I made mention of this in the recap, Sheed clowning around with the Sixers huddle with the game on the line. I can’t say Sheed didn’t buy himself some slack with his performance (first half at least), but not this much. Could you imagine Bill Laimbeer doing this? No.

He could have at least have been trying to see what the Sixers plan to do to stop the ‘Stonz, but nah, this is funny because I’m not supposed to be here tee-hee.

Photos credits: Detroit News

I know it’s “all love” and there’s no real animosity towards the Sixers, but damn, this is the playoffs! Ok, Sheed loves Mo Cheeks and has mad respect for his home team’s grittiness, but c’mon. Isiah and Magic were tidy bowl during the season and at All-Star games but nearly came to blows in the Finals (that pretty much ended their cutesy friendship).

If Sheed and Co. really wants to do this thing right it’s HAS TO BE us vs. them from the first tip to hoisting of the O’Brien. Period.

Continue Reading »

Photo by Allen Einstein/NBAE via Getty Images

Sixers 4 guidos pin points what led the 76ers past the ‘Stonz:

Reasons for the win? I would say Sixers’ trademark “Never give up attitude”, that kept us playing hard even when the game was apparently slipping out of our hands, balls showed by many players that stepped up in different moments, as usual: not only Evans, my MVP, but also an excellent Willie Green (yes, I wrote it…) + Andre Miller who scored 9 points in the final quarter, providing veteran leadership when we needed the most.

The Piston Post stresses the importance of Detroit being victorious Wednesday:

Maybe next time, right? More like definitely next time. We’ve been in this situation so many times before, it hurts my head to think about it. You don’t even need to have faith in the Pistons to be certain they’ll win Game 2. However, if they do drop Game 2, they’re in deep #$%&.

The World of Isaac says to lay off Philip:

I’m really getting sick of people using Flip Saunders as the scapegoat for every single Pistons loss. In most peoples minds, you’d think that the Piston players haven’t lost a game since the George Irvine era.

Need4Sheed is in a state of consternation over the lack of Miggidy-miggidy McDyess:

Where the hell was Dyess in the second half? I know Maxiell was a monster, but 20 minutes for Dyess all night is questionable. It’s not like he put up a stinker in the first half either. Same goes for Thad Young for the Sixers, he was killing us in the first quarter but I can’t remember even seeing him in the second half.

Depressed Fan wants more respect for his team:

First, not surprisingly, the experts aren’t really giving the Sixers any credit for this win. The prevailing knowledge seems to be that the Pistons took the Sixers too lightly, and let the Sixers hang around when they could’ve put them away. I might buy that if the game was within 5 or 6 points the entire night, but the Sixers were down by 15 late in the third. The Pistons put their foot on the gas in the second half, the Sixers took their best shot and fired right back.

Ball Don’t Lie sees a disturbing trend that wasn’t supposed to be present in this years team (so says Joe D):

But all the signs are there. They were there while the Pistons were trashing the Bucks in the first round back in 2006. They were around even as Orlando barely gave Detroit a problem in the first round last year. The results barely matter - but the attitude and style of play does. Something within the Pistons was lacking even in those two first round wins, and whatever it was revealed itself as they lost in the conference finals both years.

D. Lippitt/Einstein/NBAE via Getty Images

Didn’t really expect this outcome. I think after the Herculean efforts in the Saturday games I was expecting our guys to come out and really send a message to the rest of the league that the real season has begun. But that didn’t quite happen.

Looking back we should have expected this type of game. We had four just like it in the regular season. That’s what happens when you pit two of the top ten stingiest defenses in the league up against one another.

FIRST HALF:
The Sixers didn’t hesitate to go to what works for them right from the outset. They were getting their hands in the passing lanes and crashing the offensive boards (the Sixers finished #2 in the league on the offensive glass). Philly was getting points in the paint early. Sixteen of their twenty-two first quarter points came in the lane.

The Pistons started to wake up once Jason Maxiell got into the game. Maxy made an immediate impact with a quick block, offensive board, kick-out assist sequence. Maxy’s energy helped spark a 13-2 Pistons run to end the first quarter. By the time the first half had come to a close Maxiell had 9 boards and 10 points on 5/7 shooting in just 12 minutes. Me and a friend were texting back and fourth while Maxy was doing his thing and I was so pumped by Maxy’s energy and imapct that I told my friend I’d like to have Maxy’s baby just so he could eat it. Jason finished the game with 12 points and 11 boards.

