The Pistons are in DC

I’ll be at the game… which tips in 2 minutes. Just waiting for my lady friend to battle traffic and make it into town. Good thing I’m staying a 3 minute walk from the arena.

I will post thoughts after the game.

…and she’s here. I’m out. Go Pistons.

Stuckey has me so hyped for this season, dont getme wrong im always hyped for Pistons ball but hes gonna turn alot of heads this season. Its good to have that exciting youth back in Detroit. Ill be follwing the game on the live audio,

Wow. Washington hasn’t forgotten Kwame, apparently.

They are just KILLING him, while he’s at the line. That’s as loud as they’ve gotten so far.
And he responds with A DAGGER AT THE BUZZER!!!
Well, not really. I went all Mark Champion. Everything’s a dagger with him.

Amir’s missed layups are alarming. You’ve got to finish, big man! Throw it down!

He’s been really solid defensively, and no fouls yet.

By which I mean Amir. But it’s probably not a good idea to try to back Etan Thomas down. That cat’s a tank.

And Kwame’s waaaay too much for the Wizards on the inside!!

Other Matt: Did Kwame obviously have something to prove? Because it sounded like he was just violating them, especially in the second half.
And oh boy, Alex is in!
He’s gonna be gloating on this board tonight!

A Cheikh Samb appearance! This board would be going off, if the game was televised.

SAMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looking at the final boxscore and no fouls for Amir?
Also, it seems like it was a real defensive slug-fest. Just look at those shooting percentages! Once again LOTS of turnovers, although Stuckey seems to have had a poor game and led the team there.

I’m almost glad that this wasn’t televised, but another win and everyone got some burn. Meh.

I just got back. DC is freaking awesome. I’ve been living in downtown for the last 5 months and I will be really sad to move home. I love that I can go to basketball game, eat at a 5 star restaurant, and walk home within 5-10 minutes. I’ll plug Rosa Mexicana, which is right across the street from the Verizon Center, tremendous food and good tequila.

All that said, this game was awful. It was like watching paint dry -or worse- a Presidential debate. The first half was a return to Carlisle style offense. It was not pretty. I think we’ll miss Flip a little bit offensively. I think we were 13/38 at the half. We went about 6 minutes without a bucket after the Kwame buzzer-beater to end the 1st quarter.

I thought our defense was terrific. We were active, we were in passing lanes, we did a terrific job at forcing turnovers. We did a poor job exploiting a +10 turnover margin in the first half.

Kwame Brown was excellent. Many of you will note that I was, and have continued to be, dead set against him. He was our best defender and really played well offensively. I really felt for the guy, the crowd was KILLING him. It got to the point where I felt the need to stand and cheer every time he did something marginally good. Color me cautiously optimistic and impressed.

Dee Brown’s defense gave us, Stuckey especially, fits all night long. Will Bynum is at least 2 inches shorter than Brown, which is to say he’s like 5’10 at best. Bynum was a pest, but clearly came out on the short end of his matchup with Dee Brown. I think he gives up too much size to contribute anything meaningful to us this season.

Stuckey was pretty bad all night. He struggled offensively, the Wizards did a nice job trapping him and trying to force the ball out of his hands. I was disappointed in his performance (not that anybody other than Kwame or Rasheed was “good”).

I didn’t see nearly enough Maxiell or Walter Sharpe. I thought Sharpe made a couple of nice plays defensively, but didn’t get enough burn to try to build any positive momentum.

Rasheed was pretty good all night. I think he only took 1 three, which he nailed. He was active in the paint and rebounded the ball well. Even if he wasn’t credited with a rebound in the stat sheet, he kept several balls alive for us. Amir did the same thing.

Speaking of Amir, he’s got to get thicker. He was pushed around by the much stronger Etan Thomas all night. It was not a good matchup for him. He was active defensively. I thought he did a good job despite giving up a very obvious strength advantage. I wish he’d have played more, but the Kwame-Rasheed matchup was working so well in our favor it’s hard to argue with the results.

That’s about all I got for now, I’ll expand more in the morning.

If you can’t watch a game on television, does it happen? In the case of this game, y’all are lucky to have not seen it. I was there. It might as well not have happened. It was the most god-awful piece of crap excuse for a ball game that I ever saw.

I know what I would have rather watched than that game last night:

The Shocks’ series clinching win for the WNBA Championship, and I don’t like women’s basketball.

I can’t stand missed layups, poor shot selection, and lazy passing but that’s what I saw last night. I think a George Mason U game would be more fun than that game last night.

Good to see the boys from the D, bad to invest cash in a exhibition game.