Random link of the day: pictures from Antonio McDyess’ wedding, which took place in Jalisco, Mexico last summer. Hat-tip to DBB reader Garrett, who knows a thing or two about wedding pictures.
Tag Archive for 'Antonio McDyess'
… because if he were, there’s not a person alive who could say they’re cocky, arrogant, complacent, or any other negative adjective commonly affixed to this team. Witness his post-game press conference:
For more on Miggidy (and video of Maxiell annihilating KG), head to FanHouse.
Pistons 94, Celtics 75 box score / NBA.com
This was mentioned briefly in the comments, but one of the reasons that Antonio McDyess’ performance on Tuesday was so remarkable was because it came just hours after he learned about the passing of his grandmother. Ryan Pretzer of Pistons.com tells the story.
Antonio McDyess explains how he ended up tumbling to the floor with Dwight Howard in Game 4: “I threw him to the ground. Get it right,” quipped McDyess. “I felt that he was trying to bully me, so I saw him trying to throw me down. So I said, ‘I’m not falling by myself. He gotta come with me.’ So I kind of grabbed him along with me when I was falling backwards.”
It sounds like the Pistons will stick with Sunday’s rotation featuring Jason Maxiell in the starting lineup and Antonio McDyess coming off the bench. From A. Sherrod Blakely:
After Sunday’s win, McDyess said he would not have a problem coming off the bench. In fact, he sounded as if it’s a role he would welcome.
“Coming off the bench is what I’m comfortable doing,” McDyess said.
“Starting? It’s just a routine thing. I feel like now, I get in there … when I start, I feel like a robot sometimes. But when I come off the bench, I feel I’ve got to step up and make something happen.”
Because Detroit’s starting five consists of so many scorers, McDyess often winds up being the forgotten man.
“He’s kind of invisible out there,” Saunders said. “But when he comes off the bench, because of some of the people he’s coming (in) with, they look to him a little bit more.”
I’m torn; on the one hand, McDyess did get into a nice rhythm on Sunday, shooting 5-8 from the field to finish with 10 points and six boards in 20 minutes, but it came at the expense of Maxiell, who was the invisible guy with just four points and five boards in 32 minutes. That said, Maxiell tends to be inconsistent from game to game coming off the bench anyway, so it’s probably a wash.
Plus, even after starting the entire season, McDyess still tends to defer when playing with the other four starters, so keeping him aggressive is a good thing. (As would be giving the likes of Arron Afflalo, Jarvis Hayes and Amir Johnson more than a combined three minutes, but I digress …) This also allows Max to match-up with athletic rookie Thaddeus Young, which he’s better suited to do.
On a side note, remember how all of us were wondering what exactly happened during halftime on Sunday? McDyess confirmed that he spoke up, which is rare for him. From Mitch Albom in the Free Press:
“It wasn’t a speech,” he said Monday, almost embarrassed. “It was basically the truth. I just told them it looked like we were the team that was the seventh seed and they looked like the two seed. I just let them know we were way better than this. … Why are we playing like we’re scared? We didn’t play all this way and go this long to give it up right now.
“I guess everyone kind of heard me.”
[…] “Normally, I don’t speak at all,” he admitted. “I let all the captains and everyone say something. But I felt it was time for someone to say something. … I mean, the last couple of games we came in the locker room and didn’t say nothing to each other at all. Just sat down and didn’t say a word.”
I didn’t see Chris Webber’s comments on TNT at halftime, but I certainly heard about them. Fortunately, The Starting Five has the transcript (via PistonsNation):
Webber on the lack of intensity by the Detroit Pistons: “(The Pistons) are really nonchalant and that’s why I felt we lost last year (in the Eastern Conference Finals). It sounds crazy, but they could care less. That locker room is crazy, disciplined and unruly. Disciplined because they police themselves, they are all veterans, they know they’ve got to be in bed, they know they’ve got to work hard, I’m not talking about on the court. They come from a coach like Larry Brown, they look at him like the epitome of basketball, and they feel they can wait until the last game or the championship and they won’t lose. I’m not saying it’s right, but that’s how it is.”
