I’ve given Rasheed Wallace his fair share of grief (and then some) for camping out beyond the arc, but it was his clutch three-point shooting that broke this game open, most notably his back-to-back three-pointers in the fourth that came from two big steps behind the line.

As much as Wallace likes to float to the outside, he’s been good but never consistently great from behind the line. The three-pointer didn’t become a regular part of his repertoire until 2001, and in the years since he’s never shot better than 36%. Granted, that percentage could be a lot worse, but considering his 35.6% mark last year ranked sixth on the team (behind Rip, Chauncey, Juan Dixon, Jarvis Hayes and Tayshaun), it’s always been a little frustrating when he didn’t just play to his real strength, which is scoring from the low post.

But this year? Wallace has stepped up to hit at a 40.4% clip. The sample size is too small to get excited about a 5% increase, but considering he’s also rebounding at a career-high rate of 10.1 boards per game, his fast start is impressive no matter how you look at it. Maybe he’s playing better with Iverson, or maybe it’s the old contract year carrot doing its trick, but he’s been phenomenal. For all the attention I lavish upon unproven youngsters, it’s only fair to acknowledge that Sheed is playing some of the best ball of his career.

Rip Hamilton’s early-season struggles have been a topic of discussion among a lot of fans, but I think it’s fair to put those to rest. After shooting 7-13 from the field on Sunday, he shot 6-11 from the field last night. What was unusual was the fact that he sat out the entire fourth quarter, but I credit that to circumstance: Arron Afflalo was playing extremely well and the Pistons were pulling ahead — instead of over-coaching simply to appease egos, Michael Curry stuck with what was working.

And with a game tonight in Boston, Rip sounded like he appreciate the chance to rest. From A. Sherrod Blakely:

Richard Hamilton was on the bench for the entire fourth quarter Wednesday, which is rare. Him not grumbling about it is even more unusual.

“It was great,” Hamilton said of not playing in the fourth. “Especially with a back-to-back. It feels good sometimes to sit and watch while the team’s playing well down the stretch.”

Afflalo finished with just five points but more telling was the fact he tallied a team-high +12 plus/minus in just 14 minutes.

LeBron James, meanwhile, scored 25 points but shot just 8-21 from the field, including 1-6 in the fourth. He added six boards and six assists. With anyone else you’d take that production and love it, but with him, he’s set the bar so high this was actually an “off” game.

I hate seeing Ben Wallace come back to Detroit. Not only is he an absolute shell of his former self on the court, but it’s also sad to hear him still being booed so loudly by his former fans. It was fun at first, but from my perspective it’s getting old. The Pistons are better off without him; isn’t that the ultimate revenge?

Last but not least: As mentioned in the game thread, I attended last night’s game as a guest of Canadian Club, enjoying a pre-game whisky tasting and dinner in celebration of the grand opening of the aptly-named Canadian Club Terrace. Given my usual game experience working for FanHouse, I’m not easily wined and dined — the Palace does a great job feeding the media, and you can’t beat the view from press row — but I tip my hat to CC for putting together an impressive event.

The highlight? Getting a chance to sample Canadian Club 30 Year Old, a limited edition release (only 39 barrels were produced) in celebration of the brand’s 150th anniversary. It was easily the best booze I ever tasted, though that should have been expected considering it was also the most expensive — if you want some, it’ll set you back $200 a bottle, and that’s if your neighborhood liquor store stocks it.

Why am babbling about this? Because I’m big on transparency and appreciate the invite, and I figured an upfront mention was preferable than sneaking in random CC references into my regular posts (”Amir Johnson is raw but will get better with age … much like Canadian Club Classic 12 Year Old!” “Allen Iverson finished strong … and with hints of wood and vanilla like Canadian Club 6 Year Old!”) Just saying.

It’s funny but true: as illustrated in the the Free Darko book, Sheed’s per-48-minute averages for points, rebounds, free throws and blocks all increased after his first tech from 2004-07.

Tonight the Pistons host the Cavs, and will attempt to chip away at Cleveland’s one and a half game lead in the Central. I’ll be at the game, but instead of working I’ve been invited to the Grand Opening of the Canadian Club Terrace for some pre-game whiskey tasting and dinner, which is why you’re getting such an early game thread. Blogging, it’s a glamorous life, I tell you.

The ball tips at 7:30 on FSN — leave your thoughts in the comments.

Orlando Magic

Record: 8-3
Projected: 60-22
Are they for real: No

Orlando will certainly make the playoffs, and Mickael Pietrus has been a revelation, but other signs do not point to a 60 win run. First, Dwight Howard has a habit of posting absurd numbers for about 30 games (4 bpg!), and then returning to Earth. Hedo Turkoglu is shooting 38% in a desperate attempt to replicate last year’s output.

But the biggest problem is their bench. Injuries will happen, and the dropoff is so steep at every position that any sustained injury could easily result in a stretch of sub-.500 ball. Given that Pietrus fouls a lot, which makes it difficult for him to stay on the court I wonder how this team will get through February and March. That said, this team could be a real threat come playoff time.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Record: 9-2
Projected: 67-15
Are they for real: Unfortunately, yes.

