Ah, good times. Obviously this year’s iteration of the Trail Blazers (and last year’s … and the year before that …) are a long ways from returning to the Finals, but these two franchises will always be tied in my mind because of that highlight.
Tonight, Rasheed Wallace hopes to go 5-0 against his former team. The Blazers enter the game with a 3-3 record, which is a surprise to some considering their without their rookie cornerstone Greg Oden. But Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge have been playing exceptionally well, leading the team with 20.7 and 19.2 points, respectively, while both shooting over 50%. Containing those two (easier said than done) will obviously be key.
As always, leave your thoughts and observations in the comments. Game starts at 10 pm on FSN, so brew some coffee now.
I’ll be at the game, sporting my DBB “What would Buddha Do” t-shirt and taking a few photos of the game. I know that the Portland chapter of the Michigan alumni group is meeting prior to the game, so I’m sure Pistons fans will be well rep’d here again tonight. Last year there were tons of us in the seats, making a lot of noise for the boys in red, white and blue.
War Pistons!
Billups needs just seven points to reach 10,000 for his career.
Sheed has some beef with his old team, wonder if this will be his first tech? The video on the game just messed up for a sec.
Not cool … FSN just lost the signal.
And we’re back.
Murray can score pretty good off the bench, but Joe D needs to give him a little talk about sharing the ball. His ball hogging and rushing stupid plays gets old quick.
Do we have really have to wait until Stuckey is back before Saunders quits putting Murray at PG? Can’t he just stop, please?
Billups hit 10,000 points.
Hopefully Billups didn’t mess up his hip to bad..
He looks alright.
Say, who is this “LaMarcus Aldridge” character? He seems to be pretty good at the game of basketball.
Gotta give Murray some credit for the last second 3 in the 3rd quarter.
Ha ha! Man, I’m watching this game streaming through League Pass and it’s the Portland announcers. That end-of-the-third sequence was super funny. It went something like this:
*momentum building for Portland*
Announcer: Roy….over Rasheed…! HITS!!!!
*crowd erupts*
Announcer: RASHEED YOU CAN’T BACK OFF BRANDON ROY LIKE THAT!!!!! Wait… Flip Murray for 3…….oh…..got it.
*crowd silenced*
Eat it, Portland.
Flip’s making me bipolar!
Nice circus 3 at the buzzer though.
Blaha just made an Aaron Neville reference… classic.
Jarvis Hayes vs. Jarret Jack is like a battle of the bullet heads.
Yeah, I clicked over from the Michigan-OSU documentary on HBO just in time to hear “RASHEED YOU CANNOT BACK OFF BRANDON ROY LIKE THAT! ROOKIE OF THE YEAR!” and immediately regretted my decision to move away from Detroit. If I were a fan of another team, I’d probably hate having to listen to Blaha and Kesler, and I would especially hate listening to Laimbeer when he calls games. Not that I care what other fans think about our announcing crew or anything. But the Portland guys are pretty bad.
We’re totally a step behind on defense right now… get your s**t together boys and get the lead back!
Now Dyess looks hurt, his knee I think.
Ahh, shoulder, duh.
Our offense looks putrid right now… why can’t we buy a bucket
I’ve only been watching since the last couple minutes of the 3rd. Has the entire game been like this? Bad bench play, ice cold shooting, getting crushed on the boards? Should I be glad I haven’t been watching since the opening tip?
Also, I hate these announcers. Here, Pistons fans, allow me to talk about that Cleveland series and the LeBron game. How’s that feel? Are you ready to hang yourself yet? No? Okay, I’ll keep going. Assholes.
I hear you, Matt. I’ve had the game muted for the last 15 minutes. Can’t stand this Portland fellatery…
Oh good lord… outscored 43-15 from the bench
The Pistons looked like they had control for most of the game (even though thte score has gotten close a few times) until now. The crowd is really into it, and it seems like the Blazers are hitting everything and the Pistons are missing everything.
Up to this point, without Hamilton the Pistons have been shooting a collective 55%.
