Detroit Pistons vs Toronto Raptors Wednesday December 23 7:30 pm Local TV: FS Detroit Plus Nat'l TV: Radio: 950 WWJ
No prediction on the final score or out come from me, but IMO, we will need at least 96 points to win this one, which means more than 50 in the second half. During the current losing streak, the talent sitting in street clothes on bench has really come into fruition with the team missing their scoring punch in the second half. We have not topped 50 in the second half on any of the last 5 games fizzing out vs the Hornets with only 32 pts and then failing to take advantage of the 4th quarter miscues of the Lakers and Bobcats with our own offensive failures. See how we have fared below: Rockets~ 49 Hornets ~32 Thunder ~47 Lakers ~43 Bobcats ~40 We averaged 99.6 ppg game during the five game win streak including topping 100 points three times and averaged only 87.6 pts during the current five game losing streak including finishing under 88 points 3 times. The law of averages points out that we could have won three of those five losses just scoring 96 points.
I like your breakouts. I usually drill down a bit further per team members. Raptors are rested and the Pistons B\B. The latter will be coming in timid. I figure that you will get 60+ points out of Turkoglu, Bosh, and Bargnani. This will leave Jack and DeRozan. You need to stop Jack from getting off and I would stick Stuckey on him to see how play progresses in the first quarter. That leaves Roz open at the SG and a handful at 6-7...still, the Pistons need to stay close in the first quarter. Q need not get all crazy when the Raptors big three start scoring. What is his game plan. He should know, that Bosh just kills us. Then, what is your game plan on the big three?
I always liked pounds strategy. It's sort of half-zen, half Sun Tzu. How ironic it is conceived by a Machiavelli. Let the capitols get theirs, diminish the effect from the provinces.
Exactly. When 100% healthy, the Pistons are still a lottery team. There is no magical lineup or rotation that will change that fact. On a positive note, the youngsters are getting some valuable minutes. Any other positive notes?
On a positive note. I don't agree with the statement above. Despite playing like crap, and extended injuries to 4 of our top 6 guys, we're 2.5 games out of the SIXTH seed. 1 game out of the 8th. My concern right now is that even when Rip/Tay/BG get back, our D has fallen off noticeably as Ben has lost that pep in his step... This is something that isn't going to just get better when our other guys get healthy. Joe needs to deal for a decent C asap. Not sure how long Ben is going to hold up at this rate.
Seeds are a little misleading in the Eastern Conference. The Pistons are currently on pace to have a 32-50 record. Only the Wizards had a worse record than that in the East last year.
6th game in 9 nights and a back to back. But worse, the same coach coaching for us, making too many bad decisions. This ain't going to vary from the last game report much, in case anyone wants to stop reading now. To Kuester's credit, he at least did not march Kwame out there. There ain't nobody on the Toronto team Kwame can keep up with and apparently Kuester had enough common sense to know that. But he still started Atkins, who can't defend anyone. And who can't play a lick of point guard. Typical sequence saw Atkins dribble it up the floor look around lost, and hand the ball off to Stuckey to try to create something with the little left on the clock. Now, Chucky did not play that much. But if he was not out there, you might notice an injured guy limping around who had no business at all being in the game. Totally unexplainably, Kuester again let Villanueva play on his bum foot. No reason for that. No need. Not even the least. We got some guards out with injuries - but other than CV, our bigs are healthy enough. More experimenting with Summers as a shooting guard. Ain't pretty. We struggle to score, and the coach can't figure that just maybe he has to break up the pairing of JMAX and Ben. Great to have the defensive energy to start games with those two - but hey, if it ain't working, fix it. Wilcox should start for one of these guys, in my opinion. (And I think it should be for Ben Wallace, who remember, it was the never the plan in the first place to have him be a starter when we got him. Let Ben bring defensive energy off the bench. Its a perfect role. You don't have to warm up to play D.) They announced that Rip and Gordon will be back for Sunday's game - also against these Raptors. And maybe Tay too. JJ hit some outside shots late. But he passed up shots he should have taken in the first half while we were falling behind. If he won't shoot open shots, let Summers take a turn starting who is not shy to shoot at all. Daye played little, did very little. JMAX and Ben played D. JMAX added some scoring. We got 24 offensive rebounds, one bright spot. JJ, JMAX, and Ben got most of those. Wilcox gave us some scoring. Not great on defense, but adequate. I'll take it. We did get the ball to him under the basket, but he got fouled quickly every time. Made half his free throws. Would have been quite a game for him if he hit a few more. I think he ended up with about 11. Stuckey is playing as always, not worth a darn if overplayed. Of course, if he gets some rest he will do a lot better.
We just scored 64 points against the worst defensive team in the NBA. Toronto gives up 107.6 points per game, so we were 44 points below average! It was really, really, really ugly. Will Bynum shot 43% and he was the highest on our team. Stuckey was 3-13 and only drew 1 shooting foul and only had 1 rebound. We were 1 for 9 from deep (JJ with the only hit). 63% from the FT line. 10 assists for us, 26 for the Raps. We blocked 1 shot, got blocked 9 times. Our starting PG had 0 FG's and 1 assist. Charlie V was 0-7 from the floor and didn't get to the line. And just to show how irrelevant a statistic can be, we won the rebounding battle 47 to 38. That kept us from losing by 50 I guess. Cheer up Pistons fans, we are an injured mess. Role players can't be asked to replace guys like Ben Gordon and Rip Hamilton's scoring. The East is so weak that it will be easy to make up ground if we ever get our weapons back.
Uncle! Uncle!! The Pistons seem to run an inordinate amount of plays for Jerebko. I'm not sure who else they could run them for, but I don't think the Cavs run as many plays for their SF. The Raps did not have to even get deep into the paint in order to get wide open 3's. I thought they had said Rip, Ben and Tay would be back early next year, not the next game.
Oh, I forgot to mention that we just tied the lowest scoring game in franchise history... against the worst defensive team in the NBA. Have a great night.
