went to the game...refs killed it in the early 4th quarter by calling rip for 3 fouls on the SAME possession. wilcox and rip set up for 2 straight alley oops, and while sometimes he just stands around doing nothing, he can become a useful player for us if he can learn the game of basketball. all of our bigs need to learn to box out. one thing i like about charlie v is that he likes to put the ball on the floor and go to the hoop. he's got some nice post up moves. jerebko also made 2 very good offensive plays via a kareem-skyhook and a nice dribble-drive to the basket. rip is mostly deferring but his game is regular-season ready. bynum was a non-factor along with tay. would've liked to see daye get in there, but hopefully we'll see him tomorrow. gordon is clearly trying to fit in but when we go on those cold streaks i'd like to see him just try to take over the offense himself. stuckey had an excellent game. he controlled the tempo well and was aggressive when he needed to be. there was a definite difference when he was in the game and when he was not. several problems are going to hurt us this season and we're going to lose games because of it. first, we have a lot of penetrators and not a lot of distributors. either the guys have to penetrate and kick out for 3s, are they're going to have to start looking for other guys when they drive. second, we have a plethora of mediocre bigs, but no one who's going to consistently grab 8-12 rebounds per game or play solid defense. third, our defense is just weak. i do think the defense can be drastically improved with proper coaching though. tonight the pistons played pretty when guarding their own man, but where we gave up a ton of points was not rotating, not defending the pick-and-roll, and letting guys get down low because of improper switching. all of these things are correctable as long as the coaching stuff knows how to fix it and our players are willing and smart enough to understand and implement it. we'll see.
Do we have any defensive minded coaches on staff who can teach defense to players who don't think about D? Old Ben and thin Tay maybe the only ones who can play any D and we know about Ben's limitations, but Tay is probably passed his prime at this point.... .Hopefully someone in the Pistons Org is taping tonight's TNT game so the Piston players can watch it over the weekend to see how good the Lakers play D.....it wins championships.... thanks for the hogcap
Do not forget that Pistons played without centers. None of today listed players are capable of handling C pos for more than 5 min substitution. About complaining "mediocre centers", hey, what did you expect???
Look at the bright side. At least we will be able to watch them lose on tv from now on as this was the last non-televised game. 15-9 To's. You can't have poor defense and not take care of the ball. I am sure they will figure it out. Practically throwing together a whole new team here.
A good season will be 41-41.....a lot of teams will be coming after us now that all the swagger is gone.. instead of 'GOIN TO WORK' our new slogan might be 'OUT TO LUNCH!'
I don't expect the Pistons to be .500 before Christmas. The losses don't mean anything to me. I'm excited to see what we have, particularly with Kwame and Bynum in contract years, and Ben possibly playing out his last season. Timberwolves vs. Pistons - NBA Videos and Highlights NBA.com: Timberwolves at Pistons Boxscore
Do not forget that Minnesota played without their starting C and PF, and two best players: Al Jefferson and Kevin Love! They started Oleksiy Pecherov and Ryan Gomes up front! LOL. The squad the Pistons faced tonight was just utterly pathetic and they still lost. But, hey, it's a freakin preseason game...But still. The D is gonna be porous this year...Like Roscoe, I'll also be excited to watch this new team this year- but it's gonna be pretty ugly for awhile.
You have to factor in that MN had Bill Laimbeer and his 5 Championship pedigree. Not exactly a lightweight.
I guess it's good to see our starting PG out-play his back-up for the first time this preseason. Props to stuck for only having 2 TOs.
And don't forget about Rambis who has 4 rings as a player and 4 as an assistant coach to Phil.....The Q was totally over matched when it came title pedigree Why Joe didn't consider him as a coach is another matter.....Maybe Magic told Rambis to stay away from motown...
