Barely…97-94
It looked as if the worst team in the league was about to hand the Pistons their 6th loss in a row, until the Pistons went on a fourth quarter run and then this happened…
[flashvideo file=https://need4sheed.com/videos/flash_videos/feb_2_10_prince.flv /]
Video Courtesy of The Detroit Pistons and The NBA
Key Points:
- Kuester said in the press conference that play was one of three options. Nice to see that it worked. As soon as they got that Dunk down, I knew it was over.
- Huge night for Rodney Stuckey with 21 points, 9 assists, 4 boards and 2 steals with zero turnovers. Stuck make it a point to really go at Devon Harris with his strength.
- Thankfully they won this one, considering I GuaranSweded it.
- 16 Straight missed games for Will Bynum who immediately started making plays as soon as he hit the floor. Will made his first 5 shots and finished with 10 points off the bench. I knew as soon as they got Will back, he’d be an immediate spark. BYUMITE! Plus I loved the new Blue kicks.
- Rip with the alley oops are becoming a regular occurrence, this one to Maxiell was quite impressive. Remember when he used to connect with Tayshaun at least once a game? The good old days.
Video Courtesy of The Detroit Pistons and The NBA
- Watch the full video clip of the oop from Rip to Maxiell.
[flashvideo file=https://need4sheed.com/videos/flash_videos/feb_2_10_maxiell.flv /]
Video Courtesy of The Detroit Pistons and The NBA
- Maxiell is really starting to pick things up, just when most of us were about to give up on him. Jason with a 27 minute spark added 7 points off the bench for Detroit with 6 boards.
- 11 in the fourth for Richard Hamilton, who was particularly clutch in this one. Rip led the Pistons with 22 points, 7 assist and 5 boards. He was coming off screens well and when he gets his teammates involved good things happen.
- Need4Swede started the game hot for Detroit, but played just 15 total minutes on the night with6 points, 2 assists and 4 boards. Hustle night in and night out.
- Very impressed with Brook Lopez.
- Board war won lost 39-40.
- No Daye or Wilcox. Atkins and Summers inactive.
- Tayshaun showed signs of life. Prince put up 15 points with 8 boards and 2 assists.
- 46% shooting on the night for Detroit.
- Pistons biggest lead was 6 and the Nets was 7.
- Win or lose, give it up for Ben Wallace who recorded his 2000th career block. A feat that
- Defense – 10 steals on the night for Detroit.
- Ben Gordon a quiet 7 points in 14 minutes on the floor. He’s clearly not his self yet.
- This one really could have gone either way, but for a while it looked like it was going to go to New Jersey. There were 15 lead changes in this one. The fact that Lopez manhandled Detroit just show how bad we need another Big.
- 24 assists on the night for Detroit, that’s always a good sign.
- Charlie V with zero points in 8 minutes. I don’t know if it was back spasms or Jason Maxiell’s play that kept him off the floor.
- This one really could have gone either way, but for a while it looked like it was going to go to New Jersey. The fact that Lopez manhandled Detroit just show how bad we need another Big.
- Win or lose, you have bow to Ben Wallace who recorded his 2000th career block. Ben become the first player in league history shorter than 6-10 to reach 2,000.
Photo/Getty Images
- You can’t say that they are out of their season woes, but healthy and games with the Pacers and the Nets again this week could really start something good.
A win is a win and we needed one no matter who it was against. I don’t think the Nets are as bad as their record so i was happy they got up. I was worried that the guys would think this was a gimme game cause it was the Nets. I am at that stage of the season where i am forgetting the playoffs and more worrying about the score board. Yeah we will get more losses but i really just want to see improvement.
I would love to be seeing Daye play more but maybe this is a good time for him to be really looking to add some weight and muscle. I heard that he is hitting the weight room with Wallace after games so it will be interesting to see how he comes back next season. Maybe he should get some tips from Chris ‘Rupaul’ Bosh :O)
Well done Pistons!
like I said in a previous post, at least 10 – 15 straight games of consistent lineups, they could figure this all out. Hopefully though, they can turn it around and give 8th seed Miami a scare for playoff positioning. GO PISTONS!!!
