Round 2 Game 4 - 7pm Mon May 15 Det at Clev

Y'all that aren't worried should be.....now I know we'll beat the Cavs, but remember it's 'ship or die. This team can not beat Dallas or Miami right now. Both have deeper and more productive benches that allow their starters to have fresher legs down the stretch, and both have coaches that can draw up sets to get pts in the paint....remember those guys....we used to do that until we became a pass once jump-shooting team, that loves to hoist triples. Now we got a coach that can't figure out a 2nd half rotation that won't blow a lead. The name of the game is playing YOUR HAND, not ending the game with players on the court unfamiliar with that experience.

In the end of a playoff game you need to get ft's or pts in the paint if you want to be a champion, now granted there will be the option to kick it out for a J on the play, but you can design a play that is set up to get a jumper....wtf. And low and behold here we are in the 4th qtr playing a team where our biggest advantage is suppossed to be inside and Flip puts 4 perimeter players on the floor with Ben and we get man handled on the boards.......Lord Help Us. We are at the bottom of the league in rebs and pip's, not a formula for a 'ship.

Ben has always had the look of the lion when he's getting low post touches. JUST touches. They ran NO plays in his direction and I know for a fact that Z-Ill is not qwik enuf to guard him for at least 12 pts. We must spread the floor and give Ben and Tay room to work. Ben is also a good passer out the post. I think I'll send Joe D an email tonight and tell him its "light a fire in Flip's behind" time..or else ..

Yeah unless the bench is holding back something, our worst fear may be realized, that the starters would be burned out by playoff time because Flip did not trust the bench during the season. As Micro posted, they have scored 22 pts and pulled down 21 boards combined in games 2-4. Their bench of Donyell and Varejo are out playing our guys..nuff said

Tony Delk looked like a steal 6 weeks ago, now he can barely get off the bench. Dice got over missing the setup plays from Arroyo and solidified what we thought were the best starters and 1 in the NBA. now he has disappeared. Hunter gets off in game 1 shooting 4-5 Three balls and probably has scored no more than three points since then. We all may hate to say it, but Mo is the only one showing any inspiration out there and he is the player with the least amount of playoff experience. We still have issues scoring when he is in there though????

Second guess time?? How did Joe or any other GM in the vicinity let Tim Thomas sit at home for half of the season and then let the Suns grab him? I know we had Evans, but based on Thomas' contributions and our lack of offense, he could have been our x factor now more so than Delk. Right now, maybe Delfino is the x-factor that you bring in to throw off the Cavs as Varejeo has done to throw off our guys...

Tomorrow night, play your game, score 90 points and put a muzzle on Sheeds mouth before they goback to Cleveland. Once there, quietly take care of business and play smart ball and congratulate the Cavs for a nice test and go home and get ready for the Heat on Sunday.

Dre, I think the bench looks worse than it is due to Flip's over dependence on the starters. The 2nd unit needs to get into game flow too.

This board needs a "W"... can only imagine what the DetNews sounds like now.

It's not as bad as you would think....(relatively speaking). Most people aren't jumping off the roofs of buildings (although some should be thrown off).


Yeah, Lee is over there telling people how he predicted everything that happened (after it happens, of course), a couple of trolls, a handful of doomsayers, the usual imbeciles, a few muppets, and even...well...there's a...uhmmm...a kitty cat... posting over there (although it does seem somewhat brighter than many of the other posters).

You guys do know that if Darko was on the roster we would have had W's in Games 3&4, right?

I Been Too Pissed for Words.

I wonder if Joe is wondering about Flip right about now. Might be time for a come to Jesus meeting before things get any more out of hand.

This ties our longest loosing streak of the year, which didn’t happen till the last two games.

Somebody recover our shooting touch. It was last seen in Frostbite Falls.

Speaking of falls, isn’t it about time we find out if Mister James bounces.

AWWWW DAMNIT, YEA IT'S TIME FOR THAT COME TO JESUS MEETING. FLIP NEEDS TO BE REMINDED JUST WHAT IT IS THAT MAKES US THE BIG DOGS. AND IT AIN'T A SUNS SIZE LINEUP GETTING SERVED BY SIDESHOW BOB.

