Word on the street is that Chauncey Billups will be a game-time decision. Even if he plays, I think we can count on seeing Juan Dixon and/or Lindsey Hunter active, but at whose expense? Will Jarvis Hayes be wearing a suit on the sidelines? Will Flip Saunders’ Amir-on-Shard experiment be scrapped? Will Walter Herrmann’s brief return to relevance die a quick death?
I honestly have no idea. Make your predictions in the comments, then tune in at 5pm for the game (FSN, ESPN) and leave your thoughts in the comments.
OT: Say goodbye to D’Antoni’s streak of .500+ seasons. Enjoy New York, D’Antoni:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=Ah3zlQQU8.3A7CIwx4Xzvie8vLYF?slug=txknickscoach&prov=st&type=lgns
I think the best call is Jarvis just on pure match-ups. I think if Chauncey plays, there’s still a chance one of the Dixon-Hunter duo sits (as long as one is activated in the situation, you have plenty of guards even if Chauncey is limited since Stuckey can play both spots). I would hope that if Flip for some reason decides to go with only one of Dixon-Hunter, he goes with Dixon. Even though Hunter is the better defensive match up, Dixon can fill it up and it’s not like Jameer Nelson caused us to lose Game 3.
I’d bet any amount of money he goes with Hunter. I would see Hayes sitting in this situation, even though I think that is silly for a variety of reasons.
Billups not playing. Hunter AND Dixon activated. Good thing I have plenty of beer in stock. This will be a long night.
kevin s.: It’s certainly a lovely problem to have. If Amir weren’t so built to match with Rashard Lewis from an athletic standpoint, I’d say sit him with no hesitation. Realistically speaking, if Amir had been in during meaningful time in Game 3, I doubt he’d have made a difference on Rashard’s dominance, but since we don’t know for sure, it makes the decision more cloudy. I don’t expect Lewis to kill us today, so perhaps Amir is the smart choice because Jarvis still has the streak shooting potential to be deadly and is an experienced veteran compared to Herrmann and Amir. Also, I think sitting Afflalo (in favor of possibly giving Hayes minutes at SG) would be an interesting proposition, even though Afflalo has played well in this series when called upon. If Chauncey plays today, I think it will be extremely interesting to see which 2 players join Samb in street clothes.
It’s Chauncey, Amir and Samb.
Chauncey is out today according to Ric Bucher.
Love it. Orlando is about to go down 3-1, and after the Pistons win today, the decision makers are going to realize they don’t need to rush Chauncey back to beat Orlando and MAYBE they even leave him out for Game 5 just to be cautious toward the ECF. After that, Chauncey can rest for quite some time. *fingers crossed* If we win today, at least it’ll shut up the tools at ESPN not named Jon Barry.
what, no more trash talk on perkisabenchwarmer.com LawyerBoy?
Boney: They deleted an entire thread when they realized I intellectually owned them in my comment. I may choose to gloat if/when we win the ECF, but I’m pretty much over it in the interim.
No offense to any women that will post here… but I am offended that ESPN is putting Doris Burke on this game. She is horrible… I’m also offended that we’re getting a mid-day Saturday game.
Dan Shulman and Doris Burke are better suited for NCAA Women’s Softball
claiming “intellectual ownership” over those guys is like bragging about using coupons at the Dollar store, I’m glad to see you not bragging about that… those guys are definitely idiots.
More worried about the fact it says Chauncey’s is questionable for Game 5….
Blowing 2-0 leads 2 years in a row?
Prophecy, considering they’re in Round 2 after you had them losing Round 1, I don’t know how many people are listening anymore.
Is anyone watching through Sopcast? Its the 1st time im using it and all I have is diving on my ESPN channel?! anyone help?
Excellent zinger Boney. However, I wouldn’t say they’re idiots, guy who hates Rip Hamilton because of video evidence of a Jordan-esque fist pump. They’re just crazy MFers. Some of their articles, usually the ones NOT about basketball, actually show some level of intelligence and scholarship (not necessarily fluency in writing though). The problem with them is that they’re insane, Tommy Heinsohn-following, blind homers. Another problem this creates is a lot of “foot in their mouth” moments. As proven recently, they don’t take too well to those, deleting threads when this occurs. It takes a lot for me to even temporarily step away from an argument, but that’s enough for me.
Matt W. was wise for banning the IPs, because if they still came around here they’d get to me and I’d still be yapping. Same thing goes if you continue to bring that blind Rip hate.
