Random Dale Davis sighting

Double D!

The goon squad!

I think the crack staff have a crush on this site’s content providers. Check out the home video they made for everyone

#! That elbow looked awful on Tay.. Although it was purely accidental by Gerald Wallace.. I hope Tay is fine :(

Sheed and Dice are f**king awfull on the boards! Rebound you fu**s!

Detroit is pretty hot from downtown.. If Detroit wasn’t shooting so well I don’t think we’d still be in this.. It’s true – We live and die by the jumpshot..

G. Wallace keeps penetrating at will, poor job on the boards by our front court… wasn’t it for a couple random 3s we’d be down, and not by a few points
this looks to me as rough as they get

I’ve found a replacement for the Nets in terms of who I hate. I absolutely cannot stand Charlotte. Their crowd sucks, their announcers suck, and I hate Nazr. Where in the f*** was this kind of effort over a season and a half in Detroit? If he’d played half this well last season, we’d have never lost to Cleveland. Maybe it’s Flip’s fault for not playing him, I dunno.

Anyway, I can’t stand the Bobcats now.

The Bobcats are the best team in the East.

YES!!!!!!

Mr. Big Shot sighting!

“Mr. Big Shot (except with one possession left)” should be his nickname.

0.9 to go Rip almost nailed it, ouch

1) It has been forever since I’ve heard Special K and Blaha call a game on my League Pass. The Bobcat dudes are not too bad though.

2) we should have won by now, not heading into OT.

3) Nazr was a HUGE pick up for them. HUGE!

4) The Bobcat cheerleaders are f’ing HOT and they show a lot of them on the Bobcat’s feed. Not bad.

They’re playing “The Final Countdown?”

That was lucky. Nazr had another tip-in.

Charlotte got jobbed!

And lookie here…Boston is in a tight one with the Wiz.

Damn, those Bobcats have been giving teams fits as of late. Sucks to have to go to overtime on the first half of a back-to-back, but at least we’re playing the Knicks tomorrow.

Win’s a win. 28-9, looking good.

We got lucky on that one. We didn’t deserve the double-you. Again, I want to know who that Mohammed guy is and how we could possibly get him on our team…

I disagree about getting lucky. That final play was sooooo close, there’s just no way that you can let a team win a game like that on a goal tend. It was a good call.

Also, I absolutely hated the Bobcats announcers. I think the league must hate the Pistons because I can’t remember the last time I had Blaha and Special K on my league pass feed. Brutal.

win’s always a win but this was a bad one, a really really bad one, imho. Red flags all over the place, pretty poor rebounding, inconsistent, tentative low post presence, poor shots selection down the stretch – what is worst, yet another slasher the Pistons can’t figure out any sort of perimeter defence to throw at: Ginobili, D-Wade, LeBron, Paul Pierce.. who’s next on the list? and Flip, what are you getting paid for?
I’m not a very happy Piston fan tonight.

OtherMatt, the Bobcat announcers are music to my ears compared to having to listen to Tommy Heinson on the Celtics games. Now THAT is brutal!

As for Nazr, good for him. To me it seems like a win/win trade for all players involved. The two dudes we got now have a chance to play on a championship caliber team and Nazr gets to show that he can be a solid contributer for his paycheck.

5th loss for Boston!

Henishon was awful. Like, historically awful. I actually turned the sound off on the game to listen to the Steelers-Jags game (which I was TiVo-ing cause I’m a huge Steeler fan).

I take that back, I am a slightly concerned, however mostly happy, Piston fan tonight – the Boston loss has done the trick LOL

I wonder how Paul Pierce likes his humble pie this week.

What’s funny about Boston losing tonight is, if not for New Jersey falling apart in the 4th last night, they’d just have experienced their first 3-game losing streak.

Anyone that actually believes this Boston team is as good as ones past, or will break the Bulls 72-10 record are really letting the hype grasp hold of them.

The Celtics lost to the Bobcats 2 games ago, lose to the Wizards tonight and have loss to the Magic and Cavs. We are the only elite team they have played against so far. They haven’t even played against the Spurs, Mavs, or Suns yet. Lets see what their loss count is at the end of March.

“I wonder how Paul Pierce likes his humble pie this week.” -Piball

HA HA! Hopefully Buttler or Jamison made sure to pop their jersey and tell the fans that they’re the best team in the league.

Darshan, thank you for this:

"Mr. Big Shot (except with one possession left)" should be his nickname.

That goes in my DBB comments Hall Of Fame immediately.

