Pistons lose Game 1, and that’s OK

damn, i hate it to know things before they happen…

btw what´s up with sheed wearing tights.. burn them, they´re cursed

Good post Matt. Couldn’t agree more. I had the Pistons losing game 1 by 11, so I was basically spot on. If Tay hadn’t made that last three we would’ve lost by 12.

Some thoughts:

1) We looked rusty, but not complacent. And I’ll take rusty over complacent any day.

2) I think CB will be OK. I was fired up when he made that first three. I wished he had been more, to use his ubiquitous word, “aggressive”.

3) Did Sheed play last night? I think I remember a Sheed sighting somewhere in the fourth, but I can’t be sure.

4) Dice came out STRONG. That put back was nice, really nice. We should’ve gone to him more.

5) I like Hunter, but to me he is a niche player. When he fits a situation, he fits perfectly. When he doesn’t, he doesn’t. When we need a stop… yes. When we need basically anything else (excepting the occasional three)… no.

6) Did Max play last night? I think he was chillin’ somewhere with Sheed.

7) Boston is in trouble if Ray Ray stays stays this way way.

8) The Palace crowd needs to bring ALL GAME at the home games.

9) The announcers were falling over themselves to talk up the Celtics. It was pathetic and oh so obvious, even to the non-Piston-fans I was watching the game with. Get over it.

10) Everything will be fine. I genuinely believe that.

Keep the faith.

8 ) *The Palace crowd needs to it bring ALL GAME at the home games.

This is probably the calmest I have seen DBB after an important game that ultimately didn’t go our way. We all feel confident about the way this series will go, and so we should. There wasn’t anything Flip could have done to improve our performance, it was a simple case of poor basketball. Our team showed a hell of a lot of maturity out there (outside of Rips brainfart) and Sheed never got a tech. There is a lot to like about this team even after a loss.

No worries! I figured Detroit would lose, being in The Garden after sleeping for a week will do that to a team. Chauncey seems to have lost a little bounce in his step, as expected – just so long as that bounce comes back before the end of the series, we’ll be fine.

As stated above, Dyess played a fantastic game last night. If Sheed had played with the same energy, we may have been talking about a different ball game. It must not be easy getting good looks when your defended by KG.

I’m still sticking with Detroit in 7 ;)

^ *you’re – My mother taught me never to mix those two words up, for shame.

The Pistons are more boring than church.

Matt, you make a lot of great points in your post. As long as Chauncey was just rusty because of time off and not being in game shape then I think we’ll be fine.

It’ll be interesting to see what Flip does concerning Bostons pick and roll with Pierce and KG. So much of their offense resulted from the high screen and pop/roll with those two. I would like to see Maxiel guard Garnett some in game 2. Maxiel is our quickest big man and he can do the best job of showing on the screen and rotating back to KG to prevent that 17-18 ft. jumper that he likes so much. I also think Maxi can do a good job of harassing KG and keeping him from easily getting to his favorite spots sort of like Varejo did for spurts last series.

I was very impressed with Stuckey, he was our most efficient player on offense along with Dyess. He was aggressive with his drives, didn’t force shots, and played solid defense.

I think our offense will find its way back on track – I credit the low score more to our problems of getting in sync than Boston’s defense. We got back into our habit of relying too heavily on jumpers.

I also want to mention Lindsey Hunter. He didn’t play much but was very effective when he was in there. Usually he’s one of those “yes, yes, NO!” players for me, but I think he could match up well in this series, especially if he can knock down the open shot.

Boston won’t shot 52% for the rest of the series. Rondo played probably the best game of his life — he won’t continue playing like that (esp on the road — he was terrible in Cleveland).

I think we’ll be OK.

Also, we won’t turn over the ball like 7-billion times in the 3d quarter every game, either.

Not sure why Flip went to iso’s for sheed so often down the stretch, when it’s been noted a thousand times that out offense works best with motion and ball movement. Also, Chauncy clearly isn’t his old self, and most of his moves to the basket were cringe inducing. Not sure how he was only credited with 2 to’s. I think game 2 will be a much better showing, but the execution needs to be improved. I would also love to see a few more hard fouls from the stones. Outside of Rips elbow to KG, it looked like we had the kid gloves on. Maxy watching Allen dunk that fast break? He should have sent Mr. glass into the 3rd row. Just a little too many butt pats and friendly hand shakes for the conference finals.

The question is whether we should panic if the Pistons lose game two. I say no. They’ll still have a couple of opportunities to win in Boston if they handle their business at home.

That said, I think the Pistons have a good chance in game two if they can remember how to play offense. Also, I don’t think they need to collapse so much on Paul Pierce. He was hitting shots, but they were really tough shots. Give him those instead of leaving KG with the open look.

@Alex Cutter – I wont bite on that one, but maybe you better talk to god.

matt, were the pistons aware during the week about pierce/garnett pick and roll play? and if they were, any idea if they put an emphasis on that, especially after seeing it in game 7 clev/celts. this was an adjustment that should’ve made in the 2nd half, and we could’ve taken their key offense strategy. other than pistons playing uncharacteric, they could’ve taken away celts pick and roll play all night.

Craig, the Pistons really weren’t too effective offensively when they try to move the ball against the Cs last night, and haven’t been all year. It’s a double edged sword: If they move the ball around against the Celtics defense, which is excellent at recovering and forcing teams deep into the shot clock, they end up a lot of time with a forced shot as the clock winds down. That’s why they shot 40% and under in all three regular season matchups despite having a better assist to basket ratio in two of the games, and virtually the same in the third.(18 ast to 29 buckets, 40% shooting 1st game, 14 ast on 31 baskets 2nd game, 39% shooting, 23 ast on 29 baskets, 36% shooting 3rd game).

