vs Toronto Raptors Wednesday March 16 7:30 pm

Pistons going with the all OLD lineup today with:

TMac, Rip, Tay, BenW, and Monroe.

Story of the Pistons season....can't play enough defense to blow even a bad team out as they lead by 20 with just under 8 minutes to go and then barely hold on to a double digit lead of 11 at the half.

Which team is [STRIKE]taynking[/STRIKE] trying to get a higher draft pick?

Pistons win

Three starters Rip, GM and Tay score 21 or better and the bench contributes 27...

Stuckey comes off the bench to deliver 14 assists, and took only one shot in the 4th and finished with 3 pts off three made FT's.

At the end of the game, he hugged two players, patted the ref on the behind and hugged one of the assistant coaches for the Raptors. He then told Eli that HE was the PG for this team.....

I am eagerly awaiting KG's recap on this game.

Do you have a feel for the length of time that each hug lasted?

Easy, man easy . . .

About 1.8 seconds each

From Toronto's side, it's another new beginning. Bryan Colangelo is about out the door, by committee structure, with a bit more savvy than his enlightened perception transferred from the sun state. Terrible team administration (committees still have leaders) that doesn't understand cultural heritage and group mind association. You may ask what is your clue? Then ask: who is your best mind association? Hint: it is not DeRoszan.

And I have heartburn about them picking #5.

Ok, he is making a point. So what?

The blackboard is written upon with white chalk. This team has left the train station with a huge load of invisible ink on board. In fact, it has been a surreptitious cargo for quite some time. The alignments for this country has been fine cut into nano-segments that some how has been pinched into a vortex (free or forced) that must always exit. The right exits are never a closed door. It is a wise person who keeps this in-mind. However, be advised: you must understand suffering.

Good to see all our weapons out there. Big Ben, Rip, TMac, Tay, Stuckey. Very nostalgic.

This could be the Ben Wallace victory lap over the next month, so try to enjoy.

finally won the halftime phone trivia. went to go claim my prize...turned out to be a shirt and a hat. i guess it's better than nothing!

that's about all i have to say about the game besides stuckey looking great passing and monroe continuing to improve

G-Mon racking up some assists too! Love to see that.

Please someone, with whom Stuckey played his minutes mostly ? The bench or starters ? Thank you.

He should have started JMax instead of GM.

Maybe Stuckey is Bi-curious and having trouble keeping it in. I think he might have one foot out of the closet. Actually I am just kidding around but .... now that I brought it up....has there ever been an openly gay NBA player? You have to figure that one NBA player over all these years must have been....statistically speaking.

Greg Monroe was seldom posted up. Mostly, he scored on plays that had him cutting to the basket, or on putbacks. His 20-10 is that more impressive as we don't even have to run plays for him for the most part.

Rip was on fire from the 3-point line and very effective at guarding the opposing point with all that length. This put Tay guarding the shooting guard, kind of hard on the speed side for him to do that - but he won his matchup easily scoring over 20 points himself along with Rip.

Stuckey played the part of the back up point to perfection, looking to dish assists with great success, getting a career high 14 assists. He did this by threating to get to the basket - and Toronto had to respect him. Even though he did not score a bucket in this game, he has scored plenty in previous games. No sign of Bynum in this game. This has been the most he has been out of the rotation all season.

TMAC nailed a 3, and put down one completely awesome jam after driving in. We just missed 40 points in that first quarter when Monroe mised that dunk. And in the 3rd quarter, we managed to keep our lead. No problem at all with TMAC being the starting point forward.

Our bench is again back to having the combination of Gordon and CV. Two good shooters who compliment each other well - as its difficult to guard both. Then you have Daye out there with them, another fine outside shooter. Stuckey can now drive in and find plenty of people to kick out to - while Wilcox is a legitimate post threat helping to keep the perimeter even more free. Good set up for offensive production.

The best part - the coach not only had a good rotation out there - he used it. The starters do their job - the subs rest them, and the starters come back in after resting. Just like a normal team.

Ben Wallace is darn good on D. Very active. The rest seems to have done him well physically. Actually, with a few days off before this game, a lot of Pistons seemed to have more pep in their step.

Ok, but this was just Toronto. Lets see them do the same vs. a playoff bound team.

I may be in the minority here but I like the rotation Q used last night.

I don't mine the older guys starting. It just means Q has to be aware of when they start to get gassed and he needs to start subbing. My fear is that he won't and will play these guys too long to their detriment. When shots start coming up short and guys are a step slow on defense; it is time to bring in rested guys. This would be the most important thing for Q to manage.

I like the minutes that he played T-Mac and Stuck. 29 for T-Mac and 27 for Stuck. Maybe reversing these would be better but I hope he keeps them about the same for each.

Not sure I like the split between Rip and BG. 35 for Rip and only 13 for BG. Would like to see it more along the lines of the way he used T-Mac and Stuck. The only problem with that is we lose a lot defensively when BG comes in for Rip. This may turn out to be the main reason we can't play him more minutes but I would like to see it. I guess if he can score more then he gives up, it is still a "winning" situation.

The next question is will he stay with this rotation the rest of the way to see if these guys can gel a little more or will he change it up next game??