The 25-40 #Pistons will host the 48-17 Eastern Conference leading Indiana Pacers Saturday night at the Palace of Auburn Hills. The Pacers, who had lost four straight before taking down Boston and Philadelphia, come into the Palace with a good change to make it three in a row to the Pistons who have lost 11 of their last 14 games.
The Pacers have won three straight road meetings with the Pistons. Detroit’s last home win over Indiana came in 96-88 victory on Dec. 31, 2011.
The good: Despite the fact that Indian sits atop the Easter Conference, the Pistons have beat the Pacers once this season.
The bad: As each game goes by the Pistons chances of sneaking into the playoffs are fading as is the chance that they’ll keep their lottery pick. Detroit hasn’t won a regular-season series against Indiana since 2007-08.
The unknown: Josh Smith is averaging 20.8 points in 20 meetings against the Pacers since 2007-08, his highest mark against any team during that time. Can he lead the Pistons to victory against a team he has so much success against?
Pistons: Chauncey Billups and Josh Harrellson are out. Peyton Siva is day-to-day.
Pacers: C.J. Watson is doubtful.
Suit don’t lie – Great piece on Sheed and his coaching!
Stat: The Pistons rank first in the NBA in points in the paint per game with 52.6 and third in the NBA in fastbreak points per game with 18.0.
Tip off is at 7:30 pm and will be broadcast on Fox Sports Detroit . If you can’t catch the game on TV, catch it on the radio over at 97.1 The Ticket.
both teams played hard. The sad part about dre’s injury is that we are going to be better with Josh at PF now even though we don’t even have our best player. Any casual fan can tell you that Josh is horrible at small forward. We have the 8th pick right now but don’t count on us keeping it despite our tough schedule. It would be nice to see Loyler keep his job to start the next season if only because it is really hard on the players to put coaches on a merry go round. Why listen to a coach that is going to be gone in a year?
as ugly as it is, the conditions are ripe for the tanking. the pistons dodged a bullet last night. the last thing this team needs to do right now is make the playoffs and lose their 1rst round pick. we can hopefully start off on the right foot next season, with a new coach (george karl would be nice), a new front office (bbbbillups :-P) a lottery pick in a reportedly loaded draft (check), and money to burn (smartly). they need a coach that can maximize the bigs, as cheeks was clueless in that department. unfortunately trading moose is looking like the smartest business move, though i’d personally would rather trade smith if that were possible. this offseason has the potential to be one of the biggest in franchise history.