Yesterday, the Pistons made 43% of their shots but had 15 assists on 28 buckets. The Pistons are most effective against the Boston defense when they iso Chauncey and get him to pick up fouls. Obviously, Chauncey wasn’t in condition to force the action. Rip has also had success pressing his offense, although not last night. Although he didn’t do much all year against the Cs, Prince had a very good first half iso-ing, although he disappeared in the second half, with only one bucket until that last second three.

Dice certainly took advantage of the extra space Perkins was giving him by draining shot after shot in the first half, but also was quieted in the second half. I was at the game about 12 rows from the court and I would be remiss to not mention how disinterested Rasheed Wallace looked almost the whole game. The only time I saw any spark from him was when he went baseline on KG for a big dunk, but then he wasn’t heard from again until the isos in the fourth quarter, which he converted on 40% of the time, I believe. He also had an opportunity to launch a three in the fourth when Perk slunk off him in a help position, but ‘Sheed didn’t even have the ball in shooting position, never mind look to the basket.

I know the Pistons are well known for playing on an even keel, but I was surprised that they didn’t come out with a bit more fire against a team that just finished a grueling 7 game series 48 hours before. I never got the feeling that the Pistons would get over the hump last night, even when they got into the bonus in the second quarter and paraded to the line. To use a boxing term, they just weren’t “busy” enough to get a win in Boston last night, even when they cut the lead to 6 in the fourth with the inevitable NBA run in the fourth.

You got a good performance out of Stuckey last night off the pine, (apparently the Cs don’t know to play him for the drive) and he even made a baseline 16 footer jumper. Stuck looked skittish running the team, however. Maxiel was MIA, and the benches were Even Steven (my claim that the Cs bench is equal or better is safe for the moment, until they hit the road).

I’ve maintained that the Cs will win this thing because their upper level talent, Pierce and KG, is better than Detroit’s even though Detroit is stronger 1-4. That certainly was the case in Game 1. I noticed many posters in your game thread saying that losing Game 1 was no biggie. Cleveland had a chance to win their Game 1 in the Garden, also a winnable game after the Cs closed out a Game 7 two days before, and let it slip away, and they never got the one they needed in Boston.

I felt the Cs played without a lot of energy last night and were ripe for the pickings, but Detroit didn’t play with the urgency to get it done. FYI, the Cs busted out their opponents in both Game 2s this playoffs.

Thanks for your views Triple OT, but as to your last point about the Cs busting out their previous playoff opponents in Game 2s — uh, the Pistons are not the sub-500 Atlanta Hawks or the Cleveland LeBrons.

@Laughton – No thanks, I’ll just choose to watch the Wings — a team that doesn’t make me feel embarrassed for being a fan.

Also, what’s up with the NHL scheduling the first three games of the SCF’s on the same nights as Pistons’ games?

J, my point was more about the Celtics, not their opponents. The Cs have played very well defensively in both Game 2s, two of their best defensive performances of the year, with 15 steals in both games, a big rebounding advantage, and lock down FG% Against of 35 and 39%, and 3 PT FA defense that led to 2-20, 10% shooting from behind the arc in both game.

Both Game 2s were Lockdown City.

Matt:

Good luck on your thinking that Billups will be back to his normal self. I hope that you are correct, but Billups history is very clear.

1. He is a slower than average healer
2. His play is largely ineffective, by his normal standards, when he plays hurt.

My guess is that the Pistons lose the series in 5 at the most. It is too bad because if Billups was healthy we would have had a good chance to win the series.

I hope I am wrong, but not very optimistic about it. Game #3 will tell us a lot more as to our chances of winning the series.

Fair enough TripleOT, but you just cannot state those statistics w/o some recognition of who they came against. It’s not like the Cs were playing defense in a vacuum in those Game 2s — they were playing against the Hawks and the (misfiring) LeBrons.

Do you honestly expect Game 2 to be a rout based on the Celtics “locking down” the Pistons the way they did the Hawks & LeBrons? I’d encourage you not to bet on it.

Triple OT…you make a lot of good points about what the Pistons did wrong yesterday…yet they were still in the game late in the 4th in your building. The Pistons are a rhythm team and they’ve struggled initially after any long layoff this year (after all star break, 1st round game 1 against philly, and now last nights game).

Our top 1-4 guys combined to shoot 38%, while Garnett, Pierce and Rondo shot 57% overall. Those percentages should become much more even over the course of this series, especially when the games are played at Detroit. Don’t forget how big of home/road splits Pierce and Rondo have and you need those 3 guys to score (or two of them and Ray Allen….) in order to win a game.

That’s the reason many posters here aren’t overly concerned…we didn’t have a good rhythm, our top 4 didn’t shoot well, your main guys shot great, and we still had a chance of stealing a game at your building that we really had no business being in.

Of course everything I just said about my optimistic look for the rest of the series is based on having a healthy Chauncey Billups.

Mike, I guess I’m not sure that Chauncey’s “history is very clear.” What makes you say that he’s a slow healer. And, doesn’t everyone who plays hurt become less effective?

What I expect in game 2 is that Flip will have kicked all their asses about those turnovers. He hates ’em, and for good reason; without those turns in the 3rd, that game might have gone our way.

I don’t think the Celtics can count on 5-9 FT shooting from Billups/Stuckey either.

Triple OT, on a sample size of two games (both against teams with negative point differentials for the season) can you really say that Boston has an inherent ability to “lockdown” in Game 2 situations?

The Pistons haven’t lost a Game 2 since 2005.

The Celtics play very, very good defense. The question is, what can Detroit do to increase their offensive production? First and foremost, Chauncey needs to play more and better. If he is really hurt, I agree, Detroit could lose in 5. On the other hand, if his drives in the late 4th quarter inspire him to do more of that, Detroit has a decent chance of winning the series.

