The season of strange starting lineups continued tonight, as the Raptors traveled to Detroit to face off against the Pistons who were in the middle of a 3 game losing streak. The Pistons 4 oldest players started (with Monroe), and used a 38 point 1st quarter to jump out to a huge lead to overtake the reeling Raptors ballclub.
3 players for the Pistons carried the scoring load – Hamilton with 24, Prince with 22 and Greg Monroe with 21 to go along with 10 rebounds. It was clear the Pistons were going to pull this one out from the jump, their cuts were sharp, and their jumpshots were falling.
Rodney Stuckey came off the bench and had 14 assists to go along with 3 points (all from the free throw line) and Ben Gordon scored 6 points in 13 minutes.
- These St. Patrick’s Day uniforms have got to go – the Raptors uniforms are hideous
- Former Piston great Amir Johnson missed the game with an ankle 🙁
- The Raptors do have a pretty impressive group of youngsters who have been playing well of late – Andrea Bargnani, the most recognizable name from the bunch lead the Raps in scoring with 20 points
- Ed Davis, who a lot of Pistons expert writers were saying the Pistons would draft in this past year’s draft, was outmatched by Greg Monroe in the paint and on the boards
- 2 DNPs tonight for Detroit – Will Bynum and Jason Maxiell
- Richard Hamilton with a Pistons team high +15 on the night
- Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva played 13 minutes each – lowest minute total of all players
- The “Brazilian Blur” Leandro Barbosa filled up the cup for 18 points in 26 minutes off the bench for the Raptors
- 15,166 reportedly in attendance – the arena looked emptier than that
- Toronto was able to narrow the lead to 6 – and Detroit lead by as many as 20
- Rodney Stuckey had a career low in shot attempts tonight with 1 to go along with 14 assists. This honestly looked to me like one of those Kobe Bryant games where he tries to prove he’s not a ballhog and can be a distributor the team needs
- Hamilton, who averages 17.6 points a night against the Raptors, scored 24 points
- Recap via Pistons.com
[flashvideo file=http://nba.cdn.turner.com/nba/big/teams/pistons/2011/03/16/RAPTORSRECAPforwebmov-1595750.flv /]
The good thing about this win: the Pistons won. The bad thing, if there is a bad thing about winning: they’re now 6 games up on the Raptors in the Eastern Conference and they’re lined up with 6th-7th pick slot in the lottery.
Up next for the Pistons, Landry Fields brings his pals Jared Jeffries and Ronny Turiaf to the Palace on Friday when the Knicks go up against the Pistons. Pistons fan favorite Chauncey Billups will make his first appearance in a Knicks uniform on the Palace floor, so that should be exciting. Since Billups will be back in Detroit Friday, I’m sure we’ll be able to continue discussing what things would be like if we hadn’t have traded Billups 2 years ago, so there’s that…
If you’re looking for some interesting reading between now and then, check out the riveting discussion going on at Piston Powered with several of your favorite Pistons writers – N4S favorite Dave Hogg, N4S creator Natalie Sitto, DetroitBadBoys Brian Packey and Kevin Sawyer, MLive’s Justin Rogers, PP writers Dan Feldman and Patrick Hayes, and 2 guys who don’t believe other sports exist during the NBA season, then you need to make your way over there. Today they discussed whether or not Rodney Stuckey should be re-signed and in previous days they discussed Joe Dumars’ future and whether or not the team was on a treadmill of mediocrity.
former pistons great amir johnson??? i hope your joking
For real.Bill lambier was a great, not Amir. Is this a bad joke
I remember Amir as being great at fouling, but that’s about it.
They won because the starting lineup actually made sense.
unfortunately, its just costing us ping pong balls.
In what universe does that starting line up make sense. Hamilton played his way out of the starting line up and is no better at this point in his career as off the bench offense. His D last night was horrible only covered up by the fact that Toronto isn’t very good on O and can’t play a lick of defense. Big Ben back in the starting lineup certainly makes sense because he is well rested and I guess Prince, Hamilton and McGrady work well together because they all like to go sloooow, although that puts them out pace with the rest of the team. On the other hand, none of them should factor into the Pistons long term plans (although McGrady would be nice to keep) and as you note, what’s the point of winning. Which reminds me. Last year when everyone was moaning and bitching about the late season winning streak, it was because Jerebko,, Daye and Summers (and to a lesser degree Bynum) were the ones doing the winning. I’d like to see more of that before the end of this season.
I was sitting here eating my Lucky Charms this morning thinking about how nice it would be to have Rasheed Wallace as one of our assistant coaches. Wouldn’t that be a fine idea my lads?
I’d go to games if Laimbeer/Sheed were at the helm.
stuckkkkkkk thats how you get them dimes my friend. still wish the d was better but cant complain too much about winning
Wow, first Amir Johnson “Pistons great”, then Landry Fields, Jared Jeffries and Ronny Turiaf?? Really? So Amar’e and Melo are chopped liver, I guess?
obviously you missed my Miami Heat game preview from earlier in the season when I talked about the Heat without naming any of the “new Big 3”. If this were a New York Knicks blog, I’d name the team’s big named players.
someone here needs a lesson on sarcasm. LOL
the only reason they won is because the raptors are TURRIBLE even worse than the pistons
we dont get another win til cleveland end the season hmm let me count it 5 more wins wizards, cleveland teams worse than us, ending up actually we’ll probably randomly get a win vs miami at the end of the season as they rest wade bosh & lebron, make it 6 wins so we end up
30-52
3 wins better than last year, but still ready for our #7 lotto pick, still the softest team in the NBA, still very long and nonathletic, still slow with the matador defense
think about this last year everyone was injured and this year everyone (except jerebko) is healthy and that earns us 3 extra wins.
The dysfunctional of this team is not the cause of the lack of wins this team only became dysfunctional when everyone figured out no lineup change, no amount of effort, nothing would make this team win, so after the all star break, for both the fans and the players all we got left is who to point the finger at to blame for this mess.
Who to blame? Joe Dumars. You recruited the softest team in the NBA congratulations.
Unlike everyone else i am perfectly happy with our offense, we dont really need more production on offense from our bigs, we dont need a better point guard we dont need ben gordon to shoot better, in fact we are one of the best shooting 3 point teams in the NBA we can shoot the ball, we can drive to the basket, we can pass (at times), there is nothing wrong with our offense.
We just cant stop anyone. We can lose after racking up a 30 point deficit but if the other team gets just a little bit ahead of us, they can shut us down because their defense is always better, always.
well said, i agree.
I looked at the end of the schedule for the Pistons and, honestly, the last 6 games all look winnable, I could see the Pistons winning at least 4 of their last 6 of the season (I say that because the Pistons face the Bobcats and the 76’ers on the road, and both those teams will probably be fighting for a playoff spot at that point).
Better to have some dignity than tank on purpose, don’t want a team with a losing attitude.
milwaukee and especially philly are all better than us.
we can beat charlotte, new jersey, cleveland and washington.
trust me the players are definitely just “going through the motions” there is absolutely no intensity in their game right now.
The pistons are like a club boxer who gets knocked down and is listening to the ref count from 1 to 10, thinking “I dont need to get beat up” and just doesnt come up off his knee.
you play the pistons a little bit hard, they will give up, they have done it ALL SEASON. for what POSSIBLE REASON could they change???
They are what they have been all year.
that said, now I dont want to rush jerebko, but i surely would love to see him play some at the end of the season.