Great game from the stalwarts – Rip, Tay, Ben, Stuck, even J-Max played well.
I am concerned about BG7. I’m prepared to give him as much time as he needs to get back on track because his record shows he can be much better than the level he is playing at the moment. I just think after 3 games now and a couple of practices we might be starting to show signs of a little more progress – but he should be able to get it together soon – great 3 in that last quarter.
I think Villanueva looked really stiff due to the back issues. JJ was great but had some foul problems.
Good finish to the fourth quarter.
Congrats to Big Ben!
Hopefully we get that win vs the Pacers but that won’t be easy. Then gain a little confidence, momentum, and chemistry.
I’m not thinking playoffs at all at the moment. If they made them than great, but if they don’t hopefully we get to see some good basketball from this team!
Wow,i was maybe too critical about our backcourt.Stuckey and Rip are pretty good right now!Didn’t know Rip has these passing abilities.I think right now there is a future for Rip as a Piston.Stuckey could really blossom with an athletic PF/C who can play the Pick-and-Roll.I’m talking about Patrick Patterson,Demarcus Cousins,Derrick Favors or Ed Davis.Its still a lot of work to do and a long way but: GO Pistons!
fun game to watch.I love when rip gets clutch.
Go! Pistons!
We should have blown this team out. This is an immoral victory (contra moral victory). We just gave those cats like three balls for Wall.
very very impressed with stuck and rip. i think now rip is kinda expanding his game a bit more. he is able to get more ppl invovled in the game which is what ppl like max and tay need. bynum still needs to work on d but he cant be stop from getting to the bucket. hopefully ben gordon gets it together or we can trade him. i dont think he fits too well with everyone else and the amount we are paying him will be hard to do that. trade dead line is coming up soon see how it all folds out.
Everyone talks about this Wall guys like he is the next John Stockton. You people must be blind, we have our future point guard Stuckey and he is gettin better day by day and as much as i like Ripster i dont know if he will have a future with this rebuilding team, he is still i believe in his prime and theres no reason for him not to be on a team where he can get another ring but we’ll see what happens
anyway, win is a win and we’ll take anything right now just hopefully they don come back and lay an egg against indiana
IF we have a legit center or pf who plays good def and has a post game..
I’m dam sure we’ll be contending for championships..
Just a quick opinion because it has been bothering me. I think Rodney Stuckey shoots way too much. His FG% is 40.2% for the season. He shot just over 33% last night.
Now, I don’t know if this has been written/discussed as I haven’t been following as well as I should, but any thoughts?
it’s unfortunate but rodney is forced to take a lot of shots. We brought in Ben Gordon and Charlie V so we would have instant offense but nobody told us that they can’t create their own shots. So we stuck in these situations where nobody can get an open look, and well . . . Stuckey has to do it because he can in fact make his own shot. If he didnt force those up we would be getting 24 shot violations.
Stuckey is playing great and he is being forced to carry this team because . . . well, we do suck you know.
Maybe no one told us they can’t create their own shots, but don’t you think our GM should have known that? I do. I struggle to see what he thought he was building when he signed those guys.
I hope the Pistons do just well enough to not make the playoffs yet show continued improvement and comfortability. That way we can get Derrick favors in the lottery sign a center ala Elden Cambell/Theo Ratliff you know some one to help with the dirty work, and come back next season with that huge chip on their shoulders like back in ’04.
I don’t know if I’ve ever watched a game with less defense played by both teams. I’ll take the win but man did this game seem sloppy or what?
Thanks, Edt. Thank makes some sense, but I think he could manage it better. Perhaps that like wishing it warmer in Minneapolis in January. A fruitless endeavor.
ALiVQT
This is not about playing the weakest team. The game was something that Nets would like to take. Against a sliding team so we saw them putting up a big fight. I’m not surprised how close it got but still pulling this one out in the end was a good win.
you can tell this is what is going on just looking at the stats, last year stuckey was 44% and 80% from the stripe, this year he is 40% and 83% so just looking at his free throws he is better, so why does he shoot worse from the floor? I think anyone who watches him play can tell he is a better shooter this year, the problem is no matter how bad our team was last year with the ball hog and general hot head Allen Iverson, we still had a bunch of really great vets in Antonio McDyess, and sheed and some developing young players in Afflalo and Amir Johnson.
