Flip and Rip (in spite of his 4-18 performance yesterday) are doing nothing short of a fantastic job, as is every member of the Pistons squad. Tay averaging over 60% from the field in eight playoff games? Outrageous! The boys are playing inspired ball right now and absolutely look every bit the part of NBA Champions. I have had a tendency in the past to come down hard on Chauncey because I think he has an inflated ego and I always resented the “savior”, “Mr. Big Shot” adulation he received from the fan base and at times the media. He’s slipped up in these games, but so has everyone else from Rip to Flip to even the superbly-playing Tayshaun. Every guy on this squad, when called upon, has been getting the job done on the whole. Every guy is proving his worth and bashing anyone at this point is just based on sheer dislike of particular guy, not his actual output.

Boney’s crusade against Rip has been turned up a few notches the past few days (not like Boney hating Rip is suddenly news), and it’s inappropriate for DBB. His reasons for not liking the guy seem to have little to nothing to do with Rip’s actual production. Worse, it seems like Boney derives pleasure from Rip’s struggles. You can dislike a guy’s game or ‘tude all you want (see: aforementioned displeasure I voiced about Chauncey) and argue that point logically (or emotionally in a reasonable manner) here, but celebrating and/or flaunting the failures of one of the Pistons is absolutely over the line and has no place here. What makes DBB great is not just the diversity of opinion available (where this whole Rip bashing thing started out), but the tendency for the community to be generally respectful and promote intelligent debate regarding our beloved Pistons (and other matters).

We should keep it that way.

I love being wrong in these situations, I am the eternal pessimist. But allow me to stay on course and say I am very worried about Games 3 and 4…

Tayshaun is playing a lot of minutes. I’ve been saying for literally years (since Corliss left) that Detroit really needed a decent backup SF. It appears that Flip has lost confidence in Hayes. Sure, Hayes’s performance in his limited minutes in the Philly series was pretty mediocre. But now we have a problem.

We can’t have Tay play 42+ minutes a game and expect him to do well down the line in the playoffs, assuming Detroit advances. Do we want to play Herrmann significant minutes in tight games? He really doesn’t have much experience playing with our other main-rotation guys, and we still don’t really know what he has. The other option seems to be Afflalo in various three-guard permutations. I love Aaron, but he’s at a height disadvantage against most other SFs, and Detroit needs more offense off its bench.

i figured we lose one game to them based on insane 3 point shooting. and then i figured we’d lose one based on dwight howard going superman on us. well both kind of happened at the same time (33 of their 36 in the 3rd were from 3 and howard almost ended up with a 20-20), and we held on for the win. it’ll be interesting to see if this game boosted or drained orlando’s confidence.

jason maxiell picked a great time of year to play the best basketball of his career.

After the Prince to Wallace alley-oop, the clock stopped at 20.1 and then suddenly jumped to 19.9. That’s .2 of a second. The clock showed 5.1 seconds before the Pistons in-bound, add the lost time and it seems we’d still be okay.

Therefore… screw it. In the words of Ron Jermemy, oops Stan Van Gundy, this whole clock stuff is “F*cking Bullsh*t.” It’s not our fault Minnesota sent us Spartan Bob.

secondly, i am glad I read the comments after the game - what is up with people saying “we’re done” in the middle of the 3rd quarter? were we down by 25? wtf. if you’re a detroit fan get some cajones and post after the game if they blew it. none the less, i thank everyone for the great drama, believing one minute and doubting the next.