, Amir's fouls stand out as being the most troubling stat. Also, Flip Murray really had his way with us. Oh well. It was a throw away game and we still should have won it with our C-team. Overall, Curry did a nice job this pre-season getting our core ready to go out of the gate when the reg season kicks off.
Curry worked the scrubs, everyone should be happy. Amirs new name should be "Foul Master" I love it, he wasn't bashful at all, fouled out on those scrubs.
Stuckey had a bad first half, but came through in the second. We just found out that Maxiel can and will own Atlanta this season, which validates MC's approach to this season, the depth and versatility of our lineup allows us to have an advantage everynight assuming the effort is there. Arron Afflalo is my personal, "Can't do wrong player". I'm so biased towards AA it should be illegal, AA to Kgreg - is like Brett Favre to John Madden, completely unhealthy Manlove. Last night AA showed what happens when you OUTWORK everybody-everyday-everytime. He's showing hops, speed, and a shooting accuracy that wasn't there last year, he's going to be really, really, REALLY Good. Amir is going to be more volatile and inconsistent than today's stock market, it's going to be feast or famine with that kid. That's fine though, he won't lose us any games and he'll get better in the process and possibly realize his potential this season or next.
I know you remember games like the New York one where we barely scored 60-something points?? And oh yeah the preseason game against San Antonio (even though he doesn't count, we still shot horrible). In situations like that, you never know what kind of line-up you might see out on that court. It's all in M.C.'s hand In some cases, he needs to learn that. It's called a complete player (when you play point guard).
NBA.com: Video worth watching for the dunks by max and afflalo. stuckey looked terrible 1st half, forcing too much, but stuck to his strengths in the 2nd and drove the basket. afflalo and max dominated, to put it mildly. i especially liked when afflalo was interviewed by eli zaret postgame to talk about how well he played, but one of the 1st things that came out of his mouth was being disappointed they gave up the lead and lost.
Only issue I had was Stuckey hitting 7-10 the night before and them something like 3-18 last might. When he is out there with all scrubs, he tends to want to take over which is fine, but direct traffic a little more and find an open man sir... He forced to many shots last night as if he didn't have any confidence in the other [STRIKE]guys[/STRIKE]..I mean scrubs I am only saying this as we need more assists out of him for both the teams benefit and my fantasy teams benefit..;)
Stuck is great and all, but PG is such an experience position that he must have a lot of learning to do on both sides of ball.
I'm willing to bet that lineup will never see actual game time. They will be the "hey, we're up 30!" or "wth, we're down 30" line-up. definitely looked like he was playing with a little extra. I actually think he's going to be good for ATL. They like to run, and he's most effective in that system.