Anyway you look at it, Stuckey has his work cut out for him this year.
Afflalo made all six of his last throws in Denver’s last win 6 for 6 while starting for the Nuggets due to injuries, Johnson had 17 quality minutes for the raptors in their win over the pacers, Sheed has been starting for the celtics recently because of Kevin Garnett being injured, McDyess has been rotated into the starting lineup for San Antonio because he’s known as a second half of the season player.
Before Chauncey Billups got traded our team was stacked, we could have fielded 2 NBA pro teams with our players. This year, partly due to injuries, partly due to just having a bunch of awful players, we don’t have enough good players to field 5 decent ballers.
ps affalo’s salary is $1m this year, sheed is $6m, mcdyess is $4.5m, Amir Johnson is $4m.
all those guys are giving their new teams great production for their salary.
I’m happy for Amir Johnson that he is doing well, but to be honest, he did not give us any of the contributions he’s giving Toronto at the moment. Sheed and McDyess would have been nice to keep one, but really to rebuild this team, we needed to get younger and give the young guys a chance to be leaders. Afflalo would have been nice to keep, but needed a bit more cap space (and guards are not where we need the upgrade)
Edt, I’m not sure how you can say we have some awful players. Who are you talking about? Villanueva? Gordon? Prince? Give the boys some time to get some confidence, chemistry and health.
Also just want to make a point about how the chemistry between Rip and Stuckey is developing. It seems like Rip sees that if he wants to remain a Piston, he won’t be the go-to-scorer, so he is showing us his playmaking abilities, but also can still score when we need him to.
Gordon won’t be traded. Dumb to do so anyway.
yeah they suck, prince, gordon, charlie v, everyone on our team sux except for Big Ben, Stuckey, Rip and Jerebko. that’s why I said we can’t even field 5 nba pros.
maybe they’ll get better some day. Maybe they won’t. Maybe Prince will heal up some day. But he has played hurt his entire career and maybe he’ll never be the same again. So yes, they suck right now, and they’ve sucked all year, and they might keep on sucking next year. Agree on Amir, we never had him produce for us, but we could have resigned him for $4m a year, and taken a chance that he would develop.
When our current roster does get better, I’ll say good things about them, but I’m not gonna say good things about players because someone sprinkled pixie dust in my eyes. Of course we can’t trade Gordon, he’s too expensive and can’t make his own shot. We are stuck with him.
The terrible thing about this team is that the pieces of our team that other teams want are Jerebko, Bynum, and Stuckey, everyone else is stuck in a 5 year over priced contract, too old, too hurt, or all three.
Sorry to be such a debbie downer, I’m just trying to get this out of the way so the next time we get on a losing streak it doesn’t break my heart.
Sorry that’s right Prince has just had that stupid back injury and knee injury, but he should be able to defend like Dwight Howard even still. You say they suck, but you haven’t given them any time to prove what they have! Villanueva has had consistency problems, but he’s on a brand new team that doesn’t have much confidence, give him some time! You say Gordon can’t create his own shot? Did you see the Celtics v Bulls last year? Did you see Gordon carry that Bulls team by constantly creating his own shot and knocking down the shots?
I agree that JJ, Big Ben, Stuckey, and Rip are our best performers currently, but I’m not expecting a championship team this year. Give them some time to get healthy, get to their best and get some chemistry.
Oh and Gordon won’t get traded because it is a very dangerous precedent to trade away newly signed free agents in their first year. Would give a bad reputation to prospective free agents. Joe D won’t make any trades until he sees what he has currently got, so he knows what he has to improve and what he can(or has to) part with.
I know it’s too bad that injuries hurt your career. For instance, Yao Ming should be the best center in the NBA right now, except he isn’t and he has missed 50% of his games for the last five years. Grant Hill should have been an all star for detroit in 2004 instead of Ben Wallace but you know what? His ankles were ruined and Joe D cut him lose. I’d like to make an exception for injuries but in the NBA nobody will call a time out so you can heal up.
