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Welp, the Pistons lost their third-straight game on Monday night, but the good news is they get right back at it on Tuesday night. The bad news? It might just be a means to adding on to their running tally of consecutive losses on the road vs. Western Conference teams. West Coast road trips seem to have bad connotations, but I had no idea the Pistons were this bad on the road against the entire Western Conference:
20 straight losses RT @RyanFieldFS1: #Pistons are 1-43 in their last 44 road games against Western Conference teams. That's incredible.
— Vincent Ellis (@Vincent_Ellis56) November 12, 2013
The Pistons' last win against the Western Conference on the road was two seasons ago -- March 14, 2012 -- against the Sacramento Kings. The Pistons won 124-112 in regulation. If only they could play the Kings after running through the buzz saw that is this current four-game stretch. Oh wait, they do on Friday!
-- We know Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings like to chuck shots. Smith had 23 of them a few games ago. He made seven. Jennings had 24 of them on Monday night. He made 11. You'd like your shooters to make more than that (38-percent). Jennings' 24 shots against the Blazers were the most shots by a Piston since Will Bynum's 26 in a double-OT game against the Atlanta Hawks last year, a game I was in attendance, 56 games ago.
-- Does this sound familiar? (via Freep):
Early in the game, [Brandon] might have been overly aggressive. He put up seven shots pretty quickly. Matched up against Lillard (and going up against Warriors point guard Stephen Curry tonight), there is a thought that he could get caught up in individual match-ups.
"I think human nature sometimes takes over on that," [coach] said before the game. "I think Brandon is a pretty smart player, that he knows it's not necessarily a one-on-one battle.
"I think sometimes human nature takes over."
That's about Brandon Jennings, but it sounds a whole lot like something that would've been written about Knight last year. Human nature taking over for Knight didn't work out as well as I had hoped. That's not to say Jennings isn't already a clear upgrade, because he is, but let's hope he doesn't get caught up in these one-on-one battles and stays true to his word of being more point guardy.
-- CV31 said if he got an opportunity he would make the most of it and help the team. He did not stay true to his word. I know, I know; he's not going to say anything else, but he was on the record.
-- Keith Langlois recap. Need4Sheed recap. PistonPowered recap.
-- How long until Chauncey starts seeing more minutes on the bench? Cheeks went with Billups again in the starting lineup vs. Portland, but he only played 14 unproductive minutes. My speculative money is on the old man being inactive on the back end of a back-to-back. Look for Rodney Stuckey to start next to Jennings if that's how it goes down, as Cheeks likes the combination of Jennings and Stuck.
-- Rasheed Wallace made his return to Rip City, where ... he owes some taxes. Random little nugget from MLIVE:
KGW-TV in Portland reported that Pistons assistant coach Rasheed Wallace owes $150,000 in taxes on a home he owns here after officials in Multnomah County (Ore.) last week released a list of the county's 25 biggest tax delinquents.
-- A week from today is the nine-year anniversary of the Malice at The Palace. David Stern says it was the toughest crisis he had to deal with during his tenure as NBA commissioner. (via CBSSports)
-- Remember how bad the Celtics were supposed to be and how "ugly" that 10-point win was last week? They followed up the loss to Detroit by beating Miami and scoring 120 against the Magic on Monday night. They're currently 4-4 and have Boston's diehards swooning over Brad Stevens.
-- Sean will be by soon with the opponent recon and game preview for tonight's game. Golden State of Mind is SB Nation's Warriors blog.
What else you got? Share in the comments.