I used to have the same feeling toward Chauncey because in my pre-DBB days, ALL of my Pistons-watching friends would yap about how great and MVP-worthy the guy was and they were my only Pistons emotional outlet. A friend of mine actually shoved me to the ground in a sober argument that STARTED about Billups (that’s more about him than me, I never touched him). In these situations, I forgot that Chauncey is still a pretty damn good player and he’s not the only one on our team with glaring and annoying deficiencies in his game (that are usually softened by the rest of the squad). That kind of dissing is just bad, trust me. Nothing good comes from it.
wtf, break dancing outside Amway Arena.. and noone is watching. Orlando is f-ing weird
i’m pretty sure svg will have a gameplan to go at stuckey and try to rattle the rookie. we’re going to really see how ready the kid is today. need MUCH better games from the bigs to counter the chauncey loss. if they show up to the party, we got a chance to steal one.
hopefully flip has a game plan. or phil saunders emailed him one.
LawyerBoy, nothing you can say is going to stop me from not liking Richard Hamilton. It’s not blind “hate”, I don’t hate the guy. I’ve said he’s a good player, he’s good at what he does.
McDyess is starting?
Boney
May 10th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Prophecy, considering they’re in Round 2 after you had them losing Round 1, I don’t know how many people are listening anymore.
Most people had them losing in round 1 after the first 3 games. But I if you recall (and you probably didnt but would blame you, not me) I said during that series and in the regular season that Orlando was trouble. With Chauncey out Im worried, but then again I worry when we allow 30 points in a quarter of a regular season game lol.
I just hope Rodney doesnt get rattled, thats the key to this afternoon.
Ooooh, harsh critcism of Prophecy there Boney, a little rough for my taste, but not untrue. Don’t worry Prophecy, in about 15-30 minutes from now, you’ll realize not having Chauncey isn’t a death sentence for us (not because of anything about Chauncey, because of Orlando’s backcourt being awful). Then when we get to go home for a close out Game 5, it should be just fine.
I’m stuck without cable tonight.. If anyone has a game link I would greatly appreciate it.
Prophecy, the key is keeping Rashard under 25 or so. If Stuckey struggles we have the depth to yank him. Jeez, that block on Rip was intense. Kudos, Howard. And Prophecy, there were enough of us here that didn’t bat an eyelash when the Stones went down 2-1 to Philly. You worry about the boys too much for my tastes, but it’s your choice, man.
Dyess is strokin it tonight… I’m starting to really not like Jameer Nelson. I didn’t like it last year when he got owned after saying that he wanted Detroit in the playoffs… now he flops and injures Billups?
BALL DONT LIE
Doris Burke is awful
Tiger woods in the house
Boney, most impartial observers I’ve talked to claim it appeared to be incidental to them. I never even bothered to watch a replay (to painful to watch Chauncey’s legs do that). I’m with you on anti-Nelson sentiments, but not for that necessarily being a dirty play.
Boney: Agreed on the Burke front, but I think Shulman is pretty solid when he gets matched up with someone else for ESPN’s NCAA coverage.
need to get Howard in foul trouble, nice take Rip.
If Rip takes it like that, I’ll get off his case.
Did you see that, Boney? Hamilton just drove off the dribble past Evans got an and-1 out of Howard. Fouls are even right now, good sign.
you know who Orlando reminds me of? the 2007 Toronto Raptors…
SHEED IN THE PAINT!
Boney, he does on occasion. That’s the point. I don’t know how much you need him to do that (it’s not how he’s best utilized if he has an open jumper available). Nice putback by Rasheed. Burke was right on that call being a good sign, but that’s an obvious observation.
solid start… not the best, but not the worst
Boney & LB — what forum/blog are you talking about?
Damn, that was a nice jumper from Nelson. I still love what I’m seeing. Are offense is there, which is usually the struggle as opposed to defense. Down the stretch in a close game, I think we know and love Orlando’s M.O. Around this point last game it was 12-4 Orlando, 18-13 Orlando is absolutely fine with me.
They start hitting those 3s again, its a problem.
-Captain Obvious
*Our offense, yipes that was bad.
the guy at thirdquartercollapse would argue with me on this, but I’ll say it anyway:
Dwight Howard is a one trick pony.
I’m tired of all this kryptonite talk too, btw.
J: perkisabeast.com … apparently there are multiple unnamed bloggers at that site who masquerade under the name “perkisabeast”. They started a flame war here before our first regular season meeting with the Celtics. It all started when they post some ridiculously obscene poem about Kendrick Perkins being stellar and Rasheed being a chump with big gums or something. Things got crazy, Matt banned their IPs, but they never banned ours. Boney and I occasionally posted on their blog after, but I put up a post last week (that was one of my most awesome posts ever) and they took the whole thread down the next day in response.