Second, finally the “Wired” coach segment produced something true and important: as Flip said, Detroit was taking WAY too long to get into its offense. Yeah, Boston covers people tightly, but Detroit needed to drive and/or start swinging the ball not just around but in and out earlier.

Third, the bench needs to play better. Yeah, Stuckey is turning into a good bench guard, especially for a rookie, but nobody else did much of anything last night off the bench. If Detroit doesn’t get more production from their bench, they will lose.

The tricky thing is that for the Pistons and Celtics, one game has not been a very good predictor for future games. With the Celtics, obviously, it’s been “win at home, lose on the road,” often by significant margins; for Detroit, it’s been more random.

I’m not pankicking, but I think Detroit did kind of blow an opportunity to steal one last night. Still, if they win game 2, all will be forgiven.

Chauncey has played at least 70 games for eight consecutive seasons. How does one conclude that he is a slow healer?

I know how we can win game 2: fire Flip, trade Rip, put Amir on Pierce, activate Dixon to guard Rondo, and give Herrmann more minutes.

Pistons in 6.

Hey everyone. First time poster here on this board. Been a Pistons fan all my life, but I normally post over on Slamonline or my blog. Just wanted to say that Detroit should rebound nicely in game 2, I’m not too worried. Not one starter other than Dice had a good game, and that will not happen again. The C’s also have no answer for Stuckey, and I see that Flip is realizing that. I see a close win tomorrow and the series going back to Motown 1-1.

you got a laugh out of me, garrett.

man, i’m more upset with the bulls getting the #1 pick than the pistons losing game one. hope michael beasley turns out to be the next derrick coleman.

i missed the game, but here is my general thinking. if we let teams shoot over 50%, we lose. if we keep them under 50%, we win.

also, my other general thought, and it’s why i’m less optimistic about this series than the “detroit in 6” crew, is: the pistons are an offense based on movement and precision and flow. the celtics are like any good defensive team. they grab, they bump, they trip, and so forth. they break up your flow. and when your offense fails, it falls to your players to adlib for points. and since we don’t have great one-on-one players like paul pierce or kevin garnett to recover when everything goes to s***, we’re at a disadvantage. to me, this series has a lot to do with what flip saunders comes up with to get us the easy shots that we need to win games. (start holding breath…NOW!) of course, if we let them shoot over 50%, all the easy shots in the world ain’t gonna make a difference.

JD: We made the adjustments to the Boston defense by getting their physical play to backfire on them. They were in foul trouble in the 2nd quarter and that’s the quarter we controlled (tempo & score). We seem to come out of the half timid, lost, out-of-sync, whatever your choice may be. If we need to use a steady infusion of Rip & Stuck driving, we will. As I’m about the 80th to mention, the Pistons play a lot better when they’re in a consistent rhythm. When you’ve got a schedule of game night, off night, game night, it lends itself more to the Stones. I’m still sticking to Pistons taking Games 2-4 and 6.

kevin s.: Wow, that’s true to the letter. Not that I think it particularly matters much personally, but it’s a fascinating defense to TripleOT’s Celtics lockdown for Game 2s argument. The counter-argument of course is that our last Game 2 loss came in our last Game 2 played on the road. We haven’t lost in our last EIGHT Game 2s dating back to the 2004-2005 NBA Finals against San Antonio though. That’s for sure.

TripleOT: I’m glad you’ve realized there’s a way to state your point without resorting to mockery. Let’s keep playing nice, okay?

Also, I’d like to repeat what I said last night … am I the only one who thought Chauncey played excellent when he saw the floor for the last five or so minutes of the game? To me, everything he did from that point on was vintage, top-of-his-game, 100% healthy Chauncey. I’m going to take that moving forward on a similar count of the developing consistent rhythm argument and not dwell on his miserable play earlier in the game.

Piston are a great team. I thought that they would beat my Cs in 6; however – keeping it real – Piston’s will go as far as Billups will take ‘em. The Cs are not the Magic. If CB is about 75% then maybe. I’ve watched each Cs v Pistons game and I don’t see Pistons matching up well with Rondo, who plays well at home. Game 2s have always been huge games for the Cs.

I have mad respect to the Spurs and Pistons, but without CB I’ll take my chances on Cs in 7 (since they can’t win on the road).

I’m a Celtics fan but enjoy reading other team’s blogs to get a different perspective. Our blog is hyped up today, and frankly I believe it to be unwarranted. Some of you have made great comments. However, the general feel in this room is something that bothers me about the Piston’s and their fans. At times you guys have some of the best fans (and team) in the NBA. But then the next night you’re completely complacent. How do you not feel like the next game is a must win? How is there no urgency. You can’t count on the Cs losing every road game. I mean, they probably will, but I wouldn’t depend on that. Where is the concern?

LB, no, ur not the only one, i saw that so as keith langlois…there is no doubt in my mind that chauncey will be playing like that in the beginning of game 2. if that happens, it’ll be contagious.

Tim — first of all, welcome to the site. Secondly, the Pistons have been here before. Being down 0-1 or even 0-2 in a series is hardly a death sentence, especially when the series is expected to be a drawn-out battle. If you want to see concern, go back and look at the game thread when the Pistons went down 1-2 to the 76ers — that was unexpected, and fans panicked accordingly.

But I’m curious, why does the attitude of a rival fanbase bother you? Does our nonchalance take away from your ability to enjoy the series? With all due respect, our calm demeanor is a sign that we’ve been here before, and your desire for validation shows that you have not.