Naw Merc I need more than a W, I need to see a team that wins the board war, wins the pts in the pt, moves the ball on offense, and just flexes it's muscle with a SYSTEM!!!!
All that X-factor stuff is BS, champions don't have X-factors they have players that know their role and excel in it. Champions play their game and make you stop it, when you can stop it..... you're the new champ. Dude I'm so frikkin pissed off at Flip right now I don't know what to do. How and the HELL do you put a lineup on the floor that has never played together before in a playoff game.....what plays can they run that they've practiced and perfected....that's why the execution was so off in the end.

lemon I think rick carlise was sitting behind our bench as we reverted back to the scoring droughts we use to suffer when he was at the helm.

The problem is we spent the whole season living by the jumpshot and our only low post presence was the offensively challenged Ben. Right now Varejo is outplaying anybody we have in the post and jumpers are not falling. How can we go six minutes into the 4th qtr with only scoring 1 point!!!!!

We had a 10 pt lead in the 3rd qtr of game 3 and 6 pt lead going into the 4th of game 4 and blew both leads......This could have been a sweep if we had played the 4th quarters the way champions play it.

The sad part is that it didn't require a champiosnhip team to win the last game. Even if the offense was simply medicore instead of absolutely awful, the Pistons could have won. Flip's coaching negatives can't explain why these boys couldn't put up a couple of extra points/went into an extended funk when minimal scoring was required.

I don't think the problem was jump shots but lack of motion in the offense. We were playing under a lot of self-inflicted pressure as well--we normally would have won that game with a mediocre performance. Le Bron said the pressure was on the Pistons.

But we do not need to slow up the game to beat them and we can only beat the Heat if we play up tempo and use our speed and athleticism. But first things first, we have to move the ball and get our looks and make them play defense for 24 seconds. It is as if we are afraid to expose them.

Every time we had a few point edge, Chaucey launched a quick shot instead of working the offense. Our starters as a whole are not playing like they can. I wouldn't expect the bench to make that up. What we are lacking off the bench is good speed. The only speed we have is Evans who is limited in his overall game.

I'm not sure if everyone here remembers how hard it was to get to the promised land 2 years ago. We could have been eliminated a few times. We played poorly sometimes. Once you get by an obstacle like this one, everyone forgets about it.

We could have easily lost to the Pacers in '04.

And again, we were relatively close to sweeping this series.

Exactly right. I was thinking the same thing this morning. Getting to the finals last year was scary too.

Hurry up game 5.

The Pacers were a 60+ win team with a 3rd-place MVP candidate, the DPOY, a feared clutch shooter, and a deep complementary cast. The Pistons finished 7 wins behind them.

The Cavs are a 50 win team with a 2nd-place MVP candidate and a whole lot of overrated, overpaid, and generally miscast players. The Pistons finished 14 wins ahead of them.

Nobody could have expected that the Pistons would suddenly perform this poorly against such a bad defensive team - and the Pistons don't have a HOF coach this time.

I'm not certain what point you are trying to make?

Are you saying the Pistons are going to lose to the Cavs?

Are you suggesting we all become Knicks fans?

Are you saying the Pistons should have swept the Cavs?

At what point are they allowed to lose a couple games to a team?

They played poorly. Nobody is defending them or making excuses for the players or the coach. Sux to be us today.

You go ahead and jump ship if you want, Captain Ahab (sorry, couldn't resist), I'm staying on board. See you at the victory party.

Yep, we've been down this path once or twice.... at least this year it seems like we have the ability to score (baring this past game)... with Carlisle & LB you knew you were in for a dog fight every game because of the slow down style.
Somewhere there's a balance between ball control and freedom.... for the most part they've had a decent handle on this.

Just that the Pacers in '04 that we "could have easily lost to" were a much better team all around than the Cavaliers of '06, as were the Nets of that year and the Heat last year. I even think the Pacers of '05 were a better team than these Cavs.

I just think that every team that has taken the Pistons to 6 games or more during this run was better than the Cavs. The Pistons should not be having this much trouble putting away Cleveland.

I was wondering what would have happened if Sheed would have fouled LeBron the exact same way that Snow fouled Evans last night. 2 game suspension maybe? You would get your ass kicked on the playground for that one.