There will be talk, talk for the rest of The Pistons – Magic series about the shot clock malfunction that allowed a three pointer to count for Detroit at the end of the third quarter that shouldn’t have. Chauncey Billups knocked down a 3-pointer with 0.5 seconds left in the third, the clock clearly stopped mid play and the officials weren’t able to look at the replay due to the rules. The refs were put in a tough situation and made what they thought was the right decision. The TNT broadcast however put a stopwatch to the play and it was indeed a couple of fractions of a second late.
It happens all the time, whether it’s a questionable foul call or an instance like this, but the fact of the matter is that Detroit is now up on The Magic 2 games to none after their 100-93 victory on their home court.
Key Points:
- Yes, the Pistons benefited from a incorrect judgment call by the refs. I’ll be the first one to admit it, but if Rodney Stuckey pulled up and saw the clock at 2 seconds do you think he would have dished it to Chauncey? He probably would have taken the shot and hopefully made it. The Magic got hosed, but I can remember being on the other side of that call plenty of times, so I’m ok with it. Did it cost them the game? There is truly no answer to that.
- “It sucks to be on the other end of that play,” said Billups, who had a game-high 28 points. “But I’ll take it. I’ll take it.” Via MLive
- Tight first quarter that ended tied at 29.
- Once again The Palace Crowd was loud as can be. I truly believe Detroit feeds off them, especially in the fourth quarter. You could barely hear yourself think late in the game, even when play was stopped the crowd was going nuts.
- Foul trouble all game long for the four bigs who went after Dwight hard all night. Dyess was the only Pistons to foul out, and he looked quite upset about it. Flip Saunders on the other hand did the right thing by substituting Rasheed in and out of the game in the fourth quarter when he was playing with 5 fouls in case we needed him had the game went into OT.
- Big night for Big Shot who lead all players with 28 points. Billups put a scare in the crowd, along with his teammates, when he went down hard in the fourth quarter after landing on his back when going up for a layup and being fouled. Though shaken, he got up and sank his two free throws. He was a perfect 10-for-10 from the line. Chauncey was big on both ends of the floor for Detroit.
Photo/Getty Images
- The “Clock Play” via YouTube.
- Detroit couldn’t quite contain Dwight Howard but his 22 points and 18 boards actually came quietly. He never really got a rhythm going and looked frustrated plenty of times during the game. They are huge numbers, but he did turn the ball over 5 times, maybe his hand really was bothering him.
- If I could have actually punched something, besides my friend sitting next to me, I would have after watching the Magic knock down 7 straight three’s in the third quarter to take the lead for the first time in the game. The Palace crowd was shocked and shaken.
- Was it just me or did the starters slack on the defensive end during the Magic’s surge?
- After allowing the Magic only 12 second quarter points, the Pistons got outscored 36 to 28 in the third.
- You will hear this a thousand times when referring to this game….Live by the three, die by the three. Hot in the third for Orlando and ice cold in the fourth from downtown when it mattered. Orlando was 11-for-26 from behind the arc for the night.
- I must say it once again, and will keep saying it until it isn’t deserving – TAYRIFFIC! Tayshaun Prince put up a double-double with 17 points and 10 boards on 8-for-13 shooting with 5 assists, 2 takeaways and a really timely blocked shot.
Photo/Getty Images
- And this…………..
Courtesy of The Detroit Pistons, The NBA and TNT
- So good I knew you would want to see the full clip of the Dunk. Heck you asked for it in the comments on more than one occasion.
- By the way, thanks for all of you who leave comments during the game. It’s hard actually catching everything like stats and calls when I’m in the arena. So getting your comments while you post them on my phone is very helpful. We in the Palace were clueless to what was happening at the end of the third with the clock.
- Detroit’s bench outscored Orlando’s 13-4.
- Big talk from Rashard Lewis who scored 20 points, but had to put up 21 shots to get them.
- Hedo finished with just 12 on 5-for-11 shooting. He always looks like he just rolled out of bed.
