The Pistons looked like a fresh new team Friday night on the road against Memphis. They put themselves in a place to win their second game of the season on the road against a Grizzlie team that haven’t beaten in quite some time.
Something happened that we aren’t used to seeing, Chauncey Billups on the line with 52 seconds left in the game and he missed one. That would have put the Pistons up five and probably put the game away. He also had a chance to win it in regulation, but his three just missed. Instead Memphis dominated in overtime topping the Pistons 111-108.
Key Points:
- I’m the first one to sit here and tell you I feel like Rodney Stuckey is a huge disappointment, but he came out in his first game of the season like gangbusters. In fact if it weren’t for his strong play coming off the bench the Pistons may not have even been in the position to win this game. Rodney scored 19 points in 23 minutes on 8-for-13 shooting and was a +14 in the box. I hope Rodney proves me wrong this season.
- Loved the stare down by Drummond on Miller after this dunk
[flashvideo file=http://nba.cdn.turner.com/nba/big/games/grizzlies/2013/11/01/0021300026-det-mem-play4.nba_nba_576x324.flv /]
Video courtesy of NBA.com
- Detroit was close to putting it away and even closer when Josh Smith hit a triple to pout them up by six with a little over a minute left in the game. For every 47 ill advised triples Smith takes, he makes one big one. He was 3-for-11 from downtown. Smith took more threes than the entire Pistons team combined.
- This was a balanced game with all starters in double figures except Billups as well as Caldwell-Pope, Singler and Stuckey off the bench.
- Great game from Caldwell-Pope, who finished with 13 points in 18 minutes most of which were in crunch time. His breakaway dunk in the fourth quarter rivaled one of Andre Drummond.
- Im ok with CV31 being inactive.
- Clearly Detroit needs to tighten up on the defensive end. They allowed a ton of easy baskets.
- Greg Monroe was great again scoring 16 with eight boards and three steals. His scrappy play in all of his 41 minutes on the floor shows you that he does whatever it takes to win a game.
- Smith finished with 19 points, five assists, eight boards and three blocked shots. He and Andre are going to make this team hard to dunk on.
Chauncey Billups: “I loved it,” he said. “We fought hard. We fought really hard. That’s a tough team over there. Western Conference finals last year, got some great players over there. So I was impressed. I learned a lot about our team today.”
- When the Pistons got themselves up in the fourth quarter it was Monroe, Drummond and Caldwell-Pope who were turning heads and making plays.
- Old friend Tayshaun Prince helped Memphis put this game away with 2 big shots.
- Andre Drummond looks better every single game. He stayed out of foul trouble and put up 12 points with 16 boards. Yes…16! Add the two blocked shots and some swagger and you have a bright star in this league.
- Celtics Sunday at The Palace Of Auburn Hills.
Tough loss against a good playoff team. We saw something last night that will hopefully happen a lot in the future, which was a double double by Dre and a 3 point shot made by KCP. Chauncey did not have a good game but Stuckey playing his first game after his injury had a very good game. We need Jennings back ASAP.