Indiana Dec 28th 8PM tv: WDIV 1st of one of those back-back/home-home deals with the Pistons hosting game 1. Pacers are dangerous again. Not a serious contender but they are good enough to beat any time on a given night. All 5 Pacer starters avg in double figures. Injuries: Pacers - reserve David Harrison. Pistons - none
With Blaha covering the MSU game, the Pistons have turned to Gus Johnson for the play-by-play on channel 4. Johnson is a really interesting broadcaster and I'm going to tape the game to hear him call it.
OOps, didn`t know the first one was in Detroit. Still, look for a split here. The Pacers always get up for the Pistons!
Lots of teams get up for the Pistons. I think the outcome of this series mainly depends on Pistons keeping up their interest and Flip's use of the bench that keeps infusing the team with the energy.
The starters have to make sure that they play smart tonight to allow Flip to utilize the bench and save some minutes for tomorrows game. Agree Indy is tougher this year thay they have been recently as all appear healthy and Tinsley and Dunleavy appear to be having their best seasons to date.
The number is a little padded rebounding his own missed shots but still AJ led us in rebounding tonight. 9 in 11 minutes.
The recently familiar 3rd quarter explosion happened one quarter early tonight for the Pistons, as they blitzed the Pacers 40-22 in the 2nd to blow it open by halftime. Jarvis was en fuego in that quarter with 13 points, the Pacers couldn't stop turning it over, and pretty much everyone was hitting for the Pistons. Nobody played any D in the second half, and the scrubs got burned during garbage time to cut the lead all the way down to 10 with a minute left, but they had enough to hang on in a 13 point win that wasn't as close as it looked. Odd balance of things tonight with Hayes going wild while Herrmann saw his first time as a Piston, both in the same game. Lindsey was deactivated, and Herrmann apparently scored his first Piston points on a nice reverse layup that I missed while watching Orlando beat Miami. Amir dominated the boards in garbage time, I think he had 9 or 10.
The Pacers had their regular rotation guys in for about half of the last quarter. Diogu and Foster who are in their regular rotation played quite a bit in the 4th quarter.
As Dumars stated, the Pistons dominated in the second qtr with help from both the starters and hayes burning the nets for I believe possibly all of his 13 points. (he was 4-5 from the field and hit 3 three pointers. The Pistons scored 64 points in the first half, but gave up 60 in an all second half garbage time affair. J ONeal was able to pad his stats in the third qtr as did rip and tay during this stint when both teams traded buckets and ended up with 29 a piece. Rip hit what looked like 3 three pointers from the left in a row and Tay scored on a assortment of spins and post up moves. Pacers first team to score over 87 points on the Pistons during this streak and only the second team to score over 100 pts on the Pistons in December (Det beat Mem 113-111 on 12/11). The # 2 D took a little beating tonight, but the game was over at halftime and all they had to do really was trade hoops to win for sure.
I wasn't complaining but I thought I would just mention it first You still have to get the rebounds either way.
I can't believe Aflalo missed 3 of 4 free throws. Champion interviewed him after the game and AA said the second unit has got to tighten it up.
AA 1-4 from the line!!!!!! HE SUCKS, we never should have drafted him. Deactivate him so FlipJr can get back in the rotation!!!!!!!!!!!! Flip S is stupid for playing AA!!!!!!