Laughton, i disagree about flip could have done to improve our performance. yeah true, pistons performance were poor, but flip should’ve made a defensive adjustment on the pick and roll play of pierce/garnett, although he did with his zone, but that only worked for a short period of time…he should’ve assigned another player whos active on the list..to guard pierce/garnett’s pick and roll he should explore:

maxiell/afflalo — by the way our best pick and roll frontcourt defender is maxiell

OR

maxiell/amir

theres no way prince can guard pierce almost the whole game and expect him to be consistent on points.

I myself thought Bill Simmons did a great job of throwing his voice and filling the role of all three broadcasters. Impressive and totally predictable stuff from BSPN. Who would ever want to see the replay of a controversial call or listen to comments by the announcers on it if it didn’t negatively impact Team NBA?

I agree, no real reason to fret from what we saw last night, but I would feel much better in saying that if the Pistons didn’t look similarily bad in the previous two losses to Team NBA in the regular season.

Three things that did help me sleep easier last night when comparing those games to the regular season were that the offensive spacing was awful last night. Matching that was our pick-n-roll defense (big surprise there). I hope they at least consider playing AA at home to compensate for the fact that we only have one other player (Hunter) that can defend off the dribble and he can’t check Paul Straightlines
Pierce. The third thing was Miller Lite.

Matt,
Thank you for the reply and the welcome. I thought when the pistons took out the lakers a few years back, Detroit had brought a new brand of team basketball back to the NBA. So at that point, I was a fan (to the point any celtic fan can be). But since then, Detroit hasn’t accomplished a great deal. Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather have your experience then our’s. But if it were me, I’d see that our time is running out and we can’t keep letting these great opportunities slip through our fingers. You’re right, this current Celtic team has not been “here” before. But maybe it might help if Detroit stopped acting as if they have been. I doubt anyone in this room will disagree that you should have won the last two years. And you probably should win this year considering how poorly the Celtics are playing. My point is, being here before or not doesn’t change the fact that thursday is a big game, especially for the pistons.

Lawyerboy, maybe it’s a good idea for you to focus on something else besides me. Out of every Pistons fan on this blog, only one felt slighted enough from my original posts yesterday to resort to name calling and childishness. Then to come at me like the Hall Monitor in the above post? Come on, man. Move on and grow up.

Also, do you really have to post your series prediction in almost every one of your posts? We get it, you think the Pistons will win in six, stealing Game 2 in Boston and winning their next three home games.

Anyways, I’m surprised that many of you Pistons fans didn’t note how soft your interior defense was last night. The Cs feasted in the paint. Has this need a big issue for your club this year?

Tim,

You are 100% correct — it’s a huge game, but not a must-win. (I don’t subscribe to the theory that only elimination games should be considered “must-win.” If the Pistons are down 0-2, Game 3 is a must-win. I have a lot of faith in this Pistons team, but even I don’t think they can go 4-0 against this Celtics team.)

But as for fans remaining calm, the mistakes the Pistons made last night were correctable and likely the result of rust. We know all too well what it looks like when this team implodes, and we haven’t seen it yet. And for what it’s worth, several members of the Pistons have in fact admitted their window is closing — I don’t doubt they’ll play with urgency this entire series.

Typo. The last line in my above post should read “Has this been a big issue for your club this year?”

just finished watching the game after avoiding anything to do with sports jurnalism so you’ll forgive my tardiness.
That was just nothing to do with our game…
so few assists tell the whole story. we depended on rip’s and dyss’s one on one skillz too often.
the TO tell how we didn’t take care of the ball.
and if i hear from any comentator how perkinsisamongoloid.com did a fantastic job on both sides of the floor (when PJ brown is obviously much better than him) i’m gonna puke

Favorite part of the game last night?
Billups told KG, you should go to Boston
‘But what about the city?’ said KG
‘You don’t go out anyways,’ said Billups.

The only way that gets comment gets better is if it’s made while Boston is on the road so all their fans hear it, not just the ones watching at home.

Least favorite part of the game?
Any time the word ‘BANG!’ is mentioned, because those words would never be used to describe a made Pistons shot.

tim, to quote larry brown, “a series doesn’t start until a team wins on the road.” i remember when we were absolutely SNUFFED by the spurs in ‘05 finals in games 1 and 2. and then we got home to the palace and smoked them in games 3 and 4. it’s probably memories of series like that make us not freak out about losing game 1 and/or game 2 on the road.

Jack,

And who won that series? Also, that quote really hasn’t applied to the Cs this year. I do believe that the Celtics need to win on the road this series to win. But Detroit HAS to. I just don’t get how the spurs series makes you feel better, considering they lost. Anyway, in some sense it’s refreshing no one is freaking out. Cs fans attitudes tend to change dramatically daily. But so far, the Celtics have proved they can beat the pistons. The pistons haven’t proved anything.

Tim, the point of referring to the Spurs series is that losing the first two games (even by large margins) doesn’t mean the series will be a laugher.

Yes, the Spurs wound up narrowly winning that Series. But for some truly amazing shooting by Horry in Game 5, the Pistons would have been up 3-2 going back to SA, if I recall correctly. Instead, Horry made a couple shots for the ages, and we had to go there and win 2 straight. We got Game 6, but Game 7 was beyond us.

In any event, the short point is just this: losing Game 1 (and possibly Game 2) hardly means the series is over or easy.

Fellow DBBrs (and lurking C’s fans), if you had said to me before tip last night “draw up a worst case scenario” I would’ve said, “Let Boston jump out to about a 10-0 lead, Billups looks gimpy, we can’t get any offensive flow going, Rip scores less than 20, Rondo is causing us problems with his defense, and KG is hitting outside shots off the pick and roll”. All those things happened. We got punched square in the face and somehow were within 6 at the 2:00 mark late in the 4th. We should’ve lost that game by 25. I thought Boston played really well and we played about as badly as we could have. So today I feel conflicted. Part of me is disgusted that we didn’t pull that game out because it was there if we protect the ball a little better and take smarter shots (there were some really bad decisions inside of 5 minutes to play). The other part of me is quietly reassured after watching that because if we play Detroit basketball, we win that game and everybody in Boston is panicking. We can definitely win game 2 if we play our game.