Allen Einstein/NBAE via Getty Images

The second quarter was pretty good for our guys. They (Rasheed mostly) shut down the paint. The Sixers were held to 23% from the field in the quarter and 33% for the half.

The Pistons front court was getting down in the first half. They combined for 35 points led by Rasheed’s 15. Rasheed also had 6 boards and 5 swats. Meanwhile the backcourt of Rip and Chauncey combined for only 13 points with only 2 of those points belonging to Billups on a lone shot attempt. Didn’t know it at the time, but the lack of production from those two would be one of the stories of the game.

The Pistons held the Sixers to 16 second quarter points for a 51-38 half time lead.

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To culture ourselves to the other guys I lobbed a six pack of questions over to Ricky from Sixers 4 guidos. Ricky is a long time Philadelphia 76ers fan blogging from across the Atlantic, Genova Italy to be exact. There’s a few questions you’d expect to see in a preview and others to keep it fun. Enjoy, and grazie Ricky!

1) No one point no one is picking the 76ers to beat the Pistons in this series. What do the Sixers have to do to keep their overachieving streak alive and advance to the second round?

I am very passionate about my team but I tend do be realistic and I think I know enough basketball to realize that Sixers have ZERO chances to advance to the second round.

It’s general consensus that Sixers already overachieved by making it to the post season (and I am in this group, I predicted 31 wins at the beginning of the season, while many “experts” picked Sixers to finish from last to second last in the Conference) so everything that will eventually come is a plus.

To put is simply, Pistons are a bad match for us, they are deep, experienced, with no weak points, and play slow tempo. In order to win some games (no more than 2, IMO) Sixers need to defend strongly on the perimeter, something we struggled all year, knock down some outside shots (see above, dead last in the NBA in 3pt percentage).

I’m afraid Pistons won’t allow us to run much, and playing in half court offense will expose our weaknesses.

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Game 1 of the Pistons/76ers first round series is tonight at 6 pm est from the Palace of Auburn Hills. Local viewers can tune into FSN Detroit to catch the action, for everyone else there’s TNT.

(AP Photo/H. Rumph, Jr., File)

Well, here we are. The NBA Playoffs have officially begun. The Pistons stayed focused and ended with a very respectable 59 wins and a #2 seed. The regulars seem hungrier than they’ve been since perhaps 2004 and they’ve developed a very formidable bench to keep pace when the first group needs a breather.

All the preseason objectives have been addressed and accomplished. Now it’s time to go out and compete the the championship.

Up first are the young and athletic 76ers. They’ve overachieved just to get into the playoffs. Now the odds are really catching up with them.

It’ll be important for the Pistons to jump on Philly early tonight and really assert themselves. The 76ers are going to want to force turnovers and try to run on us, that’s how they’ve been most successful against the Pistons this season. It’s imperative for the Pistons to control tempo and take care of the ball. Afford the Sixers no confidence by way of them stealing one at the Palace.

All the Pistons have to do is respect the Sixers and take care of business and they should be waiting for a second round opponent.

Yo Adriannnnn! Reggie Evans keeps it Philly comparing the Pistons to a ROCKY mountain in front of them.

Reggie Evans says the 76ers have, “like a Rocky Mountain in front of us.” “That Rocky Mountain is the Detroit Pistons,” the Sixers power forward said after practice yesterday at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. “We’ve got to find a way to climb to the top, get over the top.” - Philly.com

David Stern bucking for some free cheese steaks?

“I’m looking forward to seeing how Philadelphia does in the playoffs,” Stern said in his pre-postseason news conference. “It’s been a spectacular story for us.”

Spectacular story? The 40-42 76ers? Really?

Stern brought up his affinity for the 76ers three times during the interview. - Detroit News

Steve ‘Snapper’ Jones points to the Zoo Crew for why the ‘Stonz will be in the Finals

In contrast to Detroit, Boston has a bench that is an unknown quantity, especially in regards as to how the Celtics’ reserves will perform under playoff pressure. For most of the season, Boston’s bench has not been the factor it needs to be for the Celtics to win the conference championship. I don’t see that changing in the playoffs. - NBC Sports

Andre Iguodala doing a little strategic Pistons stroking. Don’t fall for it Pistons!

