I may have given the Pistons too much credit for keeping within striking distance of the Cavs for the first 18 minutes or so of Game One. Maybe I wasn't watching the same game, but apparently their defense was in disarray from the beginning. I guess I was just concerned with the scoreboard, but I've read that their defensive system fell apart from the start.
Tonight, Michael Curry is calling for more aggressive defense on Lebron. He wants the Pistons to aggressively trap him and make him shoot contested jumpers. Sounds pretty normal to me and I think it's going to take out of the ordinary suffocating defense to stop him.
Pistonsnation says that the Pistons defense needs to toughen up to have any chance of winning against Cleveland. I would agree. I would also like to see them play tough defense for 48 minutes and not just give up in the fourth quarter.
Rasheed Wallace had a good way of putting it with his response on what the Pistons need to do against the Cavs. According to 'Sheed, the Pistons need to knuckle up.
I'm not happy with all the bickering about Rodney Stuckey. This young man is in just his second season! What more do you want from him? I think we all know he's not Dwayne Wade. He also might not be the same type of player as this guy I'm thinking of, but his numbers are eerily similar to Chauncey Billups in his first couple seasons. In fact, Stuckey's numbers are a little bit better in some regards. Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press sees Stuckey having a promising future.
Speaking of Chauncey Billups, his performance Sunday night was a classic slap in the face, if not to all of us then to at least Joe Dumars. With Pistons fans and critics already dealing with the Pistons getting drubbed by the Cavs in Game One and the never ending Iverson news floating around, our former leader had a career game to lead his new team, the Denver Nuggets to a blow out win over the New Orleans Hornets in Game One of their playoff series. Billups scored 36 points and had a career-best eight three-pointers.
Matt Watson of Detroit Bad Boys and NBA Fan House wrote a great piece suggesting that the Detroit News needs to right themselves for the stories they published surrounding Allen Iverson's alleged ban from Motown casinos. The Detroit News has retracted Chris McCosky's original stories, but Matt doesn't think that is proper justice. Sheesh, McCosky really loves controversy.
I said in the roundtable, as did many others, that a viable option for the Pistons this summer could be going after Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors. Well, Toronto is going to try pretty hard to extend his contract this summer making it a lot more difficult to get him. I was just thinking, if we can't get 'Sheed to sign for cheap, then why not have him sign for whatever and then pull off the ol' Grant Hill sign-and -trade? You're right. Let's worry about it after the playoffs.
Our blog-enemy, Fear the Sword, writes on how the Cavs need to keep the pressure on for Game Two. He also says the Pistons don't have a shot of winning in Cleveland, Detroit, or on the moon. Game Two could be a golden opportunity for Detroit seeing as Cleveland has let it slip away from them before and are just 3-5 in Game Two's during the Lebron reign.
I would like to thank Dan Feldman of Piston Powered again for putting together such a great roundtable. There were a lot of good opinions heard and it was an honor to be a part of that group.
Beating a No. 1 seed is not unheard of in the first round like a 1/16 match up in college basketball. Sure, everyone references the Denver series where Mutumbo laid on the ground after screaming into the Spalding as he held it up over his head. Well, John Davis of Pistonscast refers to one series I completely forgot about. The 1999 Knicks were the first No. 8 seed to make it to the NBA Finals! I think that's a much better comparison given the Pistons success in the past six years.
Game Two is tonight, folks. Let's try to have a better showing here in the game thread than Game One. I look over at the other playoff blogs and they are getting constant chatter throughout the games. Let's rise up and come together to support our team. Game Two is very winnable.
As always, if you have any tips, links, or general inquiries, please email me.