Pistons and Jazz play an early one

34-30 our lead after the 1st quarter. Nice comeback, after not hitting any buckets to start the 1st I was starting to get worried. We are going to need our starters to play some heavy minutes to stay in this game.

If we can stay in the game with Murray at PG I’ll have to give him some credit.

I love seeing Nazr out there with JMax. When Max goes for the shot block, Nazr is there to rebound, and they seem to be comfortable out there together. I can’t believe that recent sequence of offensive rebounds for Utah, but the ball seemed to bounce in crazy ways…

4 steals for Murray in 7 minutes, not bad at all.

BS call on Prince…

The refs sure helped the Jazzs’ lead at the end of 2nd quarter. I seen 3 bad calls against us within 2-3 minutes.

I missed most of 3rd quarter, I come back and there’s a bad call on Prince, and Saunders got ejected? Looks like the refs don’t want us to win. They must of betted on the Jazz.

Flip got tossed! Is that a first? I tried to look up coaches ejections about a month ago, and I came up empty. Anyone know where to find that stat?

Another T? Dyess gets fouled and we get a tech on the bench? What the hell is going on? There is no doubt the refs are calling the game for the Jazz.

Nazr got fouled and it was a no call.

Sounds like the crowd feels the same way we do, this is ridiculous.

When is Stuckey getting back? I think that Flip Murray is actually being paid by all of the other teams in the NBA to sabotage the Pistons. Every time he touches the ball I cringe and give up any hope for that offensive posession.

Looks like about 2 weeks left before we get Stuckey back.

Bad call on Rip, it never ends.

Not having Sheed’s interior defense hurt. I think he could have slowed down Boozer some by making him work on the other end.

Good game for Nazr. Not so good for Murray.

Better rebounding effort than I expected. But the defense as a whole got shredded.

I love watching that Utah offense. I don’t hate Flip like most others on this site, but I think Jerry Sloan would be a great coach for the Pistons because of that offense.

I thought Stuckey was going to be ready for the Bucks game. Can’t wait to see him on the court. Especially after watching Deron Williams whose game I see Stuckey emulating.

Pistons – Sheed = Non-existant in the paint.. Seriously without Sheed this team has no presence at all in the paint.. We need him back ASAP…

I just wish Saunders was more defensive minded than offensive!

Some days you eat the baby…some days the baby eats you!

Hey James— you sure we were watching the same game?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/shotchart?gameId=271125008

17 offensive boards to their 11 as well. I think we did decent without him on this one…

After another night where the Pistons get abused by a mobile strongman. I worry about this team stopping players like Boozer and LeBron in the paint. I’m going to share my fantasy – I’d like to see Elton Brand in a Pistons uniform. He’s coming back soon from that Achilles injury and a free agent at the end of this year. Maybe if the Clippers slip out of the playoff picture he’ll be available. As much as I enjoy the young bigs (Max, Amir, Samb) and see a bright future I’d trade some potential production for the here and now. There are only 5 players on the court at any given time and a team with a front court of ‘Sheed, Brand, and Prince would be mighty tough to stop and awesome defensively. I’ve played around on RealGM and there are a few deals that work. I just get nervous that the team is on a weird timetable with half of the key players on the backside of their careers and half of the team a bit green. By the time the green wears off I don’t want it to be too late, ya know?

Rip need to get traded. He ruins the chemistry and is selfish. Tries creating on his own and ends up haywire.

Trade Rip!

8-5 with a gimpy roster and road heavy opening schedule. We should be 11-2.

Every time I see Mehmet Okur play I think of Darko and want to scream. Then I think of Larry Brown. Then I think of Ben Wallace. Then I fill a big tumbler with vodka. And try to forget. Alone. In the rain.

If you’re looking at Nazr’s 15 boards in 17 minutes stat, compare that to the number of times we chucked it up there (86) and the horrible % we shot (39). Anytime that happens, there are going to be a lot of rebounds for someone.

The guy is costing us somewhere near $6m this year and is a major factor in why we cannot bring Chris Webber back on the roster, whom we would be better off with offensively, and equal with defensively — Webber has mobility issues, but Nazr’s D is not good, which is part of why SA let him go.

We’d be better off playing Samb and/or Johnson in these minutes, at this point in the season. They’re going to improve as players. Nazr’s in his 11th season and is as developed as he’s going to get.

Flip’s Jerrry Sloan lite. Sorta. But he’s nowhere near as disciplined and hard-assed. Any guy who makes a grown man and professional athlete known by the nickname “AK47” cry in public is not someone who Bill Davidson — who could not tolerate Larry Brown’s abrasive demeanor, above all else — would approve of hiring, so fugedaboudit.

I was referring to Boozer abusing us…

On the bright side, Maxiell managed to eat a baby on a fadeaway jumper. He just drilled the poor guy that was behind him and it barely fazed him as he completed the three-point play.

Maxiell: finding new ways to eat a baby night after night.

Very quick thoughts on a game which I watched only about half of: We lost, but it was to a good team with Boozer playing extremely well. Some things struck me as good news. Flip got ejected, displaying emotion that has been clamored for by some on this board. Rip seems to be getting into the swing of things finally, which is what I’ve been clamoring for. Nazr had an absolute monster game on the glass without getting in the way of McDyess and Maxiell having solid games and taking most of the minutes, which hopefully will help to quiet any (there seem to only be a select few) Nazr detractors left. With guys like Nazr, Jarvis, Flip Murray, Amir, hopefully Rodney Stuckey, and Afflalo contributing (albeit inconsistently) in roles coming off the bench, we have as deep a team as the one we had in ‘03-’04 post trade deadline.

The only unfortunate thing I took from this game was that our FT shooting is still garbage (hopefully it’s just slow out the gate). After shedding Ben’s dead weight from the foul line last season (where we shot a damn good 77.4% last season) I would think we could shoot well over 70% from the stripe with a fair amount of consistency (we shot 68% today and the last time we shot above 72.5% was at the Lakers four games ago when we shot 81.5%), but not so this season. Hopefully that clears up, but even so, be it Boston or a dominant Western conference team, I ain’t “scurred” one bit.

Once again with Boozer having a monster game, a young mobil big ate us up. If we can’t control young talented bigs we are going to be in trouble. I’ll say it for the 793rd time, our guards foot speed is terribly slow on defense. Williams probably ate Chauncey for lunch. I haven’t even seen the highlights but from what I’ve read and comments even from Chauncey, seems like opponents guards had another field day in the lane. Thank God himself we only play San Antonio twice a year, because Parker and Ginobili would each score 100 pts all on layups and dunks. I can’t wait to see us completely assesmbled. I can’t be mad at 8-5 considering our starting five have been in tact for only about 1/2 of our games. Rips turnovers are killing me though. I love the amount of assists but he’ll get you 6 or 7 of them and combat that with 4-5 turnovers. Not a good ratio at all. Did Martians kidnap Samb and Amir? Why have they got no burn with Sheed out for 2 games???