- Get ready to hear about the shot clock malfunction ’till you just can’t stand it anymore.
- Stuckey scored 5 points and had 4 assists with a steal in his 20 minutes. He still looks a bit green, but he’s getting the job done when he’s out there.
- It’s not like we didn’t love Maxie in the first place, but him stepping up since he’s been put in the starting lineup has been huge. Many of us wanted Maxiell to start for quite some time, but to actually see it happening and working just puts smiles on faces. Jason scored 11 on 5-for-5 shooting with 4 boards and 3 blocked shots. Does he have a smooth stroke or what?
Photo/Getty Images
- Did I mention the key defensive plays he’s been making down the stretch?
- When Herrmann enters the game you would think Isiah Thomas was checking in for the Pistons. Dude gets much love from the Detroit fans.
- I don’t know about you, but this game was killing me. Call me a wimp, but I’ll take a nice blowout any day.
- Sorry Theo, you did get posterized. Unlike Tay, who moved out of the way in the first quarter when Dwight was coming in for a thunder dunk, Theo took it like a man.
- Rip struggled all game long going 4-for-18 for 14 points. Love Rip, but when he’s not hitting like that he usually doesn’t shake it off. I almost cringed when he took that three late in the fourth quarter, but it was the one shot he did hit. If fact that was the last field goal that Detroit made in the game, the rest came at the foul line.
- Detroit’s last 13 came at the stripe, which they were 24-for-28.
- Why did Detroit stop going to Tayshaun, he was HOT and I don’t remember him touching the ball in the fourth quarter.
- Sorry Jarvis, Afflalo and Herrmann are in the front of the line now.
- Mr. Wallace was on, shooting 7-for-10 for 17 points. He did his work defensively at times on Rashard and Dwight. Oh, and then there was this….
Courtesy of The Detroit Pistons, The NBA and TNT
- Again, so good you’ll want to see the Tay to Sheed alley oop again, and don’t forget it all stemmed from a Theo block.
- I was surprised by Turkoglu’s erratic three with seconds left in the game, but maybe you can chalk it up to the Magic’s playoff experience and ability to close out games. “The Magic called timeout to set up a play, but Hedo Turkoglu inexplicably broke off the play and fired up an errant 3-pointer. “I don’t know,” Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said of why Turkoglu did that. “I don’t understand that shot at all and nobody on our team can understand it either. Down two and a full shot clock. I don’t know why he did that.” Via The Detroit News
- Arron Afflalo knows how to play in big games.
- 19 turnovers for the Magic to just 8 for Detroit. You can’t have 19 turns against a team like Detroit and expect to win.
- Out rebounded 40-35.
- NBA.com Highlights of The Game.
- Maxiell shows Fratello his defensive skills.
- Mr. D., who I mentioned before usually heads to the tunnel at the start of the fourth, stayed in his court side seat ’till the game was all but a lock.
- Wednesday in Orlando, we are used to hearing plenty of Pistons fans in the crowd but this time I think they won’t have an easy time of it.
- Third Quarter Collapse on the Magic’s side of the whole clock controversy. Sorry Ben, but it’s nice to see a class act. Had this been a game against Cleveland I cringe at the thought of the abuse the whole city of Detroit and the state of Michigan would take.
- Plenty to say about this one, leave yours in the comments.
Thank you soo much for the full video of the Prince to Sheed alley. I actually missed that live and those are my 2 favorite players. Thanks again!
BTW, it seems nationally (in particular), no one ever recognizes Tay when he plays well so thanks again for acknowledging the Prince! It seems like whenever the ball is in his hands, we get high percentage shots. Really proud of him.
I don’t understand why ESPN put too much emphasis on this late 3 point shot by CB. They make it look like it was the last shot of the game, but it wasn’t, its just in the 3rd qtr, f*ck*ng 3rd qtr. And as most pistons fan say the lead after the game was 7 points, not 3, so do the math. They (ESPN) didn’t comment that hard either during the first game when two magic players bump into each other and a foul was called on a piston player. I’m starting to think ESPN doesn’t play it fair, they favor the “popular” and “marketable” teams and the pistons is not one of them.