Something tells me the Crack Staff is going to go call for another referee’s head while simultaneously making the ridiculous claim that a game played without Rondo is no measure of Boston and somehow is unfair/doesn’t count. At least this time they actually got clearly jobbed on a (inconsequential) call by the zebras on a 24 second no-call. Still, it wouldn’t have saved them from the inevitable loss, a point which the Crack Staff will surely ignore. When you’re down 4 with 34.7 left and no one on your team but Posey has made an FG up until that point in the 4th quarter, you’re not coming back to win, especially on the road. Not even the Stones are doing that, if you replace “Posey” with “Jarvis” in the scenario.

Concerning the Stones game, I think the call on Okafor was clearly undeserved, but I’m not so sure Sheed kept playing defense after the whistle (which came just slightly before or in conjunction with Nazr’s tip), because Sheed had solid positioning on Nazr and it looked to me like had Sheed still been grinding, Nazr would’ve had to go over his back to get the put back (which I’m not convinced he didn’t do anyway).

I echo the sentiments here in saying that I hope tonight helps put to rest some of the 73-9 ridiculousness or 70 win ridiculousness. Boston will be lucky to match Dallas’ 67 from last year. Boston has put up 3 straight duds (incurring 2 losses) against average teams since they beat us. Their schedule is backloaded with tough games. Seems like the win took more out of them than the loss took out of us. Tough break Celtics. We’re always discussing at DBB that Boston hasn’t been here before and now they’re really starting to show it. To best illustrate that concept, I feel the need to paraphrase Bobby Heenan and Mr. Perfect (RIP) at 1992 Royal Rumble, “We’re not the kinda of guys to say we told you so, but we told you so.”

Well, Boston, what’s it like having a big fat target on your back? Who cares if you win 70 games? The clock gets reset once the playoffs start. Look at the past few years, the team with the best record during the regular season hasn’t won the championship.

If the Patriots win the Super Bowl, the Sports God’s will not allow the Celtics to win the NBA championship.

There’s something about Boston sports fans that disallows them from understanding that the regualr season gives a strong indication as to what to expect in the playoffs, but it doesn’t guarantee anything. 70 wins isn’t going to happen for this team. I’m not saying that if the got 60-65 they would’ve failed, in fact, any 60-win season is a memorable one in my opinion. But Boston fans are acting like they need to break the Bulls record or at least get 70. Seems to me that the pressure of this championship-prone (Old Celtics, Red Sox, Patriots) city’s expectations are already wearing on this squad.

Think about it, every game that they lose will be one of the first stories on Sportscenter. It will be the main topic of conversation within the basketball community. Furthermore, every team they face is going to give an extra effort to give them a game. They might not beat them, but they’ll show up. Say goodbye to blowout after blowout. Now your starters will face long minutes in many close 4th quarters. Over 82 games, it will take a toll. Boston’s expectations of winning and excellence, not to mention its recent string of professional championships, makes it a city capable of taking winning for granted.

You know the media is going to jump on this story and run with it until the Celtics win their next game. And all of this, of course, is fine by me. Just let the Pistons keep winning a high percentage of their games and let everyone else worry about Boston. Just don’t be surprised if the Pistons are the ones going into the playoffs with the #1 seed. It doesn’t seem to matter to them or the Detroit fans, but to Boston and the Celtics, the #1 seed doesn’t just seem important, it appears to be critical. Almost as if Boston fans only want to root for the favorite, not the underdog.

“Where in the f*** was this kind of effort over a season and a half in Detroit?”

On the bench. This might surprise some people, but the only way to score, rebound or block shots is to play in actual games. The more minutes you play, the more you contribute in those categories. This fact confounds some people.

Nazr’s production in Charlotte is commensurate with his abilities. Flip is extremely (extremely, extremely) squeamish about fouls. Charlotte cannot afford that luxury. That’s where this kind of effort has been.

I didn’t hear anyone clamoring for more of the bench in this game. The bench has been absolutely awful the last three games. I’d be willing to put this against the worst bench performances of the season by any team in the NBA. Can anyone do worse than:

65 minutes, 5-21 FG, 0-8 3p, 13 points, 1 assist, 13 rebounds…

Other Matt: Elaborating on what Kevin says, I woa seluld almost venture to guess we screwed up our Nazr tenure as bad or worse than we screwed up Darko. We (albeit mildly) overpaid for him, which made us an immediate target for ridicule when you couple it with all the undeserved media attention for him replacing Big Ben. That’s not going to help Nazr’s mindset from the start, because the last few years have made it very clear that Nazr wants to be a modest piece of the pie, not a big slice. We didn’t help things by making the rash decision to sign Webber and effectively cast him to the end of the bench. We didn’t make the effort. We sent the wrong message.

