Check it out. At the end of the video Kenny Smith says "the Celtics will win tonight because they understand the importance of the game." And the Pistons don't? (this last part is my comment based upon what he said) This guy sleeps with a Celtics uniform and his pay stub stapled to the jersey. NBA on Yahoo! Sports - News, Scores, Standings, Rumors, Fantasy Games
Saying an NBA game on January 5th has greater importance is simply a large overstatement. It'll be fun to watch the two best teams match up, but it's still just 1 of 82.
ESPN already has an obligation to carry a college game. When the schedule was set you know how the NBA thinks. They all think we want to see Lebran/Kobe vs Shaq or who ever than 2 great evenly matched teams.
Inexcusable loss. Celts spend the entire game in foul trouble, we give up 50 rebounds at home, and can't seem to manage to stop jump shooting ourselves in the foot. Stupid win streaks against bad teams are pointless and my guess is there will be similar struggles to follow against DAL and SA. There was no reason for DET to keep letting BOS back into this game and their insistence on launching jumpers and driving 1 out of every 5 possessions is why why will continue to struggle late in the year....damn that's irritating.
Oh well. I am not happy about this one. Pistons threw away some good opportunities in crunch time. Whats up with Bostons Davis? Guy can only jump about a foot and he was in there humiliating our frontcourt. I think fatigue was a factor. Missed Free throws and shots by Billups/Rip. Billups, Rip and Tay all looked a bit off and it only got worse in the 4th quarter. Hopefully they will use this game to figure out what adjustments need to be made to win these types of games.
Big Baby bullied the Pistons down the stretch. The difference in the game was him in the paint under the hoop in the end and the Max sitting on the bench with dice being a liability. Blame this loss on the Celtics excellent defense, CB's bad play down the stretch and Flip's insisting on playing Dice instead of JMAX in the end. It will be interesting to see the points in the paint differential. 4th qtr score Pistons 19, Big Baby 19
Kids needed more time late into the game. Boston rested its starters more except for Pierce. Play the youngins and let the veterans feed off their energy.......The worst that happens is that we lose......
Ugly, frustrating loss tonight. A bad start to the game turned into a monster run for the Pistons as KG sat with two fouls, but the Celtics got back in it in the 2nd quarter with offensive rebounding and winning loose balls. The second half was tight most of the way, but second chance points continued to kill the Pistons, and their execution down the stretch was horriffic. Meanwhile, Boston got penetration on what seemed like every possession and got repeated layups for Big Baby Davis, who LED THEM IN SCORING with 20 points! There is simply no way to beat the Celtics if you let any of their role players beat you that badly. The refs let this one get out of control pretty early...there were some wretched calls on the Pistons, but I think it largely evened out in the end. Several techs on both teams as well. No doubt that this is now an intense, nasty rivalry, so at least that's something for us to enjoy.
That wasn't by design. KG was in foul trouble in the first half, and the Pistons slaughtered them when he was on the bench. Then Ray sat a lot of the second half with foul trouble as well.
Just had to keep shooting jumpers; maybe they were tired; but pistons will not win jump shooting all the time; they just will not win a championship that way; they will go on long winning streaks, but it will mean nothing.
Bad defense by both Hayes and Dice in this one. Although the game was lost in the end, in actuallity we lost is in the second qtr when we gave up the 12 point lead instead of extending it. Once again, Celtics prove why they have the best defense in the league limiting another team to only 85 points.
Boston had 14 assists with 13 turnovers; Pistons were far better in both categories, 23 assists to only 6 turnovers. No question that second chance points were the difference in this one; Boston had a huge lead in that category. Our bench actually produced OK, 23 points in what was a low scoring game...but Boston's bench scored 39!!
Hmmm...did you check out Big Baby in our game tonight? A real difference maker. Now granted he had some college experience that AJ didn't have, but even if you don't think AJ is ready the fact remains what Lee said. We need another big out there asap.
