Ordinarily, this would be a pretty interesting game, but the NBA made an unfortunate decision to schedule the last meeting between these two division rivals on the final day of season, rendering it predictably irrelevant. (Can you remember the last time the season finale actually had a bearing on playoff seeding for the Pistons? Neither can I.)
So instead of a hard-nosed battle between familiar opponents, we’ll get a few minutes of the starters followed by a parade of reserves with Flip Saunders and Mike Brown each knocking on wood the entire game hoping no one gets hurt. As recent as last year, the season finale was a chance to see little-used reserves get extended minutes (remember how exciting the Amir Johnson Experience was a year ago?) but with Detroit’s depth this year, we’ve seen the Pistons go 12 deep on a semi-regular basis. I guess I’ll be entertained if Walter Herrmann or Cheikh Samb recorded a double-double or something, but my guess is that those two won’t even be active.
In any case, the ball just tipped — if anyone is still out there is watching this laptop in hand, leave your thoughts in the comments.
For what it’s worth, I see Herrmann in uniform and Samb in street clothes on the bench.
lebron hasn’t entered the game yet. is he in street clothes?
I’m watching. LeBron’s a no-dress today, and so is Zydrunas.
Sloppy start, but it’s been fun to watch so far. No bearing, no problem.
One of the officials pulled a calf muscle. It’s down to Bavetta and the other guy. They’ll probably blow the whistle a lot more.
i don’t understand why rip, big shot, sheed and dyess even got on the plane. pointless. tay has his streak but none of the starters should play another nano-second in this game.
the fact that they didn’t take advantage of this sitch to dress samb seems like a wasted opportunity.
Another defensive slugfest going on in Cleveland. They can’t score, but they make sure no one else does, either. We been there, long time ago, galaxy far far away.
Tas Melas from The Basketball Jones named Jason Maxiell as his real 6th Man of the Year. That’s the only award I’ve seen any Piston even get mentioned for in all the basketball sources I read. Skeets named “Farmer”.
Both are good 6th men choices. I’d throw Travis Outlaw in the mix.
Love seeing Afflalo run this, I’ve been waiting for a huge game for him all season. I really like this kid, but have hated seeing his shot falter for the most part this season. This is looking good.
poor herrmann–would like to see a few of his shots go down!
I think the Zoo Crew’s Slogan should be “Our bench can whoop your bench”. We only played our starters for the duration of the first and Cleveland still has Szczerbiak in there until the very end. Nice drive and finger roll Herrmann, you are a genetic freak amid Cleveland’s JV squad. Long story short: we rule.
…and there ya go.
HAHAHAHA!
WALTER HERRMANN FROM ALMOST HALF COURT!
Wow, Herrmann shot that three like he was just messing around in practice. My goodness. Nice exclamation point on the regular season for Walter to reach double figs on that shot.
The bench had a hell of a game. Good times. 59 - so fine!
First game in a while where Detroit out-peskied the pesky Cavaliers. Great lead-in for Philly too . . . that’s how they roll, almost exactly the same.
our kids are better than your kids, cleveland! sing it!
Cleveland . . . currently .452, lifetime. Thanks for all the Ws, Ohio.
The Cavs without LeBron are pretty bad, and without LeBron and Z they are just godawful. Some fun stuff in this game, especially from Herrmann and Afflalo. I’m not worried about how poorly the starters did. If I was the worrying type, I would worry about how poorly both Hayes and Stuckey shot in this game, given that they are liable to get the most meaningful minutes off the bench in the playoffs. But they both played well last game (and Stuckey has generally been playing well), so I won’t sewat it.
I’m living in DC area and I will be cheering for my Wizard team to put away Cleveland finally. This year the Wizard has Agent “0″ and the rest of the cast in full health unlike the last two years. LeBron is really over rated like Gilbert Arena said in his NBA trash talk blog and I agrees with him. If by some miracle Cleveland reaches the Conference Finals then I am going to start to think that the whole thing is fixed.
I’m with HB - go Tough Juice! Giant killers! Tear drops! Dirty Sanchezes! DC, home of superfluous nicknames!
I can’t make a case for any Piston post-season awards.
MVP - Billups was top ten, but clearly didn’t have the season Chris Paul had.
ROY - Stuckey only began playing his best ball for the last 12 games.
Sixth Man - Ginobili ends this discussion.
DPOY - Tell me how Garnett shouldn’t win. A top tier defender whose very influence compels players to be better defenders? This is the easiest award decision in history.
Coach of the Year - Flip did a good job, but tell me Phil Jackson and Byron Scott didn’t do better.
That said, Marc Stein not including ANY Pistons in his top 15? Absurd.
“Marc Stein not including ANY Pistons in his top 15? Absurd.”
Link please, Kevin S.
I was just avoiding work and thinking about the Amir Johnson Experience. His split stats for April:
20.6 minutes/game
5.8 points/game
6.3 rebounds/game
61.8 fg%
90.9 ft%
.78 steals/game
2.0 blocks/game
Wow!
Shouldn’t the sixth man award be for someone who is truly a sixth man, not the second or third best player on the team who brought off the bench? You know, more the Corliss type?
Stuckey shot pretty terrible but did a nice job getting to the line when we were having trouble scoring and went 6for6. And how about the alley-oop he threw down? I didn’t think he had that great of hops but I was gladly mistaken.
MVP = Kobe. Forget CP3, LeBron. Especially LeBron. The lack of Ws without LeBron only tells me how horrible his team is. I should give LeBron the award because Damon Jones makes him look so much better? Please. Also, CP3’s got a decade and change to put one together. He’s going to get better. Why give CP3 one now when it’ll look as ridiculous as Michael Jordan’s first? No, this is Kobe’s, as he is the best player on the best team.