All that said, Boston can play better than they did. They got stagnant for long periods of time. Although, I don’t know what they’re going to do to fix that. There just isn’t a lot of options for them offensively once KG and/or Pierce go to the bench. They have to try to steal a couple of minutes here and there when we bring the Stuckey/Hunter combo in. I really think Pierce is going to have to play 40-42 minutes a game for them to win this series.

I also think they’re going to be extremely difficult to beat if KG is knocking down perimeter jumpers off the pick and roll. There’s just nothing we can do about that. He’s an emotional and firey guy. If he misses a couple of those shots right away, he’s liable to get a little gun shy. But when he knocks those early shots down, it sets the tone for him. He was terrific last night.

As far as Game 2 being a “must win”, I don’t really buy that. It’s somewhere in between “important playoff game” and “must win”. We need to show that we have an answer for the Pierce/KG pick and roll, and we need to see Chauncey get a little bit better. I thought he was very tentative and that hurt us. If he gets a little bit more confident in his leg, he should be fine. I was really pleased with Stuckey, he was excellent, and he can cause problems by driving to the basket against the smaller Celtic guards. I expect a really tight game tomorrow night, I’d be surprised if this one went fewer than 7.

TripleOT: You don’t necessarily know that which you speak of. Just because you aren’t necessarily a party to all complaints about you doesn’t mean that they aren’t expressed. Not all of the discussion amongst DBB community members takes place solely on this blog. For example, “Quick Darshan” and I watched Game 3 of the Pistons-Magic series at a bar together.

In terms of me coming after you on this blog for your unwelcome mockery, I’ve rarely met those who are as aggressive about such conflicts as I am. I’m going to be the one who says something; I don’t suffer from bystander apathy. That’s just me and I’m going (maybe even go out of my way) to address things like that. You mocked our sense of “bravado”(which we like to call “calm demeanor” around here, see: later in this post) on our “turf” so to speak. Matt put it best when he said to Tim “With all due respect, our calm demeanor is a sign that we’ve been here before”. Point being, Matt’s saying that before you make the choice to mock our “bravado” you should carefully consider such a choice and how it’s interpreted by the man who wields the “power of the ban”. At this point, I think we’d be best served to come to the joint understanding that you pissed more people off than just me, realize they have my back if you continue to “flame” (that’s what it’s called, right?), and we can subsequently forget about the whole and we can move on to talking about points of basketball merit. This way, I won’t waste anymore time on the matter and I won’t have to have a discussion with any other community member about how annoyed and angered they are by your behavior. Thanks.

Guys, let’s just talk hoops, please. There will be enough time for flaming and name calling once the series is over.

Tim, we had no bench, therefore we had no business being in contention for an NBA Finals bid the past two years in my view. So I do disagree with that assessment. MAYBE I’d say we should have been able to beat the Cavs last year since Cleveland was just a one-man team, but absolutely not against Miami in ‘05-’06 (though good luck getting me to believe that back then). That team had awesome production out of Payton, Haslem and Jason Williams (who knew?) each in three separate few games and they had a very competitive bench (especially defensively) with Zo, Posey and Payton.

As J mentioned, in ‘04-’05, the Pistons came within hairs of winning Game 5 at home (Damn you Sheed for leaving Horry open! shakes fist) but they still came back and won an elimination Game 6 in San Antonio. Getting all emotional about it would’ve clouded their focus and it doesn’t really do any favors for us as fans. Despite the mild whooping the Pistons took last night, they’ll be back stronger; it’s what they do. As fans we have years of anecdotal evidence to go on. There is something to be said that this team isn’t struggling with complacency, just rust. You have seen far from the best Pistons’ playoff effort in this series (not to say we’ve seen Boston’s); and I think we’re just simply confident that our best effort is better than yours.

ohad: I think it was Van Gundy who made the Perk comment you’re referring to. I flipped out too. Perk had 3 points at the point the comment was made and finished with 5. 2 of 4 shooting, 1 assist and 3 offensive boards does not a fantastic job make on offense in my book. I suppose you can credit him for not turning the ball over for the first time since Game 7 of the Celtics series. Though as much as it pains me to say, to the Perennial Mediocre’s credit, he did have a very good defensive game in my view (fantastic? I dunno that I’d go that far).

SMPLRoscoe: While I agree with your “BANG!” contention and find it to be rather insightful, I have to assert my approval of Mike Breen as a play-by-play man in general.

I don´t quite understand the logic behind what Boston´s fans have been saying on this site. They seem bothered by the fact that the Pistons and their fans aren´t panicking over the game 1 loss. If they were so sure Boston was going to win, wouldn´t they move on with nary a peep? I mean, game 1, on your homecourt, and they demand Detroit´s fans to act like the sky is falling? To me, deep down, it sounds like Boston´s fans actually kind of expected their team to lose.