No one on the Pistons is expecting a “sympathy vote.” They might appreciate a little patience from their fans though.
Fans in Detroit have exhausted their patience on the Lions – not fair maybe but true. This is the team that Joe built – for better or worse. He was the executive of the decade for the naughts. This decade he may be just naught.
I don’t think this team ever really gave Amir the chances he needed. He was jerked in and out of the lineup, given inconsistent playing time, they never ran plays for him, he was battling 4 other bigs for minutes on a contender… dude is still only 22, I don’t know what the organization realistically expected from him. I’m not saying the guy is going to be a star or anything, but clearly when given burn the guy can contribute. He’s still having problems with fouls, but I always thought that was because he was so aggressive. I’d rather have Amir then Wilcox this season.
Sources are reporting that the pistons could be moving to pittsburgh! = 0
PLEASE DONT LET THIS BE TRUE!
I say we all make a proposal to Kid Rock and Eminem
http://www.freep.com/article/20100123/COL08/1230314/The-Pittsburgh-Pistons?-It\-s-not-that-far-fetched
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/morning-jolt/02/04/pistons.cowher/index.html?xid=si_topstories
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10035/1033328-53.stm
Agree Jesse. The problem with amir is that we had a below average coach with flip saunders who had incredible talent but couldn’t do anything with it, and then a horrible coach with Michael Curry, who wasn’t able to control the team at all, and because Curry mismanaged Amir, he never got the proper development, and we ended up trading a young strong player.
I’m not trying to point fingers, just explaining what happened. But it is Curry’s fault.
by the way when joe d fired curry I thought it wasn’t that smart because we have a young team and does the coach matter that much good or bad? But now I understand if you have a bad coach on a young team the players won’t develop properly.
Edt, I agree with most of what you said.
I think Gordon and Villanueva were just the wrong move. Overpriced (especially Ben) and way too flawed (both).
And nobody is gonna take them via trade.
Well, maybe the Celtics would get Gordon when they lose Allen, but that’s a huge ‘if’.
It wouldn’t make sense to trade CV or BG. They are both young scorers who will only get better. Yeah, yeah I heard all the no defense crap before but when the pistons had the number one defense they would go on these huge scoring droughts and lose critical games in the playoffs! We needed scoring flat out. This season has been an uncommon one with the injuries. It has prevented this team from gaining much chemistry or even familiarity with each others games. Even now with BG coming back you get CV hampered with back problems. IT looks as though we will get a full roster finally half way through the season so it will be interesting to finally see what Joe had envisioned for this year. It’s kind of funny to hear people say guys like Amir, Delfino, and Afflolo weren’t given enough time to develop here and yet want to trade Ben, and Charlie after less than 1/2 a season. There is a reason those guys are gone and not making much money, INCONSISTENCY. Ben Gordan and Charlie “Villain”ueva are and will be Pistons for years to come so go buy their jerseys and get used to it.
I’m looking at the salaries right now Ben Gordon $10 million, Turkoglu, $9 million, Paul Millsap $7.7 million, Lamar Odom $7.5 million, David Lee, $7 million, charlie Villaneuva, $6.5 million, Varejao $6.4 million, Rasheed Wallace $5.9 million, Trevor Ariza $5.9 million, Greg Oden $5.4 million.
Sure I understand. We aren’t paying starter salaries because they can actually start, but because they show promise.
No sir, they are getting starter salaries because they are bonafied scorers who could have started for many teams. Just look at your list; they are better than flip flopping Varejao, piss poor Paul Millsap, Greg “mister glass” Oden, Lamar “baby game” Kardashian, Rasheed ” Need2Leave” Wallace, old man Turkey flu, and Trevor “finally averaging double digits after 5 seasons” Ariza (he’s straight though). I’ll kinda give you David Lee. I say kinda because every one who knows hoops knows he’s the steal of the league. and to all those ” Why didn’t Joe go for David Lee” fans, no one bothered because they all knew the Knicks would’ve just matched.
