Game#38: Epic waxing at the Garden
Posted by pistonsnation
[box score] The Pistons came into New York’s Madison Square Garden on the last leg of a four games in five nights road trip and it showed as the New York Knickerbockers Kickourbutters handed the Pistons the worst loss of the season.
Sure it’s an 82 game season and there’s bound to be let downs, but like this? It was ugly, Patrick Ewing ugly to be exact. The game had a sort of role reversal aspect to it but it wasn’t fun or kinky for the Pistons. Remember the last meetings of these two teams when Flip Murray was said it looked as if the Knicks didn’t want to compete…?
Even with all the schedule adversity the mighty Pistons have been handed this month we’re still talking about the 9 wins Knicks. The team that is more often described as a circus than a professional basketball team.
Maybe it was just New Yorks night with the Giants upsetting the Cowboys and all. Walter “Big Hands” Herrmann isn’t secretly seeing Jessica Simpson is he?
I love Isiah Thomas, he’s my boyhood idol. I want him to succeed and be able to cast away his unemployment harbingers. But not at the expense of my beloved Pistons. Can you imagine the crap we’re gonna take from the Celtics’ fans over this?
Especially after they beat these Knicks like, well, the Knicks beat us. Expect the obnoxiousness to be bumped up exponentially.
As a side note I hope the Knicks faithful didn’t fail to realize that this feel good team win came without the distraction of Stephon Marbury in the lineup. Just thought I’d add that.
The writing was on the wall from the start. The Pistons were not hitting shots and the Knicks were doing work down low going of the top of the Pistons D to Zack Randolph (25 pts, 8 rbs) and Eddy Curry exposing Detroit’s lack of big bodies.
The second quarter saw the Knicks playing a zone defense that bothered the Pistons offense that just kept on jacking up jumpers. Detroit shot 4/16 for the quarter while New York made 10 of the 19 field goals they attempted. When the game was at the half way point Detroit was shooting a dismal 32% from the floor, where New York was 48%. We were getting worked in the paint to the tune of 28 points (they finished with 40) to our mere 8. New York had 8 fast break points, we had 0. Their bench led by Nate Robinson (13 pts) and Renaldo Balkman (7 pts) was energized outscoring ours 18-2. Noticing a theme here?
Then came the third quarter. Possibly the worst Pistons’ quarter I’ve ever witnessed. The Pistons shot 4 for freaking 23! I’ve never seen so many missed jumpers. Doesn’t Flip Saunders have any pick and rolls in his famed complex playbook? This while Jamal Crawford scored all 15 of his points for the Knicks. The Knicks ended up outscoring the Pistons by 28-10 (lowest scoring Pistons 3rd quarter in history) in the quarter and their lead got up to 29 points.
I’ve always made the analogy with football whereas you set up the pass with the run the same way you sent up the perimeter game with your inside game. Once you establish the paint you can spread the oppositions defense for the long ball. That’s exactly what happened when Jamal Crawford was nailing those threes in the third after the Knicks had worked the Pistons over in the paint for a half. The Pistons never went inside, and when your shots just aren’t falling there’s nothing to fall back onto.
At this point the only thing that would have saved the Pistons would have been a couple circa 1984 Isiah Thomas Vs. the Knicks 16 points in 94 seconds performances.
The fourth was garbage time. If you’re one of the Pistons fans yearning to see more Amir Johnson you got your wish in the fourth quarter. Amir (8 pts) ended up being the hero of the game. He kept the Pistons from lowest point total futility when he converted the free throw on an and-1 dunk with 13.4 seconds to play. Now at 65 points (to a team that allows 102 ppg no less) this game is only the second lowest scoring output by a Pistons team. YESSS! The low of 64 was done twice if you were wondering. Once in 2005 (that actually came in a win), and in 1999.
The Pistons shot a season low 30.7% for the game, Which included 2/15 from beyond the arc. Only 9 assists in this one which makes sense because the shots have to fall for the assists to count. Tayshaun Prince and Jarvis Hayes were especially odious with a couple of 0′fer performances, 0/10 and 0/5 respectably. Rip Hamilton went 1/7 scoring a season low 3 points.
“We got our ass kicked – Flip Saunders”
This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 10:14 am and is filed under Game recap, Knicks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