Webber on the feeling in the locker room during halftime: “No disrespect to Flip (Saunders), but it doesn’t matter what Flip says, because they take on the personality of Joe Dumars. Rip (Hamilton), Chauncey (Billups), Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed (Wallace) and (Antonio) McDyess are very mad right now, they probably aren’t even talking and they are probably just saying, ‘ok we’re going to go win this game.”
Webber: “Joe will come down to the locker room and tell everybody I don’t know what you think you’re doing, I’ll trade everybody.”
The idea of Dumars addressing the team at halftime seemed surprising (if not laughable) to me, and Chris McCosky of the Detroit News agrees:
[Webber] was asked what Saunders might be saying at halftime and he said something like, whatever Flip says won’t matter, intimating that the players don’t listen to him. Charles Barkley, bless him, challenged Webber on the statement and Webber backtracked a bit saying that it would be Joe Dumars in that locker room talking to the players. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Dumars talks to the players all the time, but never during a game, at halftime or immediately following a game. If he has issues with what Flip is doing, which he has in the past, he will talk directly to Flip. But he would never interfere with the coaching of a game.
I had to laugh afterwards when I say Rip Hamilton interviewed on TNT, and he was asked if Dumars talked at halftime. “Not at all,” Rip said. Then, I caught the very last segment of the studio show and Webber was in complete back-peddle mode. He said what he was trying to say is that the Pistons are a veteran team and they police themselves.
That’s true, but that’s not what he was saying at first. He was getting his licks in on a coach he didn’t like.
So what did Saunders say at halftime? From ESPN’s Chris Sheridan:
When it came time to save his job, and that’s pretty much what the situation boiled down to in the moments after the Detroit Pistons exited the court at halftime trailing by 10 points, coach Flip Saunders ripped into every single member of the team — except one.
“I told them: I looked at us playing in the first half, and we’ve got Antonio McDyess, who got operated on yesterday in Detroit, flew back and was throwing up all night, and he’s competing harder than anybody,” Saunders said.
“I said: ‘That should show you how bad he wants it, and we all should look at what he’s doing, and we’ve all got to be willing to make the same sacrifices.’”
It’s funny, but tonight’s game is the difference between this series being just a small speed bump in the Pistons’ legacy or the catalyst for the end of an era. Seriously, that’s the difference between 2-2 and 3-1.
In any case, McDyess will play but will not start. From A. Sherrod Blakely:
Antonio McDyess will play tonight, but he won’t be in the starting lineup. Pistons coach Flip Saunders wouldn’t say who would replace him in the starting lineup, but it’s going to be Jason Maxiell.
I just spoke with Maxiell a few minutes ago about being in the starting lineup.
“With myself, it’s all about energy,” Maxiell said. “What I’ll try to do is bring energy the first quarter, with the starters.”
Also, there’s this from Chris McCosky:
In other news from shoot-around, Flip Saunders hinted that he may use some of his younger, quicker players more to offset the 76ers’ athleticism and quickness. That could mean more Amir Johnson and Arron Afflalo.
Godspeed, Zoo Crew. Ball tips at 7pm on TV20 locally and TNT nationally.
Leave your thoughts in the comments.
From Keith Langlois of Pistons.com:
McDyess broke his nose midway through the third quarter of Friday’s nightmarish Game 3 loss at Wachovia Center and returned to Detroit where he underwent successful surgery Saturday at Royal Oak Beaumont Hospital as performed by Dr. Gene Rontal. McDyess’ status for Game 4 is listed as questionable.
If McDyess is unable to go, the Pistons likely would replace him in the starting lineup with third-year forward Jason Maxiell. They would still have plenty of depth available to them with Theo Ratliff and Amir Johnson coming off the bench, as well as Walter Herrmann, who has been on the inactive list through the first three games of the first-round series.
[…] McDyess has been matched up defensively to start games against Philadelphia rookie Thaddeus Young, who has gotten off to fast offensive starts in all three games. Young has scored 10, 11 and 10 points in the first three games of the series. Long and athletic, Young might be a better physical matchup for Johnson, though it’s unlikely the Pistons would thrust (sic — trust?) the inexperienced Johnson enough to start him.