Hi, Natalie. I’m a big fan of pistons and also i’m an avid reader of need4sheed. I’m from Philippines so it’s impossible for me to have a piston ticket to keep. I would like to ask if it is possible to have a used ticket or tickets of piston game from you or any piston fans here?
I don’t know where to post a message for Natalie so i’m trying it here.
If you can believe it I feel asleep somewhere in the fourth, then woke up in a panic around 5:30. So thanks need4sheed, for all the fantastic bullet points and clips. You are so much better than the old-fashioned news.
I think Chauncey summed it up–it sucks to be on the other side of that call regarding the clock. But he’ll take it, and we all should. A big shot player made a great play and the refs followed the rules as best they could. So that’s that.
Would be really nice to win them both in Orlando, but what’s more probable and still suberb is to end it back here 4-1.
Now we have to steal at least a game in Florida and come back home at the Palace and close the story.
We need to go there and play hard against this “Finesse” team.
nat, i can’t imagine how the crowd got crazy at the palace…this was a great win down the stretch! i couldn’t agree with you more but the clock shot call is nothing but a referee mistake….similar to any other mistake that referees made. i wouldn’t be sorry or feel bad about that call for the magic, hell! its like the referees never made mistake on calling against detroit in this series. so, we’ll take it, just like chauncey said!
Here’s the thing: If Chauncey doesn’t make that 3 because time runs out, do you really think we lose the game because of it? So we go in to the fourth down by two? Does that really spell doom for the far-superior team, at home?? Chauncey could have shot a three in to the Magic basket on purpose, and we could have gone in to the fourth down by 5 and it was still the Pistons game all the way. No question about it. Whenever a team makes 7 threes in a row and still only leads by 2 or 3, you know they’re bound to get cold, lose the lead and lose the game. If half of those threes didn’t fall, this was a blowout.
Great game by Chauncey, Tay, Sheed and Maxie. Rip was off but i’m not worried about it, and Dyess and the Rattler did about the best they could do against the beast.
If you enjoy hearing the opposing teams fans cry as much as I do, you will love this…
http://mvn.com/nba-magic/2008/05/05/orlando-gets-hosedagain/
Hey, great game last night. Question though, can you post a clip of dwight howard’s face after the tayshaun monstrosity of a dunk? The TNT replays showed dhowards face after and it was a “did you see that? i wasn’t going up to block THAT” face. That would be awesome. Thanks, keep up the good work! PISTONS IN 4!
it wasnt the pistons fault about the shot clock but yet it was still bogus.. i say we are even for what happend with the orlando players colliding and them calling a foul on stuckey..so yeah wit that bein said.. great game real nail biter but it came out the right way!..now take one in orlando possibly two and we got this series on lock!!! “still scared of boston”
mcgrooge12 I probably won’t have the time to get the clip of Dwight’s face after the Tay dunk. If I can I will.
TOClark77…that link was hilarious, bad situation any way you look at it but that’s just ignorant talk. Check out a real objective fan at Third Quarter Collapse. I put the link up in the post.
I compare the clock malfunctioning this time to us being called for the shot clock violation in Game 2 against Philly. The clock started before the Pistons inbounded the ball, we still won that game, but no one complained about it as much as they are complaining now.