First blood has barely been drawn, and everyone, even Celtics´s fans, recognize that Detroit played quite badly. It stands to reason that we believe Detroit´s chances are quite good, seeing how narrowly they lost yesterday. If Boston and its fans don´t acknowledge that the Pistons were out of rythm, and the role it played in the offensive performance of yesterday, they aren´t doing themselves any favour.

tim,

we lost that series because sheed for some inexplicable reason cheated in on his coverage, instead of staying home on the spurs best clutch shooter. you also have to factor into our calm demeanor the fact that we’ve been through a lot of lows with this team during this decade. losing an away game 1 against a 66 win team is barely a blip on the map. (that actually would be an interesting debate for the dbb landscape: worst piston loss of this era’s squad.)

wait, is tripleot not a pistons fan? i’ve never gotten past paragraph one of his posts because they are SOOOOOOO long. give me a sec…

oh yeah, he ISN’T a pistons fan, is he? still, i don’t think anything he’s saying should get you so riled up, lb. if we meet up to watch a game, am i going to end up tumbling out the front door of a saloon tangled up with some knucklehead because you can’t simmer down?

(speaking of which, lb, quick, ric, la-ers, go to other thread. http://www.detroitbadboys.com/archives/2008-05-07/where-do-fans-in-los-angeles-watch-pistons-games/#comments)

Sorry, it should have been “on their homecourt”.

Hi Boston fans. If you guys want to see panic, you should through the archives and read the comments from the Sixers series. Yikes.

And LawyerBoy (whom I almost universally agree with), I have to call you out for this:

“Just because you aren’t necessarily a party to all complaints about you doesn’t mean that they aren’t expressed. Not all of the discussion amongst DBB community members takes place solely on this blog. For example, "Quick Darshan" and I watched Game 3 of the Pistons-Magic series at a bar together.”

TripleOT has as much right to post here as anyone else, despite not being in the exclusive DBB community outside of DBB. That doesn’t mean I don’t think TripleOT is crazy, but still, that paragraph seems pretty out of place. And how does complaining about someone when they’re not around help the situation?

Anyways. Pistons rule. Celtics drool.

No insight here, just pissed off. They win Game 2 and I’ll be satisfied. What a rollercoaster.

Garrett: I’m not sure why you quoted that excerpt, as the contention was I was the only one offended by the remarks and that was false. More than one DBB community member has told me they were annoyed by the behavior. They just didn’t tell me here; they told me in a one-on-one conversation. And there’s nothing wrong with them doing that. Some people don’t wanna raise hell; that may be (and likely is) a lot of people, it’s just not me.

Yes, we all agree that anyone has every right to post here in a respectful manner but mocking our “bravado” absolutely constitutes a “potshot” and I have every right to call it out. Anyone that mocks our supposed sense of “bravado” (as opposed to asking us respectfully why we feel that way) and then claims that it’s not a “potshot” or that it’s not “disrespectful” is creating fantasy (Hell, a lot of the board here has reacted to lots Boston fans questioning our supreme confidence even in a respectful manner. Obviously we care about it). Further, any subsequent comments made in response to my decision to call it out aren’t on me. If someone doesn’t like to be called out, they shouldn’t say something that merits that response. That’s why I give a lot of thought to the words I choose to use before I use them. I really wish other people would give as much thought to the words they use as I do. Then we could just be done with this and people would just be more respectful of codes of conduct. Garrett, we’re almost always on a level, but the dead horse called me and when I answered, he said “Please, stop beating me.” I’d hope that we can all respect his wishes.

LawyerBoy: I understand why you said what you did, but I don’t think my first response came out quite right. What I meant to say was that it just seemed like things were getting a bit personal (and unnecessarily so). Anyways, it’s not really my place to get involved in the middle of it since it’s probably done anyways. And at the end of the day, it’s just basketball, and we’re all fans of the game despite the fact that Boston sucks. Ha.

Garrett: That’s a potshot too, buddy. Fortunately for you, I don’t like Boston. Truth be told, I just wanted to use the dead horse line … as for arguments, I learned very early on in my family that if you’re willing to walk away it means you don’t care. It’s kind of like a family of lawyers (and maybe some more soon to be lawyers) thing.

Lawyerboy, can you knock off the self-aggrandizing stuff? Seriously, your responses to me were more puerile than clever, while I got you a number of times without resorting to junior high school taunts. I can understand you going at me with taunts if you thought I was just some uninformed yahoo who sauntered over to your blog to stir things up. I stand by my NBA blogging chops as you do yours, so if you want to just move on, that’s cool with me.

Did you ever think I questioned Pistons’ fans sense of bravado because I wanted to see what they were thinking, and not to stir the pot? I mean, they have the same exact starting lineup (just a year older) they had last year when the Cavs beat them four straight, their leader is gimpy, and they are counting on a callow rookie, Stuckey, a relatively inexperienced Maxiel, and two recently dusted off but noble old timers, in Hunter and Theo, off their bench.

They are playing a team that just put in one of the top dozen regular NBA seasons ever, and have home court advantage, where they are 9-0. Is it because Pistons fans think the Cs playoff road losses indicate a deep seated weakness instead of a strange aberration? Maybe you guys are just that used to winning, like we Patriots fans.

Anyways, I’ll be a dozen rows away from the action tomorrow night in the Garden, and I’ll check in over here with my thoughts. Thanks.

“I mean, they have the same exact starting lineup (just a year older) they had last year when the Cavs beat them four straight,” … minus Chris Webber, of course.

“and they are counting on a callow rookie, Stuckey,” … callow? What about his play in Game 1 makes you think the guy lacks maturity?

“a relatively inexperienced Maxiel,” … who’s essentially playing the same role as the even more inexperienced Glen Davis/Leon Powe.

“two recently dusted off but noble old timers, in Hunter and Theo, off their bench.” Cassell and PJ Brown, anyone?

If all you’re interested in is what people are thinking, silently observing does wonders.

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy hearing from opposing fans, but I’m more interested in what you have to say about your team, not your opinion of the team we’ve watched all season long.

