Game Tips at 7:00 EST
Detroit Pistons: 23-42 (7-24 home)
Atlanta Hawks: 41-23 (25-7 road)
Oppo Research
Given the make up of the Hawks' roster, it's no surprise that they are amongst the upper echelon in the league. They have a steady point guard in Bibby (who's actually having a down year), a reliable shooter in Joe Johnson, the human highlight reel and defensive prowess in Josh Smith, arguably the 6th Man of the Year in Jamal Crawford, and an All-Star* center in Al Horford.
They're efficient for how slow they play -- they are one of the slowest paced teams (26th) in the league but rank in the top 10 for scoring. To give you an idea just how efficient they are, the Pistons in the past seven years were never higher than 17th in the league in scoring when ranking near the bottom of the league in pace.
The Hawks went 1-2 on their recent three game road trip and return home for the first time in over a week. They've won four straight home games and if you take the Pistons road record and reverse it, that's about how good the Hawks are at Philips Arena (hint: It's pretty good). Factor in that the Pistons have lost five straight on the road and that the Hawks probably haven't forgotten how they were embarrassed at The Palace earlier this season, tonight could get ugly.
Keys for Detroit
Don't Let Crawford Go Off -- He's been the Hawks mojo all season. They are 19-5 when he scores 20+ and 7-2 when he scores 25+.
Pass the rock -- It allows us to see things we haven't seen in 25 years (last night) and the Pistons win more games than they lose when they have 30+ assists (one to be exact -- 2 wins and 1 loss).
Play Daye - I'm going to cut and paste this for the rest of the season.
Question of the Game
What will Will Bynum do for an encore?
Valuable Links
Peaches might give you the poops. But check out Peachtree Hoops.