I am tired of hearing about the clock. We had no control over that and like others have said we won by 7 and not 3. Also the Magic are trying to win against us by shooting 3s. That’s not going to happen and I find it funny that they shot 7 3’s in that quarter, but after each 3 the Pistons hit a 2 so the Magic were never really up in the 3rd quarter despite all those 3’s they hit. I’m glad our guys survived the 3pt surge. They thought they were going to kill us with the 3’s but it didn’t happen. Then Magic fans are crying about Lewis being fouled on the last play, but I didn’t see it. Is that clip of the Keyon Dooling foul on Youtube? You know the one from the last game recap, Nat. If not we need to find a way to get that up and throw that in their faces. Of course that game was a blow out, but they can’t complain about foul discrepancy when we see it all the time. There were horrible calls on both sides so they can’t quit all that noise. LET’S GET IT DETROIT!!! I wouldn’t be surprised if the Magic won game 3 and their fans start jumping around like they’ve won something, but I see Pistons winning game 4 and hopefully closing them out in game 5. If we don’t allow them to win both their home games I see us closing it out in 5. I just want our guys to make it to the Finals. I seriously think they can take anyone out West. The Lakers and Jazz are really scary, but they can do it. First we gotta’ take care of the Magic though. LET’S GET IT DONE DETROIT!!!
great post it covered pretty much everything I was thinking.
From Tay to Sheed to alley oop, to the clock to Jarvis Walter and Afflalo.
I think that Tay dunk was nominated for top play on espn
And I’m glad you brought up Theo “taking it like a man” where Tayshaun couldn’t get away from Dwight Howard fast enough.
Maxiell feature with Mike Fratello was entertaining.
One thing you missed was Rip going something like 4-18.
The playing 1 on 5 is going to come back to haunt us. Guys need to stop jacking up shots just to get their stats up. Feed the hot hand and make plays for others, that Pistons offense. And I agree that the defense was a little iffy. You would think they’d be better prepared for drive and kicks after last year’s ecf
And I think what was awesome was how they labeled our bigs the kryptonite squad/crew/etc And they haven’t even seen everything. Amir Johnson can be one of those other rarer forms of kryptonite that works just as good.
mark my words, 10 years from now, you’ll still hear about this infamous clock incident. I saw this youtube video that was labeled “the Pistons cheated to get a lead” and I was like “right, because rip and sheed were the referees in this game, so they gave the basket to CB.”
these “righteous” people surely were okay with Stuckey’s invisible foul in game 1 that gave the Magic 2 points.
AMEN CLAIRE
“I saw this youtube video that was labeled “the Pistons cheated to get a lead” and I was like “right, because rip and sheed were the referees in this game, so they gave the basket to CB.”
I thought the exact same thing when I saw the title of the YouTube clip but didn’t want to call attention to it. We got the benefit of a call….how it becomes cheating is beyond ridiculous.
a win is a win is a win. The Marty McFly future sports almanac doesn’t care about shot clocks or phantom fouls, just wins and losses.
THis clock thing might get in the Magic players heads, and really start to cause some trouble.
I’m stickin to my guns here, Pistons sweep.
And if you want to complain about refs, let’s talk about a Tayshun “5 second call” from early in te game. I swear Javie made that one up, I don’t remember ever seeing it called before.
sounds good! even if you don’t post dwight’s face… From one pistons fan to the next, it’s worth watching just to see, I asked a lot of people if they saw his reaction and many didn’t pay attention. So definitely worth a peek, enjoy.
Oh yeah I forgot about the 5 Seconds call. I can’t remember that being called. Here is the rule for anyone not aware of it.
A five-second closely-guarded violation occurs when a player, while closely guarded, holds the ball for five seconds or dribbles the ball for five seconds. A closely guarded situation occurs when a player with the ball in the frontcourt is continuously guarded by an opponent within 6 feet of the player in control. The official continues the five-second count until the player in control gets his/her head and shoulders past the defender.
Honestly, I didn’t even know the rule was in the NBA. I know it’s in college (maybe cause it gets called a bit when I play my NCAA game on Xbox – ha) but I’ve never seen it called in the pros. Guess it’s sort of like traveling, tho I’ve seen more of that in the NBA in recent years – finally.
steve in oh….its in kindergarden basketball….dumb ass referees…even if were playing on the road, who the hell would yell from the opposing team…”5 seconds!!!”
i think its time for the board of directors to take a look at javie’s previous’ games.
not that we needed to understand more but keith langlois has some pretty fair explanation about the clock violation issue. its on nba.com/pistons.
good read, thanks ric.
