Detroit hosts the struggling 8-11 Sixers tonight at the Palace. The Sixers, who have lost five of six, will be without forward Elton Brand who is sidelined with a strained right hamstring.
AI is excited to play against his former team and is READY to be whatever Detroit wants him to be, even if that means going back to being “The Answer” again.
“That’s just inside me. I want to be the guy with the ball. I want to be the guy making the decision. But that’s just not the case any more, and I have to adjust.
“I don’t have a problem with it. I think the bigger picture is winning a championship.”
If you are heading out to the Palace tonight make sure you stop by section 106.
“Fans who make the Responsibility Has Its Rewards (RHIR) pledge to always have a designated driver, never drive drunk, and always buckle up will film their own message about responsible behavior. The film crew will be set-up on the main concourse near Section 106, next to the Designated Driver program booth. Public Service Announcements produced from the filming will air throughout the season on the Palace of Auburn Hills video board and on local broadcast TV.” Via Market Watch
Great idea from the Pistons. Don’t Drink and Drive it’s simple.
Looks Joe Dumars was sending Chauncey to Denver and only Denver.
Tony Mejia talks to Joe D. (link via True Hoop)
“In a perfect world, you always have guys that are up for every game, that don’t need any extra motivation,” Dumars said of what he hopes bringing Iverson and Wallace together will do for the Pistons’ approach. “But, you know, at this point in their careers, in the last year of big deals and impending free agency, those are factors that work in our favor in terms of urgency. That’s reality.”
And in case you didn’t know, it’s Ladies Night at the Palace……Tickets, Martini Glasses and Herrmann, what more do you want ladies?
Tip is at 8:00 PM on FSN with the pre-game festivities starting at 7. If you can’t watch the television broadcast, tune into 1130 AM The Fan where you can catch our friend Matt Dery with the pre-game at 7:00. Can’t do either, follow the game on NBA.com.
You know what to do in the comments or chat.
Pistons are done. 6-5 in the last 11 games. How sad is that? I have a realy bad fealing it’s going to be a LONG time before we return to the finals or even conferance finals.
wow…. a loss to a nobody and the sixers didnt even have one of their star players… what a bunch of pansys this team is blow another lead… were sooooo good…. so far they have beat those good teams but what do they follow those games up with????? LOSSES!!!! must be embarassin for iverson to lose to his former team on his homecourt…. practive??? yeah practice is what they need.. they need a major makeover
wow… a loss to a nobody and the sixers didnt even have one of their star players.. this team is abunch of pansys… they beat those good teams and what to dthey follow it up with losses to a bunch of nobodys… this team is done
WTF is this shit? AI in and outta the lineup 3 times in the final 2 min.. well whoever was in for him didnt do a very good job bc philly scored every time he was subbed out.. if u wanted a backup PG in detroit DUMARS then u shoulda traded for one. the man cannot do what he normally does if hes not welcomed here and is treated like a 4th option out there. HES 3rd in scoring ppg average in nba fucking history.. THE BALL HAS TO BE IN HIS HANDS, this is bullshit, and btw stuckey is no more of pg either, the ball “STUCK” to his hands probably 4 of detroits final 5 possessions, this team will continue to play inconsistently until the hand the reigns over to AI… ive said my piece, the final 6 minutes of this game absolutely disgusted me
38 fourth-quarter points allowed at home. Thirty-eight. EPIC fail.
Can we just play the Knicks tonight? I don’t need another day to stew between a horrible loss and the next game…
I really don’t believe this team in this current incarnation will even make the post season.
For whatever reason they have no cohesiveness.
Just feel bad for antonio,he could of had his ring elsewhere.Poor soul is loyal to a fault.
If we play better then 500 ball this year the rest of the way I will be surprised.
I’m gonna hit the hay now,everyone have a great weekend!
We are certainly making a habit out of losing. We need to pick this thing up. I hope everything gets better. Let’s do it Detroit. Make Dyess’ comeback worth it.
I didn’t watch the game but it doesn’t surprise me at all that we lost. For some reason everyone thinks that this team just deserves to be a great team. I had an optimistic attitude about the AI trade, but deep down I thought it wouldn’t work. To be honest, I thought we were going to be just as good as last year before the trade, but once everything went down I knew there was going to be a good chance that we would be a worse team.
I predict that we’ll keep playing .500 ball, make the playoffs, and probably get bounced in the first or second round.
That doesn’t mean that we can’t still enjoy watching the games though. No team can dominate forever. Lets just hope that if this season is a bust that better days are ahead. No matter what happens the Pistons will always be my favorite team.
wow…
that was a defining loss alright.
I still ahve a mild hope, just because it seems that we still have the capacity at times to play extremely well against the NBAs best teams, but mistakes like this will hurt us come playoff time.
People can keep blaming AI every time this team lose, but they are all missing the point.
DETROIT HAS A BAD COACH.
If you are up 15, and lose by 6, and have guys on the bench who didn’t play one second of the game, because you can’t make adjustments, and lose a close game down the stretch with 6 guys in double figure scoring, and have a timeout to spare, it’s becuse you have a bad coach. Curry can talk all he wants about accountability, but where was it in this game? People talk about how Curry motivates people. Where was the motivation in the fourth? How do you sit a guy who scored 5 threes just a week earlier. How come Bynum got no burn? Philly goes on a 6-0 run, and Curry responds by not doing anything? Good move coach.