“I think Detroit is the best team in the East by far. Boston, they’re having a really good year, you can’t take anything away from them. But Detroit is the only team I’ve ever played against at any level that can turn it off and turn it on within, like, one possession.” - Detroit News

…but he’ll remain with the Knicks in an unnamed role.  Makes sense.  They owe him a lot of money still.

“I can’t really tell you where he failed with the club. I think that we reached a point this season when our team didn’t compete for a long time,” new team president Donnie Walsh said. “The bottom line is that we haven’t won and the team didn’t look like it was motivated to try to win and be competitive.”

Walsh said that isn’t always the coach’s fault, but Thomas is blamed for enough already — sometimes unfairly, Walsh added.

“I feel like some of the bigger events that happened on the way with Isiah have overshadowed some of the good things he’s done for the franchise,” Walsh said.

Walsh said no player brought up Thomas’ name during their exit meetings Thursday, though Walsh said he wasn’t going to be asking for it, anyway.

Thomas, the coach for two seasons, will remain with the organization in an unnamed role, reporting directly to Walsh, who said he informed Thomas of the decision Friday. (Via ESPN)

If I had to guess it’d be in some sort of scouting capacity.  Zeke’s a pretty good judge of talent, just not so much on character.

Thanks to PN reader, Chris, for pointing this Tube out to me. The dude who hits Vinnie (hopefully not Johnson) on the head with the shovel in this TVBoss.org commercial bears a striking resemblance to Philip Saunders. Remember our other Piston tv commercial separated at birth?


In the newest issue of SLAM magazine (#118 with D. Howard on the cover) Vincent Goodwill has written a very good article on the prodigious enigma that is our man in th middle (and beyond the arc) Rasheed Wallace. It seems like the masses are starting to get it, Rasheed Wallace is a revolutionary talent and a real cat. Sheed is where “what you see is what you get” and “more than meets the eye” intersect.

I’ll highlight some of the points from the article that had me bopping my head saying yeah, yeah. For the rest I’ll highly suggest you spend the 5 bucks like I did or just hit up the newsstand and read in the aisle. Special thanks to friend of the site Thomas for putting me up on this article. I’ll say a big GO SPURS GO for Thomas.

Ali, Malcolm, Wiley, Chappelle, Pryor…Rasheed Wallace? Ahead of their time, smart, possibly too conscious for their own good. Most times, true geniuses are considered quirky, crazy even. It isn’t until way down the line that their brilliance is discovered.

I believe that’s true about Rasheed. Although, the more pieces like this that come out and the more the talking heads change their views of Rasheed from malcontent to hoops savant the sooner Wallace’s b-ball brilliance will be universally accepted.

This will mark the third year in a row and fourth of his career in which Sheed had at least 100 blocks and 100 three-pointers. Big deal, you say at first? Well, Sheed is the only player in NBA history to have more than one such season.

That pretty much speaks for itself and reaffirms Charles Barkley’s statement that we’ve never seen a player like Rasheed in the NBA before.

Best players in the game? Those guys don’t average 13 and 7, like Sheed is this season. Well, who’s the best PF in the game? Tim Duncan, maybe? Sheed put 23 and 15 on him when the ‘05 Finals adversaries met in January, adding three steals and two blocks. Against last year’s MVP, Dirk Nowitzki? Twenty-one and 9, with four swats and three thefts in a February Motown matchup. Oh yeah, and he held Diggler to 3-18 in a 23 point drubbing.

That’s something we as Piston’s fans have come to realize. He plays well most nights, but the better the opponent, the bigger the Sheed. Chauncey said it earlier this year on Jim Rome’s ESPN show, Sheed gets bored against lesser talent. It wasn’t necessarily a knock on Rasheed, it’s just his adaptation to the conditions. He could be a 20 and 10 guy, but on the nights he doesn’t need to be he puts the team ahead of stats.

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[Box score] With this win the Pistons clinch home court advantage in the NBA Finals should they just happen to find themselves there.

Flip Saunders continued to give his starters sparse minutes to stay sharp and then letting the bench fill in the rest. The bench scored 55 in route to handing the Timberwolves their 60th loss of the season.

