When Eli was in NY, he used to call the Houston Oilers, the Howston Oilers (because there's a famous street in NY called Houston, but all the NYers pronounce it Howston.,
The defense improved. The only player who was giving the Pistons a hard time was Jamison, he forced Sheed out of the paint. Pistons came back and almost won it at the end because they went inside then outside. At one point they made 8 shots in a row because they went inside to Tay, Webber, and Sheed before kicking it out. Coaching improved. Flip called more timeouts, and he brought the bench in the 4th quarter when the starters were struggling. The problems in this game were missed free throws, and turnovers. This team is one of the best in those categories. The turnovers are understandable since Chris is just starting to learn the system, but rip and chauncey missing free throws has no explanation. Chauncey has also been rebounding a lot lately, he finished with a team high 9 rebounds. I always wanted the gaurds to board (rip had 5 as well), but the bigs should always have the most boards. The Pistons just lost. They beat out the Wizards in everything, but turnovers.
Seems like it was only a month ago that forum discussion was about the trend toward taking the hightlight trey as a game winner when two pts gests the W. You see it nightly on both the collegiate and professional level. Can't explain it. It defies logic. But it fits our coaching style.
I thought CB tore up his calf trying to rebound. I saw his 9 rebounds on the stat sheet last night but couldn't remember seeing him get that many in the game. I know at least once Tay tipped a shot back out to CB so maybe he was picking up a lot of loose balls and not actually crashing the glass. I think people forget, it was 1 point to tie, 2 to win. Shooting a 3 is a low % shot no matter how you stack it up. All CB had to do was fight through the double team without losing the ball and he probably would have been sent to the line. Those two FTs would have been BIG SHOTS.
A player should never fight through a double team because that means there is a wide open teammate. Sheed was open, he just missed.
PopcornMachine's GameFlow - Washington @ Detroit Looking at the game flow the starters in the 3rd Q got worked.
I disagree. The Wizards wanted us to take the low % shot even if it was open. They did not want CB to penetrate, hence the double team. Draw a foul and this game was over unless the Wiz hit a prayer. That seems to be the fundamental issue with this team. They do not like contact, nor do they seek it out. Those open jumpers seem to consistently be the bailout play and as we saw in the Heat series, if they don't fall, and no one is willing to man up, it gets ugly fast.
I would rather have Sheed rolling inside instead of outside. It's bad to try forcing something against a double team. If Sheed would of rolled to the inside it would of been an easy 2 points. Hopefully after seeing how successful the Pistons were when they went inside to the bigs these things will change. The defense along with rebounding is slowly improving. This team probably has the best passing team all around, hopefully it results to easy bunnies instead of open jumpers.
For those of you who didn't see the game, I think this is a new thing. Chauncey Billups is wearing a sleeve on his calf. Need4Sheed has a picture of it (and a decent recap). Need4Sheed.com: Wizards Hold On For The Win In Detroit At the bottom of the post is also the Ford commercial with CB in it. They must have played that ad 6 or 7 times during the local telecast.
just watched the game. our offense was great in the 1st, and rip/webber have really great chemistry. washington doesn't really scare me - they have no chance at defending us. we lost because 3rd quarter was one of the laziest i've ever seen - missed free throws, terrible fast break passes, and we played at the wizards' pace, not ours. chauncey didn't have a great game, but at least he dictated tempo in the 1st half. 3rd quarter he did an awful job. couple other things to note - prince and delfino owned butler, but washington ran a very weird offense that continually left jamison wide open while one of our bigs had no one to guard. considering the wizards have a smaller lineup in general and spread the floor, that doesn't bode so well matching up. maxiell should've played more, we didn't need our towers in their all game (although dice played really well). if we can figure out the offense they ran in the 1st half, and how to defend it, we can beat the wizards every time.