Nice tentative-jumper brick there Stuckey, pull him Flip! I am kidding of course. If it continues though, I’d like him to see the bench.
seems to me rasheed cannot cover lewis
McDyess looked like Baby Eater there.
Care to comment on that last second-effort by Hamilton, Boney?
Hedo is normally a Piston killer… he is playing like he used to when he was a King
LB? Do you really want to continue to antagonize me? I said my piece, get off my sack.
lol@ people thinking Howard is a one trick pony.
gotta give tay some touches
hunter in
Boney: Uh, Turkoglu is not a Piston killer. In ‘04-’05 he scored 29 against us once. He scored 26 against us once this season. He’s only scored 26 against us once more (’05-’06). Most other games he really only scores in teens or single digits.
Boney, I’m going to lay off now, but you deserve every post you got for the repetitive drivel of weeks past. Remember your post “4-18″? Pot calling the kettle black, man.
Mo Evans got nothing
tay is the fucking man
Tayshaun took back to 04 with that
Holyshit! I got a deja vu all over again with that spectacular block. That was “Prince blocking Miller part 2″
21-27 is a lot better than 16-30.
lol@ Flip shooing the camera.
And the two-foul boogeyman claims Stuckey.
Bleh.
J: To answer your question from earlier, since there’s a break in the action and since for some reason when I originally tried to post this it was “awaiting moderation” …
The website is perkisabeast.com/blog, where apparently there are multiple unnamed bloggers contributing at that site who masquerade under the name “perkisabeast”. They started a flame war here before our first regular season meeting with the Celtics. It all started when they posted some ridiculously obscene poem about Kendrick Perkins being stellar and Rasheed being a chump with big gums or something. Things got crazy, Matt banned their IPs, but they never banned ours. Boney and I occasionally posted on their blog after, but I put up a post last week (that was one of my most awesome posts ever) and they took the whole thread down the next day in response.
I feel like the term “perkisabeast” is blocked on this blog.
Since my previous two attempts to answer J’s question are “awaiting moderation”.
J: Short answer is perkisabeast dot com
Dixon should really replace Hunter stat. Hunter looks ineffective today.
why did the Spurs dump Hedo? oh, because he sucks
why did the Spurs dump Hedo? oh, because he sucks against the Pistons.
There, fixed for ya Boney.
tay got some touches
Ruh?
What the hell is Chauncey wearing? Somewhere, Elton John is looking for a sportcoat.
Hunter knows the offense LB. Dixon runs the offense worse than Stuckey, and I like Stuckey, but he’s not really ready for long stretches at the point in a close game.
I trust Prince running the point, Hunter, then Stuckey. I want Stuckey on the floor, but only because he can create.
Orlando’s offense is similar to their 95 team. Throw it to the big name (Shaq/Howard) and have the shooters ready (3D/Penny/Nick or Jammeer/Lewis/Bogans) and have a slasher just in case (Lewis/Penny)
Thank God for Tay. He’s the only one not intent on settling for jumpers. Sheed looks like he’s gonna have another “mental DNP” today, so far…..
I kinda thought Prince would have a big game here. If he gets to 27, we win.
Mo Evan has less ups than Rip
Dixon doesn’t turn the ball over. Not that Hunter has been turning the ball over, he’s just been ineffective. I’m okay with Hunter staying out there I suppose, because the rest of the squad has started to generate strong offense.
Nice Tayshaun block highlights by ESPN. Seems like we all forgot (myself included) about that Iverson swat.
I really dislike Keyon Dooling. I’ve disliked him since I first saw him in 05 with Miami
ARVIS! Or will it be JARVIS today? The way our offense is operating, if he gets touches, I suppose it will be JARVIS.
BULLETHEAD!
No reason for open 3’s when D Howard not in the game
Yep, apparently it’s Jarvis today.
thanks for the answer, LB
Scallibrini?
Who is Marcin Gortat and why have we not knocked him on his Polish ass?
lol, Rasheed, now you’re just a clown.
LMAO@ getting schooled by Gortart
I hate this…
No problem J, I tried twice earlier to describe the reason behind our feud with them but it told me the comments were “awaiting moderation”. Check back later, maybe they’ll have gone through. Who knows.
good luck Pistons & hope y’all enjoy this one — i’m leaving now to go to the Cavs-Celts game (I was in Ann Arbor the last 3 years, and in Cleveland now for a year). Hopefully LeBron will extend that series; it’d suck for us to play a rested Celts squad.
again, they’re shooting over 50%. we play d to win games. that’s who we are. so play some f-ing d, detroit. let’s not try to out=jumpshoot them.