ROY = Kevin Durant by a country mile. Al Horford can bite me. Or better yet, prove me wrong by knocking out the Celtics and making everyone forget Golden State ever did anything of note since Rick Barry retired. A full season of Stuckey wouldn’t have changed this.
Sixth Man = My Least Favorite Award. The idea of guys like Detlef Schrempf, Ben Gordon, and now the obvious Manu Ginobili . . . well, let’s just say the limit should be 24 mpg or less, no more than 21 games started (26% of the season). It’s Ginobili, but whatever, especially when you see the Spurs trotting out Michael Finley ahead of Manu. That’s ridiculous, and this award should be re-defined or be discontinued.
Overall, I would have to say that that was a completely successful regular season. Any quibbles?
My awards:
MVP: Kobe
Coach of the Year: Byron Scott
Defensive POY: Garnett
ROY: Durant
6th Man: Travis Outlaw
Most Improved Player = Hedo Turkoglu. No one knows why Hedo didn’t blow up like this at least 5 years ago. Perhaps it was Grant Hill’s giant contract and the sucking sound that distracted everyone for several years at his ‘rightful’ position. Everyone figured the 3 was Rashard Lewis’s position, too, when he signed that Grant Hill-ian deal last summer. Wrong! They moved Rashard over. How’s that for Hedo’s impact?
Oh, and executive of the year:
Danny Ainge/Kevin McHale
For real, though: Mitch Cupchek (sp?)
Most improved player is tough. Kaman and Bynum started out strong. Travis Outlaw. David West. Rafer Alston.
But, yeah, Hedo’s a good choice.
Defensive Player of the Year = Kevin Garnett. This was Camby’s to lose, and he lost it because Coach Karl passes out red capes to the perimeter defenders. In the spirit of Bill Simmons, I just won’t say anything about a Celtic. Bite me, Homer Bill, you Tommy Points MVP.
Coach of the Year = Who here thought the Hornets were going to win their first-ever division championship? Who thought they were going to jostle for one of the top 3 playoff seeds in the tough Western race? Nobody but 3 Hornets homers and a host of people in insane asylums. Maybe Byron Scott, too. He’s a crazy guy. Crazy like a fox. Check his team records in other stops. The guy’s a very good coach, and this year, it’s his turn to get the COTY.
“other stops” = other stop (NJ)
Executive of the Year = Joe Dumars.
Why should I give the award to Ainge? That was a Kevin McHale Green Light Special. I have no respect for under the table deals, and this was one of them. Ditto the Lakers, since it’s clear to me Jerry West left Memphis and pulled the strings for the Lakers behind the scene, using Kupchak like a puppet. You can’t give either executive the award for basically accepting gimme deals from idiot executives.
No, Joe fought the screams and hollers from media and fans, who called for this team to get blow’d up. Both Stuckey and Afflalo were hits. Ratliff was a way better last-second choice than Chris Webber ever would have been. Trading Mohammed’s noose of a contract for Primoz and Herrmann, then Primoz for Dixon? Outrageous! 59 wins, 2nd best in this conference, 2nd best in the NBA. No gimme deals done. It’s Joe’s.
“Oh, and executive of the year:
Danny Ainge/Kevin McHale”
Lmao
Executive of the Year = David Stern. Stay with me here, I’ll explain…
I’ve always looked at the Garnett trade as something of a conspiracy. While I don’t doubt there was genuine interest in making some sort of deal between Boston and Minnesota, or Minnesota and anyone, I don’t think McHale or Ainge had the balls to pull this off on their own. Sure, Minnesota needed to trade Garnett, and Boston needed a big change, no one needed this trade more than David Stern himself.
In light of the worst playoff ratings in history– Stern was delivered a coup de grace by the Tim Donaghy gambling scandal. Take away the Boston Blockbuster and Stern would have been sitting in one steamy, stinky stew all season. How bad could it have gotten? Reasonably worse– ratings could have sunk further, fans could have turned away, this season could have gotten pretty ugly.
Enter the Big Ticket, Danny Ainge and Kevin Mchale, and Donaghy was largely forgotten. Sure, Boston and Minnesota needed a change, but no one needed this trade worse than David Stern.
It could be suggested that the NBA’s reputation needed this trade, not David Stern. I think there were other ways of solving it– while this is a pipe dream, a new commissioner would have been beautiful. Someone who would sell the NBA as a team sport, not a player sport…
Oh yeah, I forgot my whole point– I believe David Stern had an active hand in the Garnett trade to Boston.
David Stern . . . I only hope gets put in jail, or worse.
i’ve said it before: the exec of the year award should be renamed “the exec of the year not named joe dumars.”
for dpoy: i just want people outside of detroit to bring up sheed’s name. this award usually goes to weakside defenders with gaudy block stats. but i don’t know if there’s a better one-on-one defender in the game, including garnett, than rasheed wallace. and as far as communication and leading on the defensive end, i honestly believe there’s no one better. how many times have we seen sheed lock down a guy on d and even after a series of up-fakes and quick pivots, have sheed send his s*** right back? when i think of the tough 4 or 5s that we may run into in the playoffs, my next thought is always, “no worries. sheed’s got that under control.” the only difference to me of why garnett will get the dpoy is that he changed the mindset of an entire team.
They should give a lifetime trainer and strength and conditioning award to Mike and Arnie.
They should give a 12th Man Award, but only give it to a Pistons player because we all know that our 12th men are WAY more important than anyone else’s. We should have never traded Primoz!!!
The most impressive thing about this season is that they won 59 games and could have easily won 65 games had they ridden the starters most of the season.
Thats not to say that our bench is responsible for a potential 6 losses this season, but that our starters, given more time in certain games would have been able to pull them out…