Vote Tay for the all stars.
personally i won’t blame this on curry.. i agree that he didn’t coach near a perfect game but there was plenty of plays that should have worked that weren’t executed properly.. they put the game in stuckeys hands while he was shooting very well and he missed it, and then sheed got the rebound and tried to finger flick the ball into the basket… sheed 2 or 3 years ago would have hit that… i’m very sad to say it but sheed is showing his age
I disagree about Rasheed ‘showing his age’. A finger flick attempy at a putback has nothing to do with age- it’s pretty much a matter of effort and hoping it goes in. I was disapointed in Curry’s refusal to use Bynum or Hermann, especially when we were up big and both of them are perfect reserves for pouring it on. However, just because he coached this game badly doesn’t mean he’s a bad coach. Just like playing one game badly doesn’t make you a bad player. This was a tough finish to watch, but I think that getting McDyess back will be a big lift, emotionally and on the box score. Hopefully they shape up by Monday.
The problem with wallace is he shows a lack of age
behaves like a kid in kindergarten.
Not specifically last night’s game but many he’s played here.
As I said there is not continuity,it’s all disjointed. To bad too,but hey their my team
as are all detroit teams although I’m thinking of hiding my lions gear!
It’s not just this game though, the man doesn’t do rotations and adjustments well, and he’d rather sit a player to make a point and lose than play somebody and win.
Bad coach, the record is showing it. Try and tell me Curry isn’t the worst HC the Pistons have had in the last 10 years.
I’ve heard the TNT crew say before that if you loose by a lot it’s on the players, and if you loose a close game it’s on the coach. This one was a little of both I think. They didn’t loose by a lot in the end, but they sure gave up a huge lead with not that much time to go. But at the same time at the end of the game the players should have been put in the best position to succeed. I haven’t watched the game yet so I don’t know exactly how the last couple minutes went, but if they couldn’t score maybe it’s because they weren’t running the right plays which would be coaching.
Either way there’s plenty of blame to go around. And I’m not blaming AI for any of these losses. I’m just saying I had a feeling that maybe we wouldn’t be as good with him vs Chauncey.
It’s still very early in the season, but I for one thought that things would be shaping up by now and we could easily put away teams with below .500 records. We still have a lot of games to get better but the trend that I’m seeing doesn’t support that belief.
The beginning of this season kind of has me wondering what this team would have looked like with a more experienced coach like Avery Johnson. He was available. Hopefully this whole thing doesn’t end up blowing up in Joe D’s face.
everybody needs to chill the hell out. Richie is the only one of you with half a brain in his head (good points about Bynum and Rico Suave). Granted, this was a horrible loss, and adjustments weren’t made as needed, but could Philly really beat Detroit 4 games out of 7 like that, even with EB? Anyways, this loss is obviously the abberation, as Detroit has already shown they can soundly beat the best of the NBA when they are at their best (still waiting for them to show it against Boston, however). Next time the Pistons beat a good team, I bet there will be a ton of comments about how great our team is and how we are for sure going to win a ship. Thats not what being a Piston fan is all about. Stick with your team through thick and thin.
Oh yeah and one more thing: anybody posting things like “fire Curry” or “bench AI”, or “bring back Chauncey” is just a moron. For 1, Curry just got the job, and has a winning record so far, Joe D likes him, and I happen to like him. He has a good mind for the game but needs some more time to figure out what works or what doesn’t work. Second, Iverson is somewhere in the discussion of the 50 Greatest players in the NBA of ALL TIME (if not in it, hes close). I’ll admit, he hasn’t been playing great of late, but I will chalk that up to him not being comfortable taking over the game. That Ivo will come, I hope, and make you all look stupid. And finally, this is the one that pisses me off the most. Chauncey Billups is GONE! I love Chaunce as much as anyone else and I will be at the Palace cheering for him the loudest when he comes back in January, but he will not be wearing the Piston no. 1 anytime soon. Get over it and keep cheering on your team
A few points:
1) Everyone needs to stop looking at Denver’s record with Chauncey and losing their mind over it. I know you are looking at it, because I am. But Denver’s played nobody real so far. Look at Denver’s record in 2 months. They will have regressed back to what people thought they were supposed to be (although I definitely think C-Bill is a net positive for them).
2) The next time someone posts something about a coach they ought to use examples. I’m sorry, but I read for years how Flip was a bad coach, flip didn’t know rotations/substitutions, etc. Now that’s all I hear about Curry when there’s a loss. I don’t see it. What I see from Curry is a trust in his bench and a willingness to ride a hot hand, which is something I didn’t see from Flip really. Yes, he’s going to make mistakes, but let’s be honest people. Practically all losses are on the players. Execution trumps everything else. And as much as I like Bynum and Walter, let’s not pretend that these are all-stars riding the pine.
3)AI doesn’t work on this team because he doesn’t work on any team. Bottom line. But we traded for him, so we have to choose how we want to approach things and we need to acknowledge that if AI doesn’t want to change his style then playing a system that is designed expecting him to change his style is doomed.
4) Most of this reflects just the basic reality that these players haven’t figured out how to keep things together. And there’s nothing that can be done to change that. It’s completely on them. I personally don’t think they will fix things. They will make the playoffs get to the second round and then lose.
5) And it goes without saying, but there’s not guarantees in basketball. You can be the best team in the world and still not get the stars to align. So I try not to be harsh when I think they are playing hard, smart and up to potential but still lose. But I don’t see that. And mostly when AI is on the floor. Essentially we are playing a game of chicken: will the Pistons change or AI change. Sooner or later we will need to choose a direction.