Why everytime the Pistons are in the finals with somebody from the opposing team always have to getvon a Piston board and have something to say about our team. Most of us have been Pistons fan all of lives. You probably became a Boston fan when KG got there. Not hating on KG I like him as a player but the Pistons have been my team for almost 25 .years

I must concur, I would like to hear something interesting about Boston from the point of view of a fan. I have to disagree on your assessment on the Pistons as I don’t believe it is at all like you have written, as the team has changed a LOT from last year. If you would please indulge me for a moment as I outline some differences…

Webber was a complete flop at playoff time, he became the focal point for our setup in offense and really disrupted the flow of the guards. Worse, he offered NOTHING on the defensive end. When he left it was addition by subtraction, Dice moved up and Max did more, plus it allowed Amir to develop which will help in the future.
 Our starters played less this year, big whoop you think? See how tired you are when you play in the conference finals six straight years. Added bonus, Rookies got time to develop. Stuckey might not impress you much now, but he will. You haven’t seen Afflalo yet and maybe you won’t as minutes right now are scarce, but his D is strong and he did well for us this year.

Flip has gotten better as a coach, he isn’t perfect but he has learned from last year. Sheed has watched his mouth more this year, just look at the amount of techs or suspensions so far.
Lastly, Herrrrrrmmman has much nicer hair than any of our players from last year.

In all fairness, to a casual observer of this team, it appears no different, but look deeper and new wrinkles appear. Are we better than last year? Only a ring will answer that.

i don’t get it, 3OT are we supposed to be cringing in the corner after one unremarkable loss in a game that you were SUPPOSED to win, so that you can feel validated about the success of your team? sounds like an insecurity issue. you have the 60s, red, larry legend, not only one, but TWO, blockbuster trades this season, and a 60+ win season. you shouldn’t need us to tell you that you have a top notch team and franchise. your gm mortgaged your future to win now and it’s paying off. so now in addition to your postseason success thus far and being 3 wins from the c’s first finals in __ years (you can fill in the blank because i could give a s***), you want us to tremble at your feet too? get a grip, brother. go and enjoy the game. but don’t be surprised that even if you win that one too, you don’t see the same response at dbb that we had after game 1. to quoth sheed, “ain’t nobody in this joint nervous.” we’ll be pissed. but not nervous.

except for flip saunders. i’m pretty sure he’s nervous. i’m pretty sure he’s nervous about sleeping. about eating cereal in the morning. about using a microwave oven. wish phil saunders would give his dad a xanax every once in a while.

@TripleOT:
“Anyways, I’ll be a dozen rows away from the action tomorrow night in the Garden, and I’ll check in over here with my thoughts. Thanks.”

Please don’t, thanks. I think I speak for the rest of the DBB community when I say that watching you pick fights with LawyerBoy is clogging up our fun. You and LaywerBoy can talk shit all you want, its just annoying for the rest of us. LawyerBoy is our own, his opinion is welcome here. Yours is too— only if you can stay away from trolling and picking fights.

Remember, I was the friendly fellow that welcomed you here, as others did. Seriously though, if you’re just going to come here and bitch at Lawyer Boy, go away. And don’t try to blame him for picking a fight, you’re just as guilty, moreso in that your colors are green, ours are blue.

If you’re going to share your thoughts, leave LawyerBoy out of it. Otherwise, the rest of us are just going to cringe.

LOL at “not wanting to stir up the pot” followed by taunting us about Billups’ injury, the ‘07 Cavs loss, and our bench. I love hearing the views of fans from the teams we play. And we’ve had a pretty nice discourse here with the Philadelphia and Orlando guys. But when you go on another team’s site, you have to be respectful. I went to depressedfan.com during the Philly series. Did those guys get a little too excited when they went up 1-0 or 2-1? Yeah probably. And I’d have been annoyed if they all started posting here about how the Pistons are old, suck, Thaddeus Young should have gone over Kevin Durant, etc. But I was on a 76ers site! That’s what you expect. So I asked questions about the 6ers and generally was better for the experience. But I didn’t try to provoke them or point out how much better a team we are/have been or how far from contention Philly is.

To echo Mike Payne: we come here for fun. And it’s no fun when someone trolls on your site and gets into a namecalling match with one of its members (and a vocab contest too!)

And by the way – I’m on the record as saying 1. the C’s will win this series in 7 2. the Celtics are a terrific, terrific team. And there are several other people here who have shared similar views. There’s going to be a homer slant on every team-related blog. But this is among the most reasonable communities you’ll find.

Looking forward to a thoughtful, non-incendiary dialogue as a great series progresses,
Forty

Just wanted to say that once again I am going to pull out all stops to get the stones a win. I am wearing my team jumper all day and I will sleep in it too. I will watch the 04 champ DVD again. Listen to the same music I was digging at that time and think nothing but positive thoughts about the team. It worked for game 4 in Philly, so here’s hoping eh.
Go Stones!

This is not a great start for me. Bad cold, Pistons L, Indiana Jones wasn’t awesome. It could be worse, but that it isn’t better is a problem.

I went to the doctor last week. He told me I was suffering from “bystander apathy.”

LOL @ Lawyerboy getting to TripleOT. 3OT, as a long-time lurker and recently added poster to this community, don’t get too upset. That’s what Lawyerboy do. Childish antics are fun, don’t lie. BTW: Sam Cassell looks like an alien, Davis looks slightly retarded, and I’ve always contested that Ray Allen looks like a crackhead that just took his first bath. PJ Brown…… too easy.

dd, we don’t have a lot of room in our glass house to throw ‘stons about the general look of our team. we have got a really, really, REALLY ugly squad. if we had picked up popeye jones instead of theo ratliff towards the end of the season, we’d be cracking tv sets across america right now. the only thing keeping us respectable is the flowing locks of walter hermann.

however, not even sam cassell’s mama can disagree, that dude should have been drowned at birth. he looks like baraka from mortal kombat.

sauce: so i’m guessing the new jones movie isn’t a “worth going to the movies for” but is it a “worth renting the DVD” or maybe just “worth an illegal download”?
TripleOT: If you’re not trying to pick a fight why go to the opposite team’s site. trash the team. get into an arguement with one of the commentators (and the #1 at that). and do all of this in a place where people think that playing rough is the badboy way. what did you think? we’d take your critic and switch sides?
get a life. or don’t. just don’t do it here.

