And Rasheed is damned lucky he didn’t pick up (yet another) tech.
Rasheed’s entire series so far has been lackluster. The Pistons desperately need consistency from the frontline, and of them, he’s supposed to be the leader.

Dyess, play like you want that ring as bad as you say you do.

I am a pretty devout Rasheed fan. In a game we needed him the MOST, he gave the LEAST. AND he pissed off their crowd while providing NOTHING for them to get riled . . . that spells ammunition, confidence, and less fear, when the whole Orlando set comes at us.

None of the other bigs did any more, they did less . . . but on this night, we needed Rasheed to be the best guy out there, to help out with losing our top dog . . . instead, we got a 6th man.

We also can give different looks with Stuckey on the floor. Rodney would probably benefit from either being on the floor with Dixon at the same time and/or being spelled by him. I feel like it’s as if Dixon never helmed the offense for a team and won a game, which is far from true. Also, Lindsey could be called upon to hold things down. I’m sure he can body up Jameer. If Chauncey is unavailable I think it might be wise to also consider de-activating one of the following: Hermann, Hayes, Amir or Afflalo, and having both Hunter and Dixon at our disposal. It all seems moot at this point though with Billups likely to play in Game 4.

This squad would still be fine against Orlando if Dixon logged significant minutes at PG through the two games left in this series. If you give the guy 20-25 minutes, he’ll score in double figures and probably will only commit one or two turnovers. While he’s not going to directly setup players in a manner similar to Chauncey (read: collect mad assists), it’s not like Stuckey brings noteworthy distribution skill to the table either. Truthfully, the squad gets a lot of assists simply from stellar ball rotation and an innate ability to space the floor well, create an opening and finding the man occupying that opening. Chauncey equates for less than one third of our assists (fairly low for PG on a successful team that logs many assists if you compare teams). Our ball movement won’t collapse if we’re able to game plan ahead of time knowing we’ll be without Chauncey.

LanierFan: I see where you’re coming from on giving Rashard fits of energy to contend with. It probably won’t matter for Game 4 though. I just can’t envision Rashard pulling off a repeat performance, or for Hedo to produce that type of performance either (Tay essentially keeps Hedo to his average and nothing more every time).

Correct. We are a radically different team without Chauncey. Without him, we go from a distinct advantage at the point to a distinct disadvantage. With a 2-1 lead, we should still be able to win simply because we have two home games left, but Orlando’s chances are greatly enhanced.

Walter deserves more minutes. Detroit genuinely needs his length and tenacity on the perimeter. Afflalo, ditto. Amir? I don’t know. But how can he be worse than what we had last night? Containing Lewis while conceding free throws to Dwight Howard is smarter math than letting Rashard bomb away uncontested from the arc.

HB: You don’t deactivate guys who might actually play in the game (Hermann, Jarvis, Afflalo, Amir) if fouls are an issue, so you can have a player (Dixon, Hunter) who would only see the court in meaningful time in the case of an injury. The way the NBA is set up with the team being able to activate and deactivate players on a nightly basis, Flip didn’t make a bad call at all. The worst part of the whole mess was that Chauncey went down at the eight-minute mark of the first. You shouldn’t be considered thoughtless if you don’t prepare for having Chauncey out there for only four minutes before going down to an injury.

Garrett: I suppose “Pistianity” looks much better than my original spelling of “Pistonanity”, kudos to you sir, I like your twist and appreciate your input. Can’t say I agree with you on the Sheed ineffectiveness as a whole, though he played really poorly last night. I agree with ToledoJoe saying Sheed’s been good most of the way and so he deserves to be cut some slack for a bad game or two.

I also agree with what ToledoJoe is saying regarding Rashard Lewis. When Lewis is playing like he was last night, it’s pick your poison. If you body him up tightly on the perimeter, he blows by you and gets into the lane (possibly still drawing three points from an and-1 AND causing a foul, as the Pistons did struggle mightily last night with foul trouble in the first three quarters). If you respect Rashard’s drive and take a half step back on the perimeter, he burns you for three. If you come to double, you’re going to get burnt by a different Magic player who’s wide open. Conventional wisdom says that Lewis won’t be that hot from both beyond the arc and penetration in the same game, and while conventional wisdom may be wrong for a game or even two, conventional wisdom is right over the course of a series.

Alex, certainly not Amir, and maybe only an act of God would’ve cooled Lewis’s hot streak last night. To blame an unstoppable Lewis being at his very best on Flip (who has done nothing short of a solid job thus far) and then spell the word wrong, only makes you look like the one who’s incompetent.

This game was not the fault of Flip, Rip, or Rasheed. Rip was 10-20. Rasheed didn’t have a good game, he certainly wasn’t the hero he could have been, but he wasn’t the goat either. Jeez, ‘Sheed was mostly excellent against Philly, has been pretty good in the first two Orlando games, and we all know that no Piston is going to be The Man every night. Also, Flip had to try going to him in the 4th. There is only so much you can expect two rookie guards to do: Stuckey did about as much as you could expect and Afflalo was OK also. If we want to point fingers, we could ask why Jarvis Hayes hasn’t been able to shoot or defend in the entire friggin’ playoffs. But it’s not the fault of a backup SF either.

Look, Orlando played really well in the first and fourth quarter. They ARE capable of making that many threes — they’ve been doing it all friggin’ year. Rashard Lewis is a tough matchup for us — when he’s shooting like he was last night, he’s a tough matchup for anyone. And Howard is a beast. It really was overconfident to think that Detroit was going to continue to bully him into games like he had in game 1.

Most importantly is Chauncey. Our BEST matchup against the Magic is him posting Orlando’s small guards. Without that, we’ll have to re-think the offense a bit. But like the others, I would rather see Detroit come home 2-2 and play game 5 with a more-healthy Billups than risk him trying to go up 3-1.

Assuming he can at least play well in game 5 and beyond, this is why it was great to go up 2-0. On the other hand, I assume the Pistons and their fans remember another recent playoff series in which Detroit was up 2-0.

What else can I do … Think, Joe. Some scenarios that could hurt us.

Ok, got one. What if Chancey gets hurt. No problem - we have Stuckey and Lindsey. Wait a minute - could be a problem.

Ok,, need a veteran point guard without giving up anything. . .

Falls asleep . . .

Middle of the night - wakes up - I got it

Juan Dixon for Primoz

Goes back to sleep smiling . . .

If Lawyerboy’s scenario plays out and Dixon leads up to victory - we can chalk this up to another great move by Joe Dumars

Piston Fans - relax - we played really really poorly, lost Billips and we still could have won the game in the 4th.

We suck in game 3s. Sheed will be back — I guanransheed it