I don’t blame the guy for being dead weight here. His performance was essentially the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy created by the Pistons (and piled on by fans) that he was garbage. We treated him like it; he played like it. He can play solid ball for close to 30 a night (he’s averaging 25 per for Charlotte), and we only gave him around 20-22 when he was starting. Instead of encouraging him in his struggles, we derided him, found a replacement as quickly as we could, and then turned him into an after thought. I know that we’re a great organization, but we’re not infallible. Other Matt, I think you should look to us for blame on this one before you look to Nazr. He’s not a robot, most people would’ve been discouraged in his position with their play suffering as a result.

*would almost

Ugh, I need a new keyboard.

From the worldwide leader’s recap: "Mohammed said he holds no hard feelings toward Detroit, but misses the Pistons’ camaraderie. “I don’t think I ever experienced another team where 1 through 15, you like every guy on the team,” Mohammed said."

I wish him well and I’ll cheer hard when I see Stretch and/or The Gangster enter the game!

this is why i don’t buy the bandwagoners that look at the numbers this year and go on about how our bench is soooo much better now and how flip would have played the bench last year, but they were too “inconsistent” blah blah blah.

we’ve had a good bench every year if you ask me, but it would have taken courage from flip to sit a starter and play them (thus risking a gasp regular season loss) and it would have taken a little extra work to integrate more slashing, attacking type play. rip said it himself a week or two ago when he said they’d always had bench guys who could score, but they just never got any burn.

and what do you expect from poor nazr? he doesn’t have the quickest hands and our perimeter defense practically invites people to drive to the basket. i’ll never understand people criticizing amir or nazr for committing a lot of fouls when if they hadn’t commited their 6 fouls they would have allowed 6 dunks.

Calm down everyone. You’re not going to get a playoff effort all 82 games. At least we squeeked out a win. I’m still pissed that Tay & Chauncey didn’t show up versus Boston and no one showed up vs. Dallas. I just don’t want to fall back into the Dr. Jeckyl, Mr. Hide syndrome (see Mavs game, then Spurs game). I love the fact that we can insert Lindsey as a secret weapon for 5 mins every few games and he takes over (1st Boston game, Spurs win). I like the Nazr trade long term because of the financial flexibility but can Brezec play? We’ll need a 4th big for when Sheed or Dice gets in foul trouble. I only get to see national games. Has Brezec show any promise guys…& gal (PG4L)? Can someone tell me why we love Amir so? The Laker game was great but when he gets 5-10 mins of garbage time in a blowout against the end of the other teams bench, seems like he gets a put back dunk, 1 block, 2 rebounds in maybe 8 mins. That doesn’t thrill me. I didn’t see jack in the garbage mins in the Mavs game. Help me here guys. Turn me into the ultimate Amir lover like everone else. I feel left out :-) I don’t think I want home court advantage vs the Celtics. Seem like we’re more focused on the road anyway during the playoffs. The old Bad Boys were that way too.

i liked the bobcats announcers ok. they knew the facts about the mask and they even referred to us as “the mighty pistons” at one point, and i don’t think they were being sarcastic.

imo the bench didn’t do that horribly. jarvis couldn’t hit anything, that is true, nor could stuckey. but they were all open shots. they made mostly good decisions i wonder if tay’s slump or the emergence of herrmann has put some pressure on cookie jarvis.

max should have gotten about four more foul calls. the refs used that time as an excuse to let the ‘cats back in it. it really was making my mad. max would get hacked on our end, no call, then the immediate next play max would get a slightly cleaner block on wallace or okafor and they’d call the foul.

herrmann did very well in this game i thought. if jarvis doesn’t start hitting his shots i wouldn’t be surprised if we see more of him.

it looks like brezec can play, i personally like his defense, he’s quick on his feet and long. i don’t really know his offense, they rarely give him the ball when he’s out there. he certainly wants to be here pretty badly and hustles his ass off when he’s on the court.

to me amir represents the uptempo, run and gun bench that joe d has been trying to create to compliment our unmatched half court game. he’s long, fast and has a knack for splitting defenders and getting to the hoop. he may need about 30 more pounds on him to really meet his potential, but i really have no idea because he never plays.