If you were expecting a LeBron let down, you’d look to the first 10-20 games. He has a habit of finishing strong, which is scary when you consider how ridiculously good he has been so far. The Mo Williams experiment is working swimmingly, giving LeBron a competent backcourt for the first time in his career. Varejao arrived in better shape, and even Big Ben is showing signs of life.

In short, Cleveland is looking like the team to beat this year, from either conference.

New York Knicks

Record: 6-5
Projected: 45-37
Are they for real?: Kinda

Uptempo style aside, there is another important reason to respect Mike D’Antoni. He gives the best players the most minutes. It seems so simple, but so many coaches let their ego, their doghouse, and Eric Snow get in the way of putting the best players on the court. D’Antoni quickly realized that Randolph and Curry couldn’t co-exist, and rightly opted for the more talented Randolph. He already has a solid eight-man rotation, with enough depth to survive an injury or two.

With the talent he has, a .500 season should earn Mike D’Antoni coach of the year in a landslide. It’s still the Knicks, but Donnie Walsh seems well on the way to turning things around here.

ON THE FLIP SIDE…

Minnesota Timberwolves

Record: 1-8
Projected: 9-73
Are they really this bad?: No

The playoff prognostications for this young team were overblown, but there is some talent here. Mike Miller has been absurdly under-utilized, and Kevin Love should improve as the season progresses. Frankly, the coaching staff is going to have to shore up this rotation, and find ways to get Miller more touches.

If Rashad McCants continues to hock 4 threes a game (with a 19% success rate), its time to pull the plug. The time to pull the plug on Corey Brewer was about 10 minutes before they drafted him. He is a bust. Randy Foye probably deserves one full season to see if he is the right fit. But Love, Miller and Jefferson are enough to win more games than this, and Craig Smith tends to improve as he sheds weight during the season.

Los Angeles Clippers

Record: 1-9
Projected: 8-74
Are they really this bad?: Of course they are.

Some sportswriters actually looked at this roster and thought the Clippers might reclaim a playoff spot. Those sportswriters should be unemployed right in the face. Gee, Baron Davis reverted to his former three-point jacking self after signing a big contract? Go figure. Camby and Kaman aren’t a good pairing? Whodathunkit?

Al Thornton has failed to make the leap, which is understandable given that 77-year-old rookies never make leaps. Oh, and they spent a lottery pick on Eric “Corey Brewer” Gordon. That about says it all. On a higher note, Ricky Davis can’t possibly be THIS bad. If he turns it around, this team might just scratch 15 wins.

In case you missed it (and I don’t see how you could have), that’s the play on Rodney Stuckey that got Shaquille O’Neal ejected from Sunday’s game. Shaq was subsequently fined 25 large by the league, but only for arguing his ejection on his way out, not as punishment for the play. ^[1] It’s Shaq, what did you expect the NBA to do? (via TH)

Despite the violent collision, Stuckey stayed in the game, and fortunately, he seemed no worse for wear at practice yesterday. From Keith Langlois:

Stuckey wore tape around both wrists at Tuesday’s practice. He got both hands down to break his fall, so the wrists bore the brunt of it.

“Look at these wrists,” he said, holding his hands out. “They’re taped. If it wasn’t for me putting my hands on the ground, my whole grille would have been messed up. My wrists are sore. That’s it.

“I haven’t been hit like that, but I’m going to continue to take the ball to the basket. Shaq’s a big dude. Whatever he said, it was right. I know he didn’t do it on purpose, but I’m going to keep going in there.”

1. Money is money, but do you know how little $25,000 is to a guy who makes $20 million a year? It’s 0.125% of his salary. In other words, it’s a like a guy who makes $40,000 being docked $50.

If I could invite a Piston, it would have to be George Blaha. Yes I consider him a Piston because he’s been with us since 1976. He would be fun because he could narrate things that happen during Thanksgiving:

While cooking - “Measures and makes!
Making a turkey - “Count that baby and a fowl (get it?)!”
When passing food around the table - “Gives it up, gets it back!”
When eating mashed potatoes - “Scoops it, scores it!”
After eating too much - “In and out… and back in again!”

On a side note, one Piston I wouldn’t want at my Thanksgiving is Walter Herrmann. Even though he is my favorite Piston and I think it would be hilarious to have him as my guest, I would be afraid of him using his Fabio good looks and keen fashion sense to steal my fiancee.

TW’s Blaha-inspired humor (and Herrmann-inspired paranoia) won him a pair of tickets to the see the Pistons take on the Bucks the day after Thanksgiving from the Pistons.com suite.

I promised that I’d also select two other winners at random, but I lied. Instead … I selected three: DBB readers Fadel, Tiny and Stuck also each won a pair of tickets. Congrats, fellas! You should have already received an email from me with details — I’ll see you soon!

And of course, thanks again to Dave Wieme from the Pistons for making this possible.

I was at the game last night. Seats were not that great, but in all honesty, there really isn’t a “bad” seat in the house.

The flagrant 2 on Shaq may very well be overturned, I am no expert, by after watching it over and over and over on my DVR, it appears that Shaq was trying to block a potential layup and Stuckey was quicker than Shaq realized, just my opinion.