Thats a fair explanation, and really, the same thing could have happened if it was Orlando with the ball.
I don’t care who the defender is, but I never take away from someone being “posterized”. I give credit to someone for going up and trying to stop a dunk from a man like Howard or maxiell. They go up knowing that they have a 90% chance of getting dunked on , on national telivision just for that 10% chance of making a defensive play for their team. Theo knows that you don’t get to lead the league in bocked shots by being afraid of defending dunks. I especially prefer that over the Cavalier method of running up to th dunker with your chest out, bumping them, then flopping before A. Crying if a charge isn’t called or
B. celebrating if you get a charge call out of that sorry excuse for defence.
I don’t know if it was explained by someone already, i didnt feel like reading all the comments.
The shot clock operators are picked at random from other parts of the country. Therefor he didn’t work for the pistons or was any kind of piston fan. Fratello actually mentioned that the operator of this game was from minnesota, if anyone is interested.
Regardless, it should be a moot point because it had no real bearing on the outcome of the game, you’re talking about one 3, when we won by more than that.
Adding to the above comment, the Magic committed 19 turnovers and Hedo took a very ill-advised 3 pointer for a reason even his coach can’t explain. Billups’ 3 neither won Detroit the game nor cost Orlando the game. It was the Pistons’ execution and the Magic’s mistakes that decided the outcome. Should there be a rule change in light of what happened at the end of the 3rd quarter? Yeah, I think so. But to say that that particular play is why Orlando is down zero games to 2 is just ridiculous. Even the players and coaches for the Magic are in agreement with that.
Nat,
Please put a link to this on the main page so everyone can go on there and just give it to this guy for being a total baby.
http://mvn.com/nba-magic/2008/05/05/orlando-gets-hosedagain/
I’ve left him a couple comments (signed Alex) pretty much just laughing at him and calling him out. I mean I understand the whole being a homer thing but this guy just takes it to a whole nother level. Love your site, I read it every day and have shared it with every pistons fan I know. Keep up the good work. Go Stones. – Alex
I left him a comment this afternoon. He’s not listening to reason though, so it’s kind of a waste of time.
yeah i’m over trying to reason with him. i just found pushing his buttons to be fun at this point. even 3rd quarter collapse was making fun of this guy. 3rd q collapse is definitely an opposing blogger i respect.
Nat, reading these Orlando and Celtics blogs the past few days makes me realize what a good job you actually do.
You clearly like the Pistons, but you don’t wear the Pistons red and blue glasses. If the team plays like garbage, you say it. You’re page looks sharp, and is updated and active.
Keep up the good work.
Your right we are going to hear about the shot clock as long as this series goes on, hell as long as we are in the playoffs probably!!! BUT I really don’t think we would have lost this even if they didn’t count that shot, Orlando went ICE COLD in the 4th, I don’t know if that shot counting took everything out of them but they sucked in the 4th quarter either way. There was no way they were going to win this game even if they didn’t count the shot!!!! But I will say this, the NBA needs to change the rules when things like this happen. I don’t care if it would mean that we didn’t get the basket, I would rather they got the calls right in the playoffs.
Yeah, that call really could have happened to any team. I also think they should change it. They have the video right there, the refs aren’t allowed to look at it.
Boston wins, barely, with Lebron missing shots all night. It really was a tight game. It’s tough to watch when you dislike both teams so much. I want Boston to win because of the hype of the Detroit Boston ECF, but I want cleveland to win because at least they rep the Central. In the end I don’t really care which team wins, neither of them can hang with the D.
Does anybody have vid of the Tay block? I missed it..
Fluidics, I understand how tough it is to watch two teams you really don’t like but at the same time that’s what kinda draws me in. I guess I like seeing them battle and go through some rough stretches in the same game. Can get real ugly tho…
I didn’t hear Magic fans complaining when Keyon Dooling spun into his own man and we got called for a foul.