NBA Regular Season | ||
|---|---|---|
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| 3-4 (0-3 away) | 3-4 (2-1 home) | |
| Palace of Auburn Hills Bobcats Blog: Rufus on Fire | ||
| November 11, 2009 7:30 PM ET | ||
| TV: Fox Sports Detroit PLUS Radio: 97.1 The Fan | ||
| Probable starters: | ||
| Raymond Felton | PG | Rodney Stuckey |
| Raja Bell | SG | Ben Gordon |
| Gerald Wallace | SF | Jonas Jerebko |
| Boris Diaw | PF | Charlie Villanueva |
| Tyson Chandler | C | Ben Wallace |
Tonight, the Pistons will look to build off their quality victory Sunday against the Charlotte Bobcats. It is John Kuester's first game as a head coach against his former mentor, Larry Brown. Kuester was an assistant under Brown in 2003-2004 with the Pistons.
The Bobcats are 0-3 on the road and coming off a rough loss to the Magic last night in Charlotte. The Bobcats, who trailed by more than 20 at one point, fought back to pull within eight, but wound up losing by 12. Hopefully, that loss took the wind out of their sails and they'll be extremely sluggish for the second game of their back-to-back tonight at the Palace.
For the seventh consecutive game, Detroit will be without Richard Hamilton. Ben Gordon will start again in his place. Jonas Jerebko will start his fourth straight game for Tayshaun Prince, who is out indefinitely with a ruptured disc in his back.
Jonas will have a tough task tonight against Gerald Wallace who appears to be healthy and playing at a high level. When Wallace scores more than 18 points the Bobcats are 2-0, so keeping him under that total should be the loose goal when Jerebko matches up against him tonight.
As bad as many people thought the defense was going to be this year, Detroit ranks in the top 10 in opposing field goal percentage (no. 2), three point percentage (no. 2), and points allowed per game (no. 7). Meanwhile, that explosive offense we all expected is ranked 26th out of the 30 NBA teams.
Tonight provides a good opportunity for the Pistons to have their first two game winning streak of the young season and hopefully, they can follow that up by stringing a series of games together.
Tip off is at 7:30 PM EST and can be seen on Fox Sports Detroit PLUS because the Red Wings are taking precedence on FSD.