No we are paying them 30-35 minute a game salaries(starting is irrelevant) for their future here at the Pistons expeccting them to develop into better players. Did you really expect them to be playing the best of their careers within a few injury disrupted months? Your expectations are way too high.
terry i have to disagree with you becuase afflalo was and is a very talented player we did not give him any minutes. him and stuck would have been a great backcourt duo but with afflalo at pg and stuck at sg. i was very surprised joed let him go for nothing in return (draft pick?) at least he got to go play with chauncey now denver loces us for giving them there starting backcourt for virtually nothing.
I actually kinda liked Apollo myself, but I think I remember him getting pretty good minutes in stretches but his game was kinda rocky. At any rate I’ll take a over paid consistent Ben Gordan over a dirt cheap sometimey Aaron Afflolo. If you look at reasons why Denver won’t win a championship you have to look at Aaron being in a starting back court. I don’t now, nor probably ever will like the idea of getting rid of Billups. It should’ve been Rip.
bg and cv31 will get better, at least to there usual playing ability. injury woes and a new team plays a factor also. they wont be huge superstars, ever. but they will be very consistent cogs in a greater machine. as soon as we get the rest of the pparts (center) and also developed youngsters
Very well put, Junior.
And Terry, I remember the same thing about Amir Johnson last year, he was give starters minutes, albeit under Michael Curry, and did nothing. I said before, I’m happy for Amir, but for whatever reason, he certainly was not doing what he is doing for Toronto here.
lol @ Need2Leave
My expectations are pretty low. I see us losing 60% of the rest of our games this season with everyone healthy, ending the season with 30 wins, which will put us 5th from last place ahead of the Nets, Wolves, Golden State and Wizards.
The lakers will win this year unless Kobe gets run over by a bus, which will give Phil Jackson his 2nd victory on a way to a three peat. 2011 year will be another year of struggle for the pistons, and nobody knows where LeBron, Bosh and Wade will end up. We know ‘melo will stay in Denver because he’s in a great situation, but there’s a possibility Lebron & Wade might all end up in Miami forming a voltron to take down the lakers. Oh, and Darko will still be sitting on the couch at home, eating cheetos and watching tv.
We’ll pick up a young strong power forward, 2010 is a deep year, so we will get someone good no matter how the lottery goes, probably cousins or patrick patterson from UK, but 2011 will be another struggle because we aren’t missing just one little piece of the puzzle, there’s a lot of pieces missing, especially if Ben Wallace retires.
Right now we have one of the 5 worst defensive teams in the NBA. We play at the slowest pace in the NBA even slower than the plodding but methodical the Spurs.
2012-2013 is when we turn it around and make another run.
We suck still!!!! And will probably suck for the next couple of years….
I hope we are good by 2012-13, I just have no clue what Joe’s plan is, I sometimes wonder if he has one at all. The moves he makes at the deadline, during the draft and over this summer are HUGE for the future, and could dictate the franchise’s sucsess for years to come. Supposedly, Joe wants talnet back (not expriings) for Tay and Rip. Supposedly, he also turned down a Boozer for Prince deal….WTF?
If we don’t win the lottery, and Wall isn’t an option, then it has to be Cousins….. HAS TO BE. I just hope Joe doesn’t overlook him because of the character issues.
Boozer wanted 80 mill. Joe might of blew his load quick but he didn’t want to blow it all at once. In the offseason the only teams that Booz mentioned as wanting to go to were the teams with the most cap space (ie. New Jersey and Detroit) cause he wanted to rape them. He’s trying to get that last big payday before the knees go out again. Cousins would be the shizzle, but if not him then Derrick Favors, that kid is a monster. I’d take either one of those guys over Wall, not because they’re better or anything but Detroit hasn’t had a real post presence since Memo, and guards are always a lot easier to come by. If we’re going young then I’d like them to get here while Big Ben is still playing. I mean it wouldn’t be like taking Darko over Melo, Cousins and Favors both know how to bring it.
Nets, Wolves, Golden State and Wizards = john wall, evan turner, wesley johnson and derrick favors.
Unless one of those teams picks donatas motiejunas we will get cousins, not favors
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