[Box score] Having 3 days rest had the Pistons looking more energized than they did against Cleveland but that isn’t saying too much. The Pistons stayed in striking distance the whole night but were never able to sustain a run to grab control of the game. One reason for this as Tayshuan explained is that the Pistons did not run their normal offense:
“It’s not a concern, because we didn’t even run our normal plays,” Prince said. “We were running stuff just to get some movement, so guys weren’t just standing around. Usually when it gets to crucial situations we go back to our bread and butter, but we didn’t run any of our normal plays.”
Whatever they were running didn’t resemble winning basketball. You have to be able to get inside and score. Washington understood that scoring 50 of their 95 points in the paint, while the Pistons only tallied 20 down low. Atawn Jamison, Brendan Haywood, and Darius Songaila got the better of the Piston’s bigs. The three combined for 50 points helping Washington to 53% shooting on the night.
Another factor was probably that the Wizards still have playoff positioning to play for where as the Pistons are comofortably in the 2 slot. So they’re tinkering with things in preparation for the post-season.
Speaking of Brendan Haywood, I realized while watching this game that he’s beginning to harness what I like to refer to as the “Patrick Ewing O2 Advantage”. Through the utilization of his obtuse nostril passages he’s able to take in more oxygen, even to the point where he’s stealing his opponents oxygen. P-Ewing carved out a pretty nice career for himself doing it. If it’s not in the rule book than I guess it’s technically not cheating.
Whether it was lack of oxygen or otherwise Rasheed had a tough night with the officiating crew. Wallace saw limited first half action because of foul woes. In the third he tried to spark what looked like it might be a Pistons run hitting some 3 triples to pull the Pistons within a couple of baskets but the Pistons just could never collectively get into a rhythm. Those 3 triples turned out to be the only field goals Sheed connected on for the night going 3/12 for 11 points in 27 minutes.
Rasheed’s night was capped of by getting his 11th tech on the season when he kind of shrugged Andray Blatche off of him after a foul call. Try to guess the bologna baloney-masked explative:
“He gave me a tech saying I shucked him,” Wallace said. “So I knew that was some (baloney).”
Antonio McDyess was again big on the glass with 14 but was the only starter not scoring in double figures (7). Rip Hamilton led the Pistons with 19 points . Tayshaun was the most consistent of the this jump shooting band. Tay went 6/10 for 13 points. Chauncey Billups collected an 11 point, 11 assist double-double.
Bench play: Amir Johnson came in early when Sheed was in foul trouble to keep length on Washington, and like usual made the most of his minutes with his hustle and energy. He probably earned more than the 6 minutes he was alloted in the game.
Jarvis Hayes cooled down a bit facing the team that made him a lottery pick. Jarvis scored 7 on 3/9 shooting. The other former Wizard on the Zoo Crew (and new daddy), Juan Dixon, did not enter the game.
The Pistons bench actually outscored the Wizards bench 22-20.
NOTES: An interesting stat from the night was the Pistons 24 assists, which is 70% of their field goals. That means they were sharing, just not scoring enough. It’s a good thing that they didn’t get another assists because it would have ruined the whole stat where we’re unbeatable when getting 25 or more assists in a game…Gilbert Arenas was unhappy with not being cleared to play against the Pistons…
The Pistons played the Suns a month ago just three games into the Shaquille O’Neal era and at that time it was looking like Steve Kerr made a Shaq-sized blunder in his young GM career trading for the Diesel, especially at today’s prices (you catch that “gas costs a lot” pun?). The Pistons embarrassed the Suns in their own gym by 30, on national TV no less.