We been getting raped on calls lately, BS.
This was definitely a 4th quarter meltdown, and the bench this game certainly didn’t do anything to get playing time in their favor…
Oregon’s just not good news for basketball right now… WMU (Go Broncos!) lost to #11 Oregon last night although it was a great fight to the end.
Why is Apollo Creed -errr- Clyde Drexler in attendance? He won 2 titles in Houston. He was part of Phi Slamma Jamma. I know he played for the Blazers for a long time, but doesn’t he have to choose? Like if he’s gonna support the Blazers, he can’t also support the Rockets. I’d have gone with my college town and place where I won 2 rings. But that’s just me.
Ugh. Those two possessions where Rip took the ill-advised layup and missed it . . . and Chauncey with a hip-pointer pulling up for a mid-range jumper that badly missed . . . terrible offensive execution in crunch time.
This is why I hate Flip Saunders.
I love Chauncey, but your hot hand is apparently Rasheed tonight. In those two possessions, with a defecit, try running a play to set up Rasheed for the 3-try. Run a rebounder under the basket, and have your guard push it inside knowing he’ll try to kick it out to Rasheed. 3-5 for 3-pts at that time from Rasheed . . . go with him at least once. Don’t let your guard QB the thing and have the guards try to attack Portland’s interior. Neither Rip or Chauncey is an excellent inside game. Around the basket, both players are merely average except on fast breaks.
Ok so let me vent my Flip (Saunders) frustration for the evening…
There’s just no reason for these kind of starters’ minutes - it’s not like the bench was behind any more than we have been down the stretch.
Final bench comparison - we lost to the tune of 48-18
Starter minutes - 41, 25, 41, 39, 32
Bench - 4, 4, 15, 16, 14
What exactly happened to having and developing a great bench?
I know there’s more to the story than that, but come on!
We will not likely win a championship with Flip as the coach.
Portland is an up-and-coming team with Oden on the way for next year. Aldridge is a potential beast in the making. They clearly have depth, and Nate’s a pretty decent coach. This was a good test. This was a failed test.
You must have missed it when Amir came in, got 3 blocks, 8 steals, 4 dunks, 12 rebounds, and drew a charge.
Oh wait, no you didn’t. Amir didn’t play.
I just moved to Portland from Ann Arbor, last week-took my sweet time 5 days driving out here. Good to see the Pistons playing in town, a win would have been nice. I thought it was just me, but glad to come on here and see the comments about the announcers of this game. They seemed amateur as all hell, complaining and whining a lot. You know Blaha’s team is the Pistons but he doesn’t whine. I think the chronic lack of championship level competition has left the announcers talking from a position of weakness. But hell, maybe the blazers are on the rise.
props to the pistons fans! maxiel was great!
Portland’s definitely a good team and I can forsee them making the playoffs sooner then Sheed’s 5 years prediction… but all that said, there aren’t too many good reasons why we SHOULD have lost this game. Now as to why we lost it, well, see pretty much every comment above… can’t shoot, can’t get the offense flowing, can’t get some critical stops, yup pretty much across the board.
You aren’t going to beat a team when you let them shoot 55% from the field. LaMarcus Aldridge ate us for dinner, as I knew he would. Flip needs to figure out something in terms of defending the low post. The road to the championship goes through Garnett and Duncan this year.
Joe Dumars, 6/11/07: “If we went forward and say we’re going to keep playing our core guys 40 minutes a night, you can’t do that. That doesn’t work. I can tell you firsthand you can’t put those guys out there 40 minutes every night and then grind through the playoffs. What you do is say we’re not going to ask you to do that.”
Detroit at Portland, 11/14/07:
Tayshaun Prince, 42 minutes
Rasheed Wallace, 41 minutes
Richard Hamilton, 40 minutes
Joe Dumars, 6/11/07: “Maxiell has shown that he’s more than ready to step in. But these other young guys are going to get an opportunity, too. Amir Johnson. We’ve got to keep bringing in young blood – young blood, new blood, athleticism. It’s time for that influx to start having a serious impact going forward. We won’t just go forward with the same old same old. You’ll see new people, new blood, new faces out on the court for the Pistons.”
