It happened in the third quarter; he went down and stayed down for a couple of minutes. Eventually, he was helped off the court and taken for X-rays, which were negative. (But remember, “in the medicine community, negative means good.”)
There was no indication of how much time he’d miss, but I imagine anyone going to the game in Grand Rapids on Wednesday will be seeing Rip in street clothes, if he makes the trip at all. He was definitely hobbling after the game, though it’s not like he was using crutches or anything.
As for the rest of the game, it seemed like Flip Saunders wanted to extend his starters a bit more, perhaps because the team had Saturday off (the first off day since the start of training camp) and the next game isn’t until Wednesday. All the starters but Rip played at least 24 minutes. Tayshaun Prince led the way with 30 minutes, scoring 19 with eight boards. As a result of these guys playing extended minutes, though, the bench obviously saw less time, and Cheikh Samb, Ronald Dupree and Sammy Mejia didn’t get in the game at all.
Also, you don’t generally hear people talk too much about a team’s free-throw shooting, but the Pistons were nails from the line on Sunday. As a team, they shot 31-35 (88.1%) at the stripe. In what turned out to be a three-point game, that was huge.
Both Amir Johnson and Nazr Mohammed sat this one out, which was pretty much expected (Amir for sure, Nazr had left open the possibility of playing). For more on their situations, check out my article from yesterday. Here’s a taste:
[Johnson is] not able to scrimmage with his teammates, but he’s still active during practice. “I’m in the back with the trainer in the weight room, doing some plyometric stuff. I’m on the track, running up and down, seeing how it feels.”
Even though he hasn’t been able to log a single minute of preseason duty, Johnson doesn’t think his lack of game action will change his place in the team’s early-season plans. “I did the whole training camp, the whole two-a-days. I only missed three days of practice, so I’ll be fine,” he said. “I got used to the plays now. I’ll be fine in the rotation. Hopefully, they’ll put me in there.”
Last but not least, I wanted to post a few Sammy Mejia quotes from my brief interview with him in the locker room before the game. I used the meatier stuff for the HOOPSWORLD pre-game blog, but rather than let the rest of it sit unseen on my hard drive, I’m tossing it up here:
On training camp so far:
“It’s been cool, it’s been great. Great learning experience. It’s been tough. The two-a-days weren’t easy. Now we’re in the point where we’re just playing games and practicing on the things we need to do to help our team get better throughout the season.”
On his health:
“I twisted my ankle a couple of weeks ago, and it’s still bothering me. We’re still working on that, and every day is getting better, and I’m just excited about that, that it’s getter better and not getting worse.”
On getting along with the other three rookies:
“We’re all cool, we’re all cool guys. You know, the team as a whole, we’re all cool guys. We all get along with each other well, and everyone is cool and friendly. It’s a great situation for rookies to come into, this is the type of team that embraces you and lets you know what they’re about as a team — it’s more like a family than anything else.”
On what kind of errands the veterans have the rookies doing:
“The usual stuff, the donuts, the picking up all the basketballs, making sure they get the towels for the shower, stuff like that. … Every once in a while, they’ll just remind us that we’re rooks.”
I think wwe should all sprain our ankles a little bit, or take a kick in the calf in the spirit of solidarity. Seriosly, Arnie Kander’s assisant must be in a scheduling nightmare right now trying to find time for him to work his considerable magic on nineeen players at once. I wonder if he has to take into consideration which players are going to make the team and which will be cut when he decides who gets in.
Hayes is looking better each game and with all these injuries the rookies are going to get plenty of playing time. Still waiting to see Amir play.
I’d love to see how a lineup of Nazr, Amir, Maxiell, Stucky, and Hayes does in preseason. Nazr and Amir would be nice for rebounds and post up action. Maxiell putbacks to slam down the ball on anyone who gets in his way. Stuckey to drive to the basket and hopefully drain some midrange shots. Hayes to drop 3’s and midrange jumpshots.
I just read that Gerald Fitch was waived today. I assume Dupree would be next, but Joe D can be hard to predict.
Jarvis Hayes has a bullet head. Or so I’ve heard.
Garrett wins this thread.
Sorry.
Matt C:
I think Nazr, Amir, and Maxiell in the front court might be just a little too big. Problem is, none of these really have a terribly reliable shot from 15+, certainly not at 3 point range. I’d love to see a similar line-up:
stuckey-afflalo-hayes-johnson-nazr.
or at least put someone in there that can really distribute the ball, like chauncey running that:
billups-stuckey-hayes-johnson-nazr. deadly.
i’m not one for bringing webber back, but imagine:
stuckey-afflalo-hayes-johnson-webber.
think about all the inside dishes from webber to johnson… *growl*
I haven’t had this much fun postulating about possible bench lineups since, well, ever. go team.
Hehe, yeah I wouldn’t put them against most starters, but as a bench only lineup I think it would dominate. I’d still take Maxiell over Afflalo for now, but yeah I rather have Webber than Nazr.
Someone else should sign Webber and then we trade Nazr and his fat contract for him. I don’t think Webber wants bench, but this late in his career without a ring he still might go for it.
We should trade Rip and Maxiell for Kobe! we’ll be the next bad boys for real!!!!!
Kobe is a sissy, he ain’t no badboy.
Rip and Maxiell for mr. ballhog….i dont think so.
I can’t believe I’m defending a Kobe trade, but that makes a lot of sense, if the salaries work. Might have to throw Nazr in there too.
As much as I love Rip, you wouldn’t have expected him to take on as much of ‘Sheed’s attitude as he has. The team is loaded with guys who can stroke it when set up. Rip might be exceptionally good at it, but what we need are guys who can get their own shots.
Kobe is also a go-to defender on guys like Wade and Lebron. Tayshaun can’t continue to match up with guys like them (and Deng as well) and provide any offense. Kobe would either share the defending load or take on the scoring load.
The rotation works well too. The only thing is that it would stunt Stuckey’s growth, since he and Kobe wouldn’t be ideal backcourt mates. I think you would see Hayes or Amir be first off the bench (huge burden on AJ too, another issue with this move). Stuckey would come in for Kobe, play with Billups and move to the point when Spellcheck comes in for Chauncey.
The biggest issue is the defense lost when the second unit frontcourt comes in. Obviously we would re-sign Webber, and maybe PJ Brown. At this point, Nazr becomes more difficult to include.
The biggest issue though, as much sense as this makes: I believe Kobe and Chauncey hate each other. Of any trade for a mega-star that has been floated, Rip/Maxiell/1st round pick/and throw-ins for Kobe makes the most sense, but I wouldn’t pull the trigger on that if I were Joe.
There’s apparently lots of “biggest issues”.
Kobe wouldn’t fit in with our style of basketball(hint, teamplay). It wouldn’t happen anyways, Kobe is all the Lakers have, we would have to trade all our best players for him and I don’t even want him here anyways. I would rather just lose than have Kobe here. I wouldn’t even take him for free, this is Detroit B-Ball, no sissies allowed.