McDyess may stay on the bench

It sounds like the Pistons will stick with Sunday's rotation featuring Jason Maxiell in the starting lineup and Antonio McDyess coming off the bench. From A. Sherrod Blakely:

After Sunday's win, McDyess said he would not have a problem coming off the bench. In fact, he sounded as if it's a role he would welcome.

"Coming off the bench is what I'm comfortable doing," McDyess said.

"Starting? It's just a routine thing. I feel like now, I get in there ... when I start, I feel like a robot sometimes. But when I come off the bench, I feel I've got to step up and make something happen."

Because Detroit's starting five consists of so many scorers, McDyess often winds up being the forgotten man.

"He's kind of invisible out there," Saunders said. "But when he comes off the bench, because of some of the people he's coming (in) with, they look to him a little bit more."

I'm torn; on the one hand, McDyess did get into a nice rhythm on Sunday, shooting 5-8 from the field to finish with 10 points and six boards in 20 minutes, but it came at the expense of Maxiell, who was the invisible guy with just four points and five boards in 32 minutes. That said, Maxiell tends to be inconsistent from game to game coming off the bench anyway, so it's probably a wash.

Plus, even after starting the entire season, McDyess still tends to defer when playing with the other four starters, so keeping him aggressive is a good thing. (As would be giving the likes of Arron Afflalo, Jarvis Hayes and Amir Johnson more than a combined three minutes, but I digress ...) This also allows Max to match-up with athletic rookie Thaddeus Young, which he's better suited to do.

On a side note, remember how all of us were wondering what exactly happened during halftime on Sunday? McDyess confirmed that he spoke up, which is rare for him. From Mitch Albom in the Free Press:

"It wasn’t a speech," he said Monday, almost embarrassed. "It was basically the truth. I just told them it looked like we were the team that was the seventh seed and they looked like the two seed. I just let them know we were way better than this. … Why are we playing like we’re scared? We didn’t play all this way and go this long to give it up right now.

"I guess everyone kind of heard me."

[...] "Normally, I don’t speak at all," he admitted. "I let all the captains and everyone say something. But I felt it was time for someone to say something. ... I mean, the last couple of games we came in the locker room and didn’t say nothing to each other at all. Just sat down and didn’t say a word."