Detroit at Portland, 11/14/07:
Jason Maxiell, 14 minutes
Nazr Mohammed, 5 minutes
Arron Afflalo, 5 minutes
Amir Johnson, DNP coach’s decision
It’s just one loss in November in a new season but there are old problems with minutes and the rotation and if it happens again on this road trip I’m going to be pissed. Nazr’s not young blood but his five minutes is inexplicable on a night when Rasheed Wallace plays 41 minutes.
And this is the front-end of a back-to-back games. Tomorrow is @ Golden State.
joejoejoe- Nazr was playing terrible tonight, he was a liability on both ends of the floor.
I’ll agree that Wallace should have had less minutes in the 2nd half. Sheed was great in the first, but was a poor player on both ends just the same in 3 and 4– Aldridge was making Sheed his bitch. You could see it in Wallace’s eyes, too. He was embarrassed.
The problem player for tonight, however, was Rip. I would have loved to have seen more billups/murray, billups/afflalo, or any other set that would have excluded rip. Rip sh!t the bed tonight, Saunders should have used the bench to compensate.
and BTW: “You’ll see new people, new blood, new faces out on the court for the Pistons.”
What he was trying to say: “If we have garbage minutes, if we’re getting crushed or doing the crushing, we’ll find time for Amir and Afflalo. If we’re neck and neck and our starters are clearly not handling business, we don’t trust our bench enough to make up the difference. We learned that the hard way by trusting Tayshaun in the playoffs in 02-03. Wait, what?”
I’ll repeat my comments from the Chicago loss, our guards have horrible foot speed on defense. From the highlights I’ve watched and what I’ve read they were blown by again. At least Tay finally woke up. I like the distribution of shots between the starters. Not only was it stupid to play the main horses 41 mins., it was idiotic considering they play again tonight, play 3 games in 4 nights and are on the West coast. Well if Dice can’t go tonight then its prime time for Amir to kick in the door of opportunity. He’ll get good mins without Dice playing (if he can’t) and Golden State does not have any solid Bigs, as well they don’t play D and run & gun. Prime situation for Amir to prove himself. It appears young athletic bigs like Aldridge and Tyrus Thomas are going to kick our ass all year. I’m really praying Afflalo can be a defensive stopper off the bench. OMG I pray. Our rebounding really concerns me. Tay, Rip and Chauncey appear to be doing a good job helping out, averaging maybe 5 each for all three but the Bigs need to hit the boards. Our main bigs can’t grab like 5-6 rebounds. We need those guys to grab 8,9,10 not 6. Even though he shot 50% I can’t stand Sheed shooting 6 3’s a night. I’ll give him 3 per game. If he’s hot 4. We will not get the hardware if we can’t defend guard penetration and can’t rebound effectively. It just won’t happen. Golden State smashed up twice last year, haven’t won a game yet (very hungry) and are well rested for tonights game. I’m concerned…which means we’ll probably win by 30
Mike Payne - Nazr was so bad he couldn’t play 1 second in the 2nd half? Couldn’t the coach do some coaching or something at halftime instead of giving up on someone after such a small sample? The entire point of having a rotation is to give the bench enough time to grow into their roles and gain confidence and the starters enough time to be stay fresh over 82 games. Having a coach who loses trust in the bench in the early 2nd quarter says more about the coach than the bench. You have to be willing to risk the odd loss here and there while you keep your eye on the big picture. Tim Duncan never plays 40 minutes unless the game goes into overtime. ‘Sheed is playing 40 minutes on the front-end of a back-to-back on the road.
I know coaches don’t like to be told what to do with minutes and think they have to control the minutes according to circumstances in each game but over and over the coach has shown no ability to get with the organizational plan to develop new talent and rest the starters.
