Need4Sheed Guest Writer:Rashid S. Umar
After getting off to a great start early for the second straight night on the West Coast Trip, The Pistons eventually stumble and fall to the Clippers in LA 97-91, halting Detroit’s modest two-game winning streak. Tayshaun Prince followed Tuesday night’s great performance with another gem of 17 points, 10 rebounds, and 4 assists. Rip Hamilton led the team with 21 points on 8-21 shooting.
Detroit led by as many as 12 in the first half and eight at the break. The second half saw Clipper-newcomer Drew Gooden and Chris Kaman continue to exploit the Pistons’ lack of size upfront as they combined for 41 points and 28 rebounds. Los Angeles got a huge performance down the stretch from Rasual Butler, who nailed a couple of 3s off of good ball movement (or bad defensive rotation). He also had a huge block on Rodney Stuckey late in the game.
Key points of the night:
- Being that I live in LA, I decided to take this one in. You’d be surprised at how many die-hard Clipper fans are here in “Lakerland”.
- For the second straight game, Detroit was outscored by at least double digits in the fourth quarter.
- Rip Hamilton missed six free throws (including 3 straight with seconds to go that would have brought the team within a point) snapping his streak of 51 consecutive makes. Although he nearly completed a four point opportunity on a silly foul again Eric Gordon.
Photo/Getty Images
- Clippers win the season series for the first time since 2000 and only the third time in over 20 years.
- In 26 minutes, Ben Wallace didn’t score but had 10 rebounds.
- Did Ben Gordon suit up tonight? I’m just saying.
- There were a lot of Detroit fans in the house but, that’s not unusual against the Clippers.
- Another DNP-CD for Kwame Brown, this even during a game where the rebound war was lost 56-44.
- Drew Gooden has put up All-Star numbers against the Pistons this season especially in rebounds.
- If the Pistons had a legitimate low-post threat they’d be a playoff team.
- Before Rasual Butler’s late go-ahead three-pointer, the loudest cheers of the night were for a Michael Jackson look-alike in the crowd.
- Charlie Villaneuva might as well be wearing roller skates on defense. I’m sure no one would notice.
- Highlights of the Game Via NBA.com
[flashvideo file=http://nba.cdn.turner.com/nba/big/games/clippers/2010/02/24/0020900855_det_lac_recap.nba_nba_576x324.flv /]
- If it wasn’t for the logo on the court, you wouldn’t realize you were at a Clippers game at Staple Center. There is nothing but Lakers championship banner and L.A. Kings retired jerseys in the rafters. Even the WNBA team has something up.
- Kid Rock in the house.
- The road trip continues in Denver on Friday night against former Pistons Chauncey Billups and Aaron Affalo.
- I got a text from my Friend in LA who was also at the game that read “The are chanting Stukey’s – Suckey.” For real LA, that’s as original as you can get? (Natalie)
Nice write up! Thanks, Rashid.
Okay, seriously can we stop calling two wins in a row a winning streak? Just because the team is completely pathetic doesn’t mean we as fans have to grasp at straws.
I can’t believe we blew that game. So sad.
I am moving next week to a job that won’t allow me the time to blog mindlessly after sleeping in and taking in my morning exercises. The Pistons who are urgent for future work, playing healthy, is really going to be tested down this stretch. We play CLEVELAND 3 times, BOSTON 2 times (no sweat), @ Denver, Utah, @ Atlanta … We come away .500 in the next dozen games I wouldn’t consider this a failure. I agree with Rashid, with a low post presence on BOTH sides of the ball, our outside skill set is good enough for a 4, 5, or 6 seed.
Needless to say this late run is entertaining, GO DEEETROIT BASKETBALLLL
I like the way they are playing too , way more fun to watch . I like to see them hustle, go pistons!
We are definitely playing much much better. Our bench just needs to step it up though.
I hope Q is learning some valuable lessons this season, like if a team goes big on you and start showing signs of taking the game over you should at least TRY to match up with some bigs of your own. I jokingly put out the statement about a month ago that Kwame’s in the dog house because he accidentally ran over Q’s Pomeranian in the parking garage, but I’m thinking I might not be that far off because Kwame is not THAT terrible. Last season when given respectable minutes he put up respectable numbers and made big man plays. We could’ve really used some of that last night. Detroit could’ve realistically hit em with a line up like: Kwame at c, Wallace at pf, and CV or JJ or Daye at sf. Now even if you leave Stuckey at point you got the option of leaving Rip at the two but you could also slide Tay in there because in my opinion Tay was out playing Rip and making better decisions and he would be better to crash the boards. Tay could even push the point he’s done it plenty of times before and slide Austin Daye at the 2 where he started at in an earlier game and performed rather well, if you really wanted to go big. I’m saying all this just to point out that we have some viable options when a team goes big to match em up Q.
Q has coaching in the league for like 20 years, he should already know X’s and O’s, it’s ego management he should be learning.
this is a rebuilding season, just because we are playing bad doesn’t mean we are…every team of every sport goes through a rebuilding process
once a week i use a roller skate as my exercise “:~