Yeah Sauce, Rasheed’s being a bit adventurous with his offensive choices. Not like that anything new per se, but we’re a lot better off when he focuses on offense.
it’s nice of the Tigers’ offense to take the day off today.. 1 run off who? Darrell Rasner?
I don’t understand why we don’t challenge Howard more defensively. Get him in foul trouble and good things could happen.
Boney: Just checked up on that, sad.
Whew, Bogans has a great voice.
Ah, it’s Arvis again.
nice flop by Rashard
Sheed complains all the time, but that did look like a flop to me.
That was not a foul lol
have a seat Dooling…
Rippy’s getting chippy. Any chance it has a Sheed like positive effect on his game? Well, if that takeaway-and 1 is any indication, yes.
I wonder how many retirement home buses are sitting outside of the Amway Arena waiting for the game to be over? I see a lot of blue hair in the crowd
Best way I can spin it for Stuckey: He’s learning the best playoff lessons all at once! 3 of them, so far.
Sheed hasn’t gotten the ball once on the block. He has a putback, but he has not posted up and taken a patented fadeaway… he’s only taken his patented 3 point bomb
If Jarvis Hayes is gonna play like ass… why not put Amir in instead. At least we’ll get some more rebounds, blocked shots, and defense.
There being sucked into Orlando’s run game..
55% shooting and rising….
Brad
May 10th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
If Jarvis Hayes is gonna play like ass… why not put Amir in instead. At least we’ll get some more rebounds, blocked shots, and defense.
Dwight Howard will probably destroy him, but yeah I guess..
*patented 3-point-clank
it’s like Flip has a microphone in my house… Sheed on the block, too bad he couldn’t fill it up
I’m pretty sure Amir is inactive today
Amir is inactive
lol Rip with the offensive foul tricks, I love it. Best thing so far.
Sheed should be living on the block. For his sake and our sake.
Oh good, we got their two worst rotation players in foul trouble.
Bogans has got to be smarter than that… making former DeMatha grads everywhere cringe with his stupidity
I was also going to mention Rasheed not posting at all. And amidst my slow internet, he finally did and missed it. I’d much rather have him attempting things down there though.
Not bad for a game with no Billups and no Sheed. Wait is Sheed playing today…?
anyone knows where I can watch this one online?
Boney: Even I’ll admit, Rip is normally THIS good. Though his turnovers are usually this bad.
*isn’t THIS good. Whoops.
This is Orlando’s game. The whole flow is uptempo, everytime we are close they hit those 3s.
He’s a product of the system.
Detroit is playing no defense today.
These turnovers are making it look like those Philly games. But finally Sheed puts something in the way he should.
There’s Wallace on the block. Sheed lives.
LB, just admit that Rip is a product of the system. When he was in Washington he was the 2nd coming of Larry Hughes.
Come on Boney, his 2 swipes including the one that led to an and-1 have NOTHING to do with a system. They have to do with Rip getting the job done.
Yeah, Kevin, it’s not a big accomplishment, but the whole team’s failed so far. Fail has popped up a hell of a lot more lately. I wouldn’t want to be Joe Dumars. For how well this team’s put together, it’s playing absolutely unlike it should.
With no Billups, the entire offense should run through the Sheed/ Howard match-up down low.
Watch us bust them in the mouth in the 3rd quarter.
Ugh@ everything.
Hopefully the 3rd AND 4th.
Someone on Detroit’s roster needs to step up and take a flagrant 1 for the team on one of these fast breaks…
I would prefer the flagrant be on Hedo, but I think if we flagrant Rashard he might take himself out of the game by throwing a punch
orlando is over 70% from 3 point land
This is really Orlando’s game to lose. The whole flow of the game is in their favour so its gonna be tough to even mount a comeback. Lets see what happens…
Come on guys, I know they MIGHT be able to keep up the 56.4% shooting from the field, but the 71.4% from three-point range? You really expect that to continue? Things have a tendency to regress to the mean.
I noticed that when Sheed is not on the floor our offense flows more freely. When he is on the floor we play one-on-one ball and find ourselves down 11 at the half!
Step it up, Rasheed!!!!!
No Juan Dixon thus far is really inexcusable in my view.