Maxiell had more rebounds in 14 minutes than a banged up ‘Dyess had in 29 minutes and more blocks than the rest of the team had in 226 minutes, no turnovers, no fouls and shot 66%. What does the guy need to do to get more run? Be 30 years old and tired?
I’ll let Brandon Roy sum up the game. “I think they ran out of gas in the fourth quarter.” (AP)
i’m not going 2 say that the Pistons aren’t going 2 win the ship because i believe they will, but yesterday’s game was pretty good til they got the the forth quarter. Um terrible day 4 rip because he missed soo many easy layups and wide open shots. I’m really scared now because our starters ae playing WAY to many minutes and 4 us 2 survive til the end of the season WE NEED 2 PLAY OUR BENCH…TMW is golden state and they are fast. We need Amir, Maxy, Flip (please pass the ball, but pretty good game yesterday, Affalo, and maybe Nazr to g out to Golden sate and run, run, run. It’s too earl to judge how far this team will go because we are only 7 games into the season and we have a pretty good record. Right now i would rest my starters more and play the young s and in tight situations (maybe 3 rd or 4th) then i would put my starters back in. I like wat Flip S. did by substituting a little bit and throwing in afflalo, but i really want 2 c the young s tonight because if i don’t i will be very nervous, even if we win or lose. I just really want 2 develop our youngs so we can have a reliable player coming off the bench. 5-2 is good but the way we lost that game was not.
LET’S GO PISTONS AND LET’S GET THAT SHIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2007-2008 IT’S OUR TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ALL BOUT DETROIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The thing that annoys me is that it seems like every team we play is fully capable of utilizing their young guys some how to make them effective. Every game I’m always like, “Oh look, TEAM X is playing RANDOM ROOKIE Y. And look, he’s lighting us up.” I guess that doesn’t always happen, but contrasted to our starters it seems like every one else has young blood.
On an unrelated note, I picked this up from the NBA store last month and I have to say it’s one of the comfiest hoodies ever. Highly recommended:
http://store.nba.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2747707&cp=1421540.2788203.2802255&view=all&parentPage=family
$55 - yikes! hoodie prices there days are just ridiculous
On to the Christmas list it goes…
Ok this is just sweet - I will own some of these some day…
http://store.nba.com/product/index.jsp?productId=399349&cp=1421540.2098346&view=all&parentPage=family
Sheed looked really slow in the 2nd half. Either 40 minutes is too much for one night (not likely) or he hit the town with some of his old buddies from the Jailblazer days Monday night (likely).
I also think Nazr needs to play more so he can develop some touch on his shoots and stop embarrasing himself with those awful airballs.
Some 22 year old center last night got 20 pts, 6 rebounds, 2 block shots, 2 steals… against Yao Ming(22 pts, 7 rebounds, 1 block shots, 2 steals) He goes by the name of Dark-o Mili-something.
Now why would ANYBODY here be screaming to develop our youth?!!? That’s just ridiculous.
Here is the fact: A loss is a loss. Wasting Sheed for 41 minutes in a loss is idiotic. If they’d played the bench real minutes they probably still would have lost, but the starters would be more rested tonight and the bench would be all the better.
Seriously, I hope Saunders realizes his days here are numbered.
Saunders completely contradicts himself. I don’t blame him for Rips awful shooting but he said he understood that in the beginning of the season you can’t worry about a loss here or there, but focus on the long term development of your bench. That shit just aint happening. He just doesn’t get it. I’m scared even when Stuckey gets back, the starters are still going to play 40+ minutes in every tight game we have. Will someone please tell that SOB that you don’t win championships in November. Come on dude. And typicall if its a tight game its because of the starters. So why punish the bench because it happens to be a tight game. If the starters can’t pull away on a given night, let the bench get a chance to produce. I’m not a Flip hater, this is my first rant probably ever, but I’m starting to agree with everyone else man. Getting frustrated despite the 5-2 record. I’m not upset cause we lost, can’t go 82-0. I’m ticked cause the guys played 40 min again on a back to back not to mention 3 games in 4 nights, not to mention GS is well rested, not to mention they run-run-run. Everytime a young Big kicks our ass I get pissed because our young Bigs don’t get a shot at them. Minimum Maximus and no Amir last night. What the hell man.