I’d love to see it happen, but I don’t think it will, and sadly for all the wrong reasons. Starting Amir Johnson would be admitting that DNP-ing him in Game 1 and sitting him until the game was well out of hand in Game 3 was a mistake, and coaches rarely do that until they’re facing an elimination game. To be honest, I haven’t seen a coach so reluctant to give a guy a chance since Rick Carlisle finally relented and put Tayshaun Prince on Tracy McGrady in 2003.
But unlike McGrady, Young isn’t one of the league’s truly extraordinary talents — he’s one of the very small handful of players in this league who’s actually younger than Amir Johnson. Why in the world would you keep throwing veterans who are 10-15 years older than Young and continue to be surprised when the Pistons look slow? If McDyess can’t play, I’m all for matching up Maxiell with Reggie Evans and Johnson with Young; who actually gets the start or plays more minutes is irrelevant.
Update: The “wait a minute, maybe the Pistons should play Amir” meme is catching on. A. Sherrod Blakely weighs in and got a quote from Amir:
Saunders said if McDyess doesn’t play, he would be replaced by Jason Maxiell, Theo Ratliff or possibly Amir Johnson.
Of the three, Johnson might be the most intriguing possibility.
With Philadelphia going with a smaller lineup that includes Thaddeus Young at power forward — he’s really a long small forward — Johnson might be a better match up for Detroit.
“We are kind of the same with our quickness,” Johnson said. “I just have to stay ready and wait to be called on. And when I get a chance to play, don’t make mistakes and just try and help the team win.”
In today’s Free Press, Krista Jahnke notes how Antonio McDyess is prone to letting his success or failure snowball over the course of a game:
“He needs to hit early shots to get into a rhythm,” coach Flip Saunders said.
Tayshaun Prince said teammates engage in armchair psychology with McDyess during games, encouraging him to keep shooting if he misses early. Otherwise, they know he can fade.
“When he misses two or three shots in a row and nobody says anything to him to keep shooting, then he tends to veer away from that,” Prince said. “If he makes or misses his first shot, we constantly stay on him to keep shooting the basketball. Then he’ll keep shooting.”
As it happens, McDyess was a hot topic in the comments of the last game thread, which isn’t surprising considering McDyess bounced back from a six-point, six-board game to score 16 points with 12 boards. DBB reader joejoejoe looked up the numbers and found an interesting correlation between McDyess’ performance and the team’s success:
The Pistons are 24-14 when McDyess shoots less than 50% from the field.
The Pistons are 13-6 when McDyess shoots from 50-59% from the field.
The Pistons are 20-1 when McDyess shoots 60% or more from the field.The Pistons are 29-15 when McDyess scores fewer than 10 points.
The Pistons are 28-6 when McDyess scores 10 points or more.It’s not that McDyess is scoring a ton of points. He scored more than 15 points only 5 times this year. I just think that when McDyess is clicking then it opens up the game for his team as a secondary option.
I agree with his conclusion. McDyess isn’t a prototypical power forward who rarely strays from the paint. Instead, his preferred shot is a 12-15 foot jumper where he’s usually automatic … right? You might be surprised — take a look at his NBA Hot Spot chart after the jump. Continue reading ‘As McDyess goes, so go the Pistons’
Will Ben Wallace’s arrival in Cleveland lessen the rivalry between the Pistons and Cavs? The Pistons don’t think so. From the DetNews:
“We still hate Cleveland,” Lindsey Hunter said, with no trace of a smile. “We didn’t like Chicago (when Wallace was there), either. That’s just the way it is.”
Others weren’t quite so sure.
“It’s not going to be that hate relationship,” Antonio McDyess said. “It’s funny. Ben has been on every team in the East that we dislike the most. Every team he’s on, Chicago, Cleveland, is a team we really dislike. Now, if his next move is to Miami, it’s going to be even worse.”
[…]
“It’s just so different, him wearing that Cleveland uniform” McDyess said. “But you can’t hate Ben. He’s a part of us. But you know, they are going to be pumped up just for the fact that he’s on their team — no matter what. And we’re going to be pumped up just as much. So I guess it makes things a little more intense.”
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