Detroit Pistons vs New York Knicks Tuesday December 29 7:30 pm Local TV: FS Detroit Nat'l TV: Radio: 97.1 The Ticket
Looking forward to seeing my first Pistons game of the year. Looking forward to seeing how the rookies play. Hope we blow out the Knicks. For those who haven't followed the Knicks, Mike D'Antoni is insane, LB insane, not sure if this is a positive or not. Things to watch. Possibly a six man rotation A guy out of the NBA for the past 4 years because he has no cartilage in his knees The best bench player benched for a month and counting, to make a point (and no, I'm not talking about Darko), and also two lottery picks in a season that means nothing Shooting 3s, a lot of them Playing no D Al Harrington will shoot, a lot Danillo is good, very, very, good If Nate gets into the game Toney Douglas, from Detroit, has skills similar to Stuckey. Joe may want to keep an eye on him, the kid is not happy under Mike D. Jared Jeffries, worst starter in the league, hands down David Lee will be available next year, and maybe this year if we took Curry and/or Jeffries with him for expirings, but I don't think that is possible with our current contracts
Forgot to add, we are going to be abused by the Refs. Ever since the Knicks start 3 and lot, the refs (Stern) have been going out of their way to make sure the Knicks at least look respectable this year. First realized this when I saw Gerald Wallace get ejected for looking upset after called for a phantom foul, the calls have gotten even worse since, but the Knicks and Stern are now winning. Here comes LeBron.
Have to get up early, so no more of this game, but early thoughts from my first Pistons game of the year: Gordon should be starting What happened to Tay and Rip? Jonas is good, but bench good, not starting good We got outrebounded by a bad rebounding team, Joe has zero idea on signing bigmen This team not good, and likely is getting worse Coaching not good, no concept of letting guys playing well keep playing and guys playing badly get yanked I know this is another post, but to improve this team means a wholesale gutting. Only keepers I see are Jonas, Gordon, and Bynum. Can't judge Daye because his time was so limited. Rip and Tay have to go.
16, great posts. Like to see more of you around here. Brutal game. Pistons were never in it. And somehow, a small cadre of devoted fans huddled in chat, to tell stories of the days when we could shoot and defend, passing time until judgment was sealed by the final buzzer. I would trade Rip and Tay for Jared Jeffries. David Lee outplayed all of the Pistons big men combined. Kuester put the bench in to throw in the towel on the game, and the Knicks left their starters in. That pretty much says it all. One team (and coach) wanted to win, and one had surrendered halfway through the 4th. No way Kuester is back next year if he doesn't get his sideline game together. Right now the Pistons look uninspired and unprepared.
First, we start two guys coming off injuries. Worse, we play a bunch of small ball, more than half the game. And it gets worse, we played 3 guards and Tay at PF - even smaller. And we never even resembled a team that could outplay the other team with this small ball stuff. Ain't working at all. Throw in overplaying Stuckey. I guess Bynum took a day off to rest his ankle? He did not play. Oh, and maybe worst of all these, continuing to play Villanueva when he is totally worthless. Guess what, you can heal a PF injury without playing NBA ball. Sure, you want to keep it stretched - but you don't have to be put into an NBA game to get that done. Let Villanueva stretch elsewhere and put a healthy player in. Stuckey had a decent enough game. But of course, I mean for him. He is not exactly that great at perimeter D, but he did better than the injured guys at it anyway. Ben Wallace was pointless in this one. There was noone in the game he could guard, and you know he does not exactly help on O. Kuester, if given several more seasons, might start to begin to find combinations of players who actually work together. But I doubt it, cause he does not seem to see the obvious. When Wilcox is in the game, the ball has to get to him around the basket. Players that can help that cause should be playing along side him. Those who can't help should not. Tonight Wilcox had an inept point guard in there in Atkins, an injured CV, not to mention 3 guards in the game. Here is how it works. You got a post up player. You don't put, if you can help it, someone in the game who can be played off of so that your post up player is double teamed. (No Wallace.) But you do have to have someone along side that player who can crash the boards and get offensive rebounds when your post player misses after drawing several defenders. And of course, you should have a 2nd guy to help the first crash the boards. (This ain't happening with 3 guards in.) We did have Daye in there at small forward with Wilcox for a short spell at least. (And indeed, Daye even managed to pass the ball to Wilcox near the basket for a score.) Play of the game, for us anyway, was a one handed alley oop pass catch and dunk by Wilcox. (Gordon assisted.) Who should have started this game: Healthy players. Like maybe Stuckey, Daye, JJ, JMAX, Wilcox. Bench: Just a bit of Gordon and Rip. Summers, Ben Wallace. Tay should still be resting and healing the back. CV needs to rest until the plantar faceitus (sp) is gone. You know, all is not lost. We still have a lot of good players. We are not that far out of the playoff picture yet. The coach does seem to have figured out that Wilcox is a decent post player to be playing. He just might figure out how to get him the ball yet. (And in my opinion, its the coach figuring out how to use his players that is more important than how soon all the players get healthy.)
This team cannot shoot straight and cannot defend at all. Only one of the teams we have lost to during this streak were over .500 at the time (Lakers). The rest of the teams we would have probably beaten even with Curry's mismanaged misfits. If they cannot beat the Bulls on Thursday, then there is a possibility this 8 game losing streak extends out to 11 games and even more if they can't managed to beat the sixes on 1/9, it might be a long season for Pistons fans...if it already isn't already). Right now we are sitting with the 7th pick....but Indiana, losers of 7 in row and the Nets losers of 10 are trying their best to assure themselves of a spot in the top three picks, so we will have to lose a few more to assure that at least we get at least a top 5 pick.
Dumars can't get rid of Hamilton soon enough. I'd offer more insight on the game than that, but I'm just... tired.
The Knicks looked good tonight, better than Toronto. They did a really nice job of getting their long wings the ball when guarded by the Piston guards. I'm not sure if this was all a result of small ball. Why did Ben never come back into the game, were they just looking for more O? Wilcox was getting a rough whistle. I've never been impressed with David Lee, but he too looked good tonight. I don't know if it is more a function of this team, but he joins Chris Kaman this season in the validation of the internets sensation. He is fortunate to be left handed. I know it was discussed earlier, but they showed a highlight of Tay's 2004 block. It is impossible to overestimate how big a play that was. Ben's block of Shaq is not even close.
Getting tired of losing. It's not fair to blame Keuster though at this point. He is just playing who he has which is an asymmetrical mosh of talent that lends itself to small ball. No team is going to bench their very expensive players for min-contract ones to make it fit. Blame lays with the GM for over stacking the team at the SG and PF spots. Until that is fixed the coach is going to have to make due with what he has.
I just saw this while scoping out the Pistons TV Companion Chat LMAO. I don't feel so bad sitting through our grumpy chats now. It's nice to know the Pistons org also feels the pain. haha haha. Hey Pretzer, you lightweight, this is how a 5 season game chat pro signs off during an 8 game losing streak. :D