Boooooo rational analysis that makes me hate Nazr less. I actually don’t hate him, I’m just frustrated that things ended up this way. Last night’s game was aggravating. I’m glad we won. What threw my dislike for the announcers over the top was the rationalization of Okafor’s attempt to goal-tend the final shot. They showed that replay 100 times and every time Okafor touched the ball well above the rim. The whole “we got robbed” thing just annoyed me. The officials aren’t going to let somebody win a game on a goal-tend (or something thisclose to a goal-tend), it’s just not going to happen.

Anyway, I guess I can be glad for Nazr. I’m more glad that we unloaded his contract and have a little financial flexibility.

The bench was a little off but there’s no way you can say they’re not a significant upgrade over last year’s.

They just had a bad game. Jarvis was off. Maxiell’s getting used to double teams. Brezec, Hermann and Afflalo played with energy though.

And, as for Stuckey, that shot of the scarred, swollen hand he was playing with was enough for me to give him a pass on this one.

QD, as seems to be par for the course around here, any interest in meeting up for a game in LA before you go back to Michigan? I have plenty of friends out here from home, but they all think Billups is completely infallible and it’s really annoying. Just throwing the suggestion out there.

No plays are ever ran for Amir in garbage time; it seems like he’s told to go to the post and stay there until someone else takes a shot. That’s why most of his points come off of put-backs. He’s still prone to foul trouble, and he’s not yet big enough to be a legitimate post defender, but he’s 20 and he’ll be fine. He’s an athletic freak and he’s getting abused everyday in practice by some of the best in the league. It’s a recipe for success
I’m tired of hearing McCoskey’s line, “he’s Amir Johnson, not Magic Johnson.” #@$!ing OBVIOUSLY. It wasn’t funny the first 400 times you wrote it in a blog and said it on WDFN, and it’s not nearly as witty as you apparently think it is. Get off of people’s backs for wanting to see an intriguing piece of the future. God forbid.

LB, I’m already in Michigan (which is why I actually get to watch every game Blaha-style). But, I’ll be back in LA come playoff time.

By the way, it looks like it’s not just opposing fans that find Joakim Noah obnoxious:

“PHILADELPHIA — The Bulls placed Joakim Noah on the inactive list for Friday’s game against the 76ers after the rookie forward engaged in an angry exchange with assistant coach Ron Adams at the team’s morning shootaround.

Two team sources said Noah kept forgetting plays and blowing assignments during the walkthrough, then snapped when Adams kept riding him."

Apparently, it was the players that decided on the suspension.

Fair enough QD. I’m jealous of your NBA coverage, but not the weather you have to endure. Good luck in molding those Wolverine screenwriters. Please remind them that they should feel very fortunate that they only had to incur Indiana’s wrath once this season ;)

“i’ll never understand people criticizing amir or nazr for committing a lot of fouls when if they hadn’t commited their 6 fouls they would have allowed 6 dunks” -Kyle

That’s a good point right there. To tell you the truth, I would’ve loved to see someone willing to take a hard foul on Lebron while he was making lay up after dunk after dunk on us last year. Sucks to know that 10-15 years ago, Lebron would’ve been on his ass after eight of those points or so. We need big men that if they give fouls, make sure they aren’t those ticky-tacky fouls that put players like Glen Davis on the line for a try at a three-point play.

In other news, I heard Charlotte wants to petition to the league to have the last minute or so of that game replayed because of the offensive interference call. I’m sorry, but getting to the line 11 more times than your opponent and only hitting 65% of them should be where you focus your resolve. Being able to hit some free throws would’ve won the Bobcats the game last night. I suppose they’d like the chance to shoot those again. Come on, win or lose, be professional. Bad calls happen. In the NBA, they occur so much that it’s caused many people to not even bother watching thr NBA because they’re convinced it’s fixed. I don’t believe the games are rigged, but I’ll admit I have found myself at a complete loss a number of times at some of the calls the refs will make, especially in the playoffs. Bottom line though, if your team is good enough, they’ll play through it and learn to beat the refs.

To me, that’s one of Detroit’s greatest strengths. I hardly ever see the Pistons get a game called their way, and never in the playoffs. Yet, most of the time, they don’t even let that stop them. Beating Miami in a game seven solidified that with me. If you can get past Dwayne Wayde in the final minutes of a tight game with the calls that guy was getting a couple of years ago, you must be doing something right.

What the hell!!?? Knicks announcers for the NBA TV feed, sucks! Mike Bree isn’t too bad, but Walt “Clyde” Frasier is hard to listen to.