Mike Payne, I’m trying to let it go with Lawyerboy, but the guy just can’t seem to get me off his mind. Since he’s one of your own, I can understand you defending him. I feel like I’m Ike Turner when I think of Lawyerboy, pointing at my head and saying “I’m in heah.” The whole dispute was bogus from the beginning, and I again will offer to move on civilly.

On to the real blogging:

Laughton, I actually forgot that the fossilized remains of Chris Webber was a Piston last year. Good point about the addition by subtraction. Matt Watson, I agree that BB Davis and Powe are actually less experienced, but the difference is that Maxiel is your first big off the bench, and the experienced PJ Brown has supplanted the two young Cs’ bigs now that he’s shaken off the rust. He was solid in the Cavs’ series, 73% from the field, solid board work, and some very physical defense.

I’m actually a Maxiel guy, but he has dropped off a bit from his excellent start the first half of the season, and was MIA in Game 1. He has only three points in the past four playoff games, in 66 minutes. Looking at hi game logs, it seems that he thrives in big minutes, but has a tendency to get lost when he gets under 20 minutes per game.

Stuckey looks like he’s going to be a very productive NBA guard. He has a lot going for him off the dribble, and is tall with a strong body. I watched him closely when he warmed up between the halfs in Game 1, and he has the makings of a decent jump shot, although he obviously doesn’t have a lot of confidence in it, especially at more than 18 feet. The one jumper he made, a baseline 18 footer, he looked good. Our guy Rondo couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean last year, and he’s managed to put together an acceptable jumper in year 2, and his old mechanics makes Stuckey look like Dell Curry.

Stuckey might become a true PG someday, but right now, he isn’t. He looked very skittish setting up the Detroit offense in Game 1. He’s a rookie that needs to come through for the Pistons to win this series, especially with the Chauncey injury. (I heard Billups on ESPN say today that he doesn’t think he will be 100% the entire season) Stuckey’s a rookie. A poised one, but a rookie nontheless, and rookies usually don’t make a big impact late in the playoffs.

Good point JD, we don’t have much room to talk indeed. Rasheed looks like one of the beggars that stands outside of Comerica Park. The dude asked me for change last week, I was like “Roscoe, is that you?”

Tonight: Pistons by 6

Series: Pistons in 6

CB will be more “aggressive”.
Rip will show up. Or Sheed will. And hopefully both.
Dice seems hungry, and should be still moreso tonight.
Prince will be Prince. Which is a very good thing.
And Flip will make some good defensive adjustments.

Keep the faith. All will be well.

Aren’t you glad you’re not a Spurs fan after last night? Those fans must be hurting right now. They will remember last night’s game for a long, long time. Bet on it. Lakers in 6.

I was re-watching Game 5 of the Orlando series (bless your DVR), and I have come to the conclusion that Miggity has been awesome this postseason. He’s shot 50% or better in 75% of the playoff games this year. Miggity was only able to shoot 50% or better in 25% of last season’s playoff games. The fact that head-to-head he’s got 51.9% shooting (this year) v. 34.9% shooting (last year) kinda makes me smile. His rebounding is still solid with 7/game (down from his season average of 8.5) too. And plus, when all the ESPN pundits are jumping off the Pistons’ bandwagon like it’s the Titanic, I know we’re in good shape.

JD: The Popeye Jones reference had me cracking up. +59

Laughton: I was hoping I could get through this postseason without seeing the word “Webber” on DBB. shivers

And uh, about that other thing … I’m glad to know of someone who has a harder time giving up when they’re defeated than me. And since I tend to be wordy, I’ll just say I think Matt W., Evelyn, Laughton, JD, Birdman (hilarious), ohad, DD, and my boy Mike Payne covered it for me. Thanks DBB faithful. I appreciate it. group hug

Ohad, I actually forgot I had a bad cold, so it’s entertaining. But, considering that I know these old men had years to work on this project, and that’s what they turned in . . . kinda weighs more against ’em, considering their experience and level of talent.

The main difference between this year’s Pistons and last year’s is that Detroit is supposed to have a much better bench this year. And for most of the year, they have. But with the exception of Stuckey, the bench has been disappearing lately: Maxiell hasn’t done much in the last several games; Hayes has hardly played since the first couple of games in the Philly series (leaving us once again with no backup for Tayshaun); Afflalo has had a lot of DNP-CDs (apparently Flip is going with Lindsey as the fourth guard); Ratliff got a few minutes to bang with Howard, but not much else; and Johnson only plays in garbage time.

I understand that rotatations get shortened deeper into the playoffs, but if our whole bench contribution is decent backup guard play from Stuckey and Hunter but not much from anybody else, Detroit will lose to Boston.

Beyond that, two things. First, yeah, the other difference from last year is Webber, but I get tired of Webber bashing. He helped a lot in the regular season last year; he didn’t have a good ECF against the Cavs, but most of the Pistons didn’t play well against the Cavs, and that wasn’t Chris’s fault. It’s easier to blame the guy who isn’t here, I guess.

Finally, it is indeed more interesting to hear opposing fans talk about THEIR teams, as opposed to pointing out the real or supposed flaws in the Pistons. Look, this blog is not full of huge homers: the posters here know the Pistons better than fans of other teams do, including understanding their flaws.