Detroit seemed to have forgotten to pack up there defense when they left LA, 52 points in the paint, I don’t think any “defensive” team wins by allowing about 50% of an opponents points to come from the painted area.

There were a lot of Pistons fans in attendance as was mentioned. Most were “good” fans, several were extremely drunk and rather obnoxious. There was at least one other DBB fan there as he kept screaming “Free Amir”, the only Pistons fans I know that use that phrase have frequented this site, although most tell me they don’t like to post (why is beyond me).

Stuckey. This young man is a lot quicker in person than he appears on TV.

Bynum. Makes Stuckey look slow.

Rip. Looks like he finally found his shot, this is a good thing. A backcourt with Rip and AI running around is going to be difficult for any team to contend with

AI. The answer looked bored, perhaps all the moving, relocating and everything that goes along with a trade finally got to him, although 7 dimes isn’t a bad number.

Brown. Played excellent against Shaq, not so excellent against Lopez. Slow fat guys (read Perkins) should get owned by Kwame.

Wallace. I thought Rasheed would have been better off in the low post, when he did go down there, he looked like he could get whatever he wanted all night. However, with the game he had from outside against LA, I figured he would camp out and that hurt us. Several Piston fans around me made very similar comments. Everytime he had the ball, SHEEEED was screamed throughout the center.

Prince. If he plays the remainder of the year at 60% of this level, he will be an All-star and probably first team all defense, even the Suns faithful were giving Tay props, it was nice to hear.

As my wife and I were heading to the game, a Suns fan asked me if I thought Detroit could beat Phoenix, I naturally told him yes, but we were hear to get a look at our 2011 staring PF, this drew a small crowd, and shockingly, most felt that Amare would fit in well with Detroits offense, but that his defense would hurt us, after watching the game, I think Coach Porter has figured out how to unlock Amare’s defense, he wasn’t half bad.

All in all, had Detroit played defense this game could have been won. Hell, take away a quarter of the points in the paint, and this was a close game. AI didn’t seem like a liability defensively, even on the ball. Our man defense was ok, but our help defense was really lacking.

• FanHouse colleague Nate Jones is an unabashed Lakers fan, and he attended Friday’s game in LA against the Pistons. His entire recap of the game is worth reading, but I chuckled when I read this:
  

  But probably the most surprising aspect of the Pistons’ performance last night was the production from Kwame Brown. I sat right under the Pistons’ second half goal and got to see Kwame actually catch the ball, gather himself and dunk the ball one handed. Did you hear that Lakers fans? KWAME BROWN DUNKED THE BALL WITH ONE HAND! And he did it about three times in the second half. That is not the Kwame Brown that Lakers fans came to know and hate. They were used to the one that threw cake and air balled lay ups. I have a feeling that Rasheed has been working on him on his post work, because the guy actually looked serviceable on the offensive end last night.

• In case you haven’t been paying attention, yes, Rasheed has been working with Kwame. Here’s the video proof, and here’s the requisite blockquote:
  

  “Rasheed is a veteran guy who’s constantly talking to you the whole time,” said Brown, who played 28 minutes Friday. ” ‘Sheed is a great leader — a lot of people don’t know that. He has weird ways of showing his emotion, but as far as basketball player and getting guys in the right spot, he does that better than anybody, and he’s constantly talking, constantly helping you out.”

• Mark Cuban … WTF?
• Shaq’s post-game explanation for trying to maim Rodney Stuckey (emphasis mine):
  

  “When you understand the laws of physics like I do, the laws of physics state that a body in motion stays in motion,” Shaq said. “So when you have two objects that meet in the air, the smaller object is gonna fall much harder at the same rate of speed. I’ve never been the type of player to take anybody out. I was going for the ball, little guy ran into a brick wall, and you know, he fell, and he added a little bit to the end.

  Stuckey added something? He fell chest first from seven or eight feet in the air and nearly suffered whiplash trying not to let his face hit the floor. And he added something? Yeah, it’s called a bruise.

• Whither the Baby Eater?
  

  “Curry established roles for his bench players coming out of camp but the loss of Antonio McDyess has forced him to change things up on a nightly basis. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the reduced minutes for Jason Maxiell. He was their best reserve last season and now he’s only playing 11 or 12 minutes a game, even with the lack of frontcourt depth. Makes you wonder whether locking Maxiell up for four more seasons at the start of the season was a wise move.”

• Just in case you ever wondered what the Pistons looked like as Charlie Brown characters …

Here’s to hoping they finish strong and take care of business against all the familiar faces (Terry Porter, Grant Hill) in Phoenix. The ball tips in just a few minutes on FSN as well as NBA TV — leave your thoughts in the comments.

And not just any entree, either — we’re talking about the “Ole 96er”, right out of The Great Outdoors. Can the Pistons eat the whole thing, right down to the gristle and fat? We’ll find out. If they do, they won’t win free t-shirts for the whole family but will grab the attention of everybody in the league.

It’s another late one, but hey, you’re not working tomorrow, right? The ball tips at 10:30 PM on ESPN — join your DBB brethren by leaving your thoughts (and random John Candy references) in the comments.