Piston fans just need to admit that they got beat by a flexible, versitile squad that made some serious adjustments in the second half. Even though the Blazers are young, Coach Nate has taught them to recognize when teammates are open and how to work as a team. 3 players scored 20+ points. On the whole, we had balanced team play with players doing the little things and hustling that helps teams win.
Defensively, Portland was in the Piston’s face on almost every shot, boxing out on the rebound and crashing the boards on missed layups.
Offensively, Portland found the hot hand and forced only a few shots. Lamarcas had the toughest offensive assignment going against Sheed. You have to admit though, it was a pretty good match up. Both those guys have long, long arms and extremely high releases on their shots.
Of course, Portland will have to win 60 games in a season before they get any respect. It’s getting a little old to keep hearing that our opponents just played a bad game. This season is about adjustments and it looks like Portland has the squad that can make those, on a game per game basis.
I haven’t liked Saunders ever since we had him. The 2 games we lost are the 2 games where our bench barely played. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that when you probably have the oldest starting 5 in the NBA, you might want to give them some rest. Vowing to give your bench more minutes doesn’t mean only put them in the 4th when we are up 20 after 3rd quarter.
I wonder if McDyess is even playing todays game? If not, hopefully we can give the bench some extra minutes.
Maxiell should be getting more like 25 minutes a game. One thing I see constantly happen when we are down is that Saunders puts all the starters back in and they start popping low percentage long 2’s and 3’s. Maxiell is great in the paint, not only can he dunk over most anyone, he has a pretty good shot deep in the paint. When we went on that run early in the 1st quarter, it was mostly points in the paint. It seem pretty much every time we are down, the starters totally forget about the paint. Jumpshot after jumpshot. Even if they aren’t falling we just keep popping them up.
Afflalo looked like he was starting to get the hang of it after starting 2 games. How about let Amir start if Mcdyess sits the game out for his shoulder? You got to be willing to take some risks, some times they pay off, sometimes they don’t. But you never know unless you take the risk.
We have one of the slower starting 5’s (minus Rip)in the league, we are going to have trouble with young athletic teams. The worst thing you can do is what Saunders does, keep all your athletic guys on the bench while you do exactly what you said you wouldn’t, give the starters too many minutes.
Saunders is a good offensive coach, I’ll give him that. He consistently makes bad lineup changes, doesn’t always call timeouts when we need them, keeps putting Murray at PG, only uses the bench when we are up 20…
If we keep playing our starters this many minutes, we are going to be in worse shape for playoffs than last year. Oh well, another night with Murray at PG and starters with too many minutes against the Warriors.
I wasn’t able to watch the game but it seems like Saunders is back to his old-self and we are not even past the first month of play.
I am a little dissappointed Saunders has not used Maxiell like he has promised, Flip Murray and Jarvis Hayes both seen more time than him last night. I think if Maxiell is struggling at the PF position (which is bound to happened because he is undersized), than move him over to SF Position.
I don’t think there’s any question we have the oldest starting 5 in the league. I hate Saunders. I think he’s the WORST head coach in the league. Seriously. No team he has EVER coached has overacheived. EVER. They’ve either come in at or below expectations. He doesn’t stand up to the refs. He has this “great” offense, but doesn’t discipline players for not executing it. When a players off, he doesn’t modify the game plan, or even remove the player from the court.
Let’s compare this to coaches who HAVE won championships… Riley, Daly, Jackson, Brown. Anyone remember Daly getting thrown out of a game to make a point? Or benching Aquirre and putting a very young Rodman in? These guys commanded respect. Saunders doens’t command respect from the refs, the fans, or the players(ask Ben Wallace… or Sheed.)
Damn, that was the only game I’ll get to see live this year, and it left me feeling nauseous.
What I was hoping for: veterans jumping out to a big lead, the bench holding or expanding on it, high energy play from young guys and hardnosed defense from the whole team.