If anybody was wondering whose team this is, it’s C-bill’s
Kinda suprised Rodney took that few shots. I could have sworn he was more aggressive in the 1st…
Sheed: -30 +/- in Game 3 (Prince was next highest, -18) … -17 +/- thus far (Stuckey and Hayes tied for next highest, -8) … Perhaps we give Maxiell and Theo a good deal of minutes in the 2nd half?
two more things, i want the ball out of hamilton’s hands. either we let stucky do point or we don’t. and can we bring in someone to guard lewis? either herman or something…
Maxey should’ve started.
ohad: No it’s not. The team is the team. This team still wins when any player struggles be it Chauncey, or Sheed or Rip. It still loses when any player has success. It’s a perfect representation of the whole being greater the sum of its parts.
If “the team is the team” theory is accurate, which I believe it is, than Billups is the most important part of that equation since it is clear he pushes the buttons. The offense looks lost.
yo… forget all this noise. It’s time to throw someone’s ass on the floor in Orlando. Get the crowd booing rather than clapping and counting their social security checks.
This team is tentative, and with the crowd BOOING, they will be more aggressive than if the crowd is shouting DEFENSE
Someone needs to land flat on their back when they think they have a layup… seriously, someone needs to hit the deck
I just think that without one of our big men we have someone to step up. without rip billups can pick up the slack. i don’t know what the hell we’d do without tay and we can definately see some bad ball without billups
We’re not losing because Chauncey is out. We’re losing because we’re not effective at all on defense right now.
Wow, SVG is an excited little troll. Flip doesn’t seem phased.
Because we can’t score consistently, they are beating us down the floor. Howard gts too low, they dump it in and he either scores or kicks it out for a wide open look. Granted they are shootin a ridiculous %.
somebody put herman in please…
We’re not making them work for three point shots. We have to cut those off.
I’m tired of that LeBron/Uncle Rico vitamin water commercial… next time I see it, I pray Brendan Haywood runs out of the jury box and gives him a forearm to the neck
Jesus, what in the hell was that? That’s the alternate definition of a double negative. Lewis is wide open for a 3 and then Sheed gets outfoxed for a rebound. Grrr…
So if Boston beats Cleveland in a sweep or 5 and we struggle with the Magic for say 7 games (if we win this at all). How do you like our chances against Boston with Chauncey’s hammy.
See what I did there?
Way to collapse on the paint boys. How about you stop playing so much god damn help defense? Real cool, guys.
No more J’s!!
nice jugs on the drink girl behind the basket just then
Thank you Dice.
That was an iffy choice from Stuckey, but we’ll start to build momentum if we can disturb their three-point game.
SHEED WITH THE BANK!
Glass!
cbs just credited billups with a rebound??
THROW HIM ON HIS ASS
That was an excellent move by McDyess fouling Howard. Great job by Sheed. They need to lockdown the perimeter.
THROW ONE OF THESE MICKEY MOUSE CHUMPS ON THEIR ASS
could a rushed, glasser have gotten Sheed back into this thing?
And, Orlando calls TO to wipe the blood from its collective mouth.
nice run. we can take advantage of mcdyess in the post over turkoglu
Boney: Is it possible that with all the flagrant fouls that have been tossed around during the playoffs, that they may be weary of accidentally drawing one?
If they aren’t weary, then yes, someone should get knocked on their ass, preferably by McDyess because when he’s angry, he’s really intimidating.
LB, this team (Orlando) has not been hammered once since they’ve played Detroit. Someone needs to at least get a forearm club to the wrists on a shot in the paint, or something. Detroit plays physical, and wins physical. This is not physical at all… shooting lollipop 3s all game? Nothing in the paint?
Literally, put some stank on one of those Mickey Mouse chumps
I would prefer bringing in Herrmann to be the goon
ENOUGH TALKING TO CHAUNCEY
uh oh, Maxiell is getting ready to raid the nursery.
Boney: While I don’t completely disagree, I think the key has been securing the perimeter. Can Flip put Dixon in for Stuckey? For the love of god, let Tay run the offense, I don’t care, but get Dixon in there because he scores and Hunter doesn’t.
BALL DONT LIE
not complaining about stuckey but he’s not taking advantage of his opportunity
OLD MAN RIVER FOR 3
Well, thank you for proving me wrong (momentarily), Lindsey.
HAMILTON SHOWING THE ATHLETICISM!
Rashard Lewis has one 3 this quarter, no other buckets. Once we locked him down on the perimeter he’s been completely lost on offense.
15-0 run. where the hell did that come from?
Very funny, Boney.
Thats whats up
Who ARE these Pistons, and where did the fail-ridden bunch of the 2nd quarter go to?
I don’t want to see the Failstons back out there for the 4th, either . . .
I love how Hamilton proved to me that you CAN in fact slide a piece of paper under his feet when he jumps. Nice dunk, even though there’s no authority.
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