What I got: veterans executing early then settling for defended jumpers and Rip trying to create his own shot, almost perfect play from Maxiell which was rewarded with limited time. (Is Flip keeping the bench rested for tonight against GS?) A Portland team that executed their offense and hit open shots.
Sheed was incredible in the first half– when we got him the ball down low, he scored or immediately passed out of the double-team for an open shot, but despite his 41 minutes he didn’t get the ball much on the block in the second half. He played great defense when he had the energy, but looked like he wasn’t contesting shots from guards once they had left our smalls in the dust.
Tay scored whenever we needed a bucket and he got the ball, but for some reason he was only able to score when he got touches. I’ll have to look at some game tape to determine why he wasn’t able to score when he didn’t get the ball. I’m also going to investigate how Rip was 5-20, but only missed when he got the ball. He blew three layups last night, which would seem to be an anomaly, except that the Pistons ended up missing more layups than any other NBA team last year.
Flip Murray, the quarter-ending three pointer aside, makes my heart rate rise every time he touches the ball. It’s not that he won’t pass, it’s that he holds the ball for an extra second before the pass, as if maybe his defender will suddenly get bored and unlace his shoes. By the time Flip makes the pass, the defense has rotated and the play is broken up. It’s almost painful for him to give up the ball, which can be forgiven in a 2-guard or a shooting forward, but NOT for a PG. For the love of Christ, let anyone but Flip run the point when Chauncey is out of the game.
We couldn’t stop dribble penetration, and we weren’t able to rotate out to their shooters to contest shots. They hit an uncanny percentage, but NBA players left wide open tend to do that. I turned to my girlfriend at one point and assured her that Portland couldn’t keep on hitting the percentage they were shooting. She rolled her eyes and pointed out that their percentage had gone UP from 52 for the first half to 55 percent, and that NBA players left unguarded tend to make almost all of their shots. I love her and I fear her, both at the same time.
Maybe I’m just not seeing what it is that Maxey did wrong, but his effort and defense was great, he shot 2-3, blocked two shots…
Everyone above this post has hammered on the bench absence, so I’ll leave that alone other than to say that I was personally dissappointed not to see much of JMax or any of Amir. I hope the minutes are better for the bench tonight.
i’ll put it this way. i only caught the second half of the game and i was listening to the Trailblazers broadcast on Sirius. The announcer was talking about how Maxiell has been giving Portland fits all night because he’s so strong, active and tough to guard.
he then informed the listening audience that Maxiell had just scored his SECOND basket of the night!
so the guy that Portland’s own radio announcer admitted was tearing up his team only got 14 minutes and 3 shots.
Rip: 5-20, played 40 minutes
Max: 2-3, played 14 minutes
Saunders: Can’t manage his starters minutes, can’t control his lose cannon, can’t adjust in playoff series, can’t develope his bench
Haha, we’re the best fans ever. It’s only a few games into the season and we’re freaking out. Good times.
anyone remember, a couple years back, when chauncey was out for a couple weeks… and Tay played the point for some significant minutes? I’d like to see that again.
“I don’t think there’s any question we have the oldest starting 5 in the league”
Actually, the Spurs are older, as are the Heat, depending on their lineup. We are roughly even with the Clippers.
It’s a veteran squad at the top . . . still a solid squad.
Just needs a different coach . . . maybe some cowbell.
I’d take Larry Brown back over Saunders.
“I’d take Larry Brown back over Saunders.”
same here
Ok lets say we do get rid of Flip, who would Joe hire? Larry Brown would not come/ Bill davidson wouldn’t allow him back. Things ended to ugly. What good coach is out there without a job? Van gundy wouldn’t be right for the pistons. Do they hire Bill Laimbeer?
While I’d like to think he is up to the job, I have no way of saying of Laimbeer could switch over and instantly become an elite level NBA coach. That’s what this team needs.
HOWEVER,
The first time Rasheed acted like a diva and forgot his place Bill would be more than happy to remind him of it.