Jarvis Hayes led all Piston’s scoring with 20 points on 7/12 shooting. Lindsey Hunter also looked good off the Pistons bench being one of three from the Zoo Crew (is he a card carrying member of the Crew?) to score 9 points. Lindsey did his damage in 9 second quarter minutes.

You know the regular season is coming to a close when the refs let ‘Sheed (5 blocks) get away with verbiage in the YouTube below. Ahh, but Rasheed deserved it. He’s been a reactively muffled Sheed this season, he’s no Kobe Bryant after all.

The Pistons (57-23) will be hosting the Minnesota Timberwolves (21-59) Tip off is 7:30 pm est from the Palace of Auburn Hills and will be televised locally on FSN Detroit.

T-Wolves’ Snapshot
Road record: 7-33
Last game: 4/12 (Sat) W 114-105 @ Grizzlies
Last 10: 3-7
Last meeting with Detroit: Apr. 2nd - Pistons (94) @ T-Wolves (90)

In the latest edition of “get on with the playoffs already” the Pistons will play host to the Timberwolves to complete the two team’s season series with the Pistons up 1-0.

A win tonight (or Wednesday) will clinch home court advantage in the NBA Finals should the Pistons get there.

Chauncey sat out of practice yesterday with general soreness. Flip Saunders has said he’ll sit one starter tonight and you’d have to think obvious choice would be Big Shot. As Keith Langlois said in his Pistons.com preview, it’ll give the Pistons another chance to gauge Lindsey Hunter’s playoff readiness. It’ll also give Rodney Stuckey a chance to best his single game scoring high of 27 that he set thirteen days ago against these Timberwolves.

Also, if you haven’t heard…we’ve got the Sixers in round one.

From the NBA’s “There Can Only Be One” playoff campaign. I assume there will be a commercial to accompany this, if there’s not one already.

For McGrady’s eyes this has to be like an obese person looking into one of those carnival funhouse mirrors that stretch you out and make you look thin. Cruel.

(finders fee to The Dream Shake)

The question was posed in the message forum about who’s going to have the better NBA career when it’s all said and done, Jason Maxiell or Amir Johnson?

It’s fun to debate, but the greater treat is envisioning them in the same front court as a two-headed monster holding down the Palace for years to come. Plus, if Cheikh bulks up and develops…yeah, it could be pretty special. If/when that does happen it’ll also be another feather in Joe’s cap, grabbing his future’s front court in the same draft! (The same might be said about his future backcourt but that can be another Joe D. praising post. Darko who?)

For the sake of debate this is how I see it. If you had to give the nod to either player it’d have to be J-Max. He’s got a more well rounded game as we speak. He’s been the more fast tracked of the two due to him being the more ready of the two.

Maxy, or the OH-BEAST as I call him (pas it on), has really been impressing us lately with his shooting touch. We love it when he attempts to rip the rim off the backboard on his dunks but for him to be able to step back and nail the 15 footer has to give you warm fuzzies about the future of the front court.

Sure Max is undersized at 6′7″, but so was Charles Barkley who listed at 6′6″. I’d say things worked out pretty well for Sir Charles. I bring up Barkley because he and Max came into the league with similar type games. Both very explosive around the rim and great rebounders. They both neutralized their lack of height with timing, length, and scary leaping ability.

Barkley added a nice jump shot over the years to his arsenal and was able to parlay that into a league MVP in 1993. I’m not going so far as to say that Maxiell hitting from inside the arc consistently equals league MVP, but it’ll damn sure make him and the team more dynamic harder to stop.

As for Amir. Continue Reading »

Chauncey Billups has said the Pistons second unit is playing better than some teams first units right now and they made him look good today against the Raptors in a Palace Matinée of the potential first round opponent.

The Zoo Crew (or Zoo Squad as ESPN calls ‘em) outscored the starters with 48 of the Pistons 91 total points.

Rodney Stuckey and Jason Maxiell combined for 18 against the Raptors regulars in the 4th quarter to help ice the win for Detroit. Stuck finished with a team high 18 points and Maxy chipped in 14.

The loss puts Toronto is a tie with the 76ers for 6th in the East. Both teams have 2 games left to determine who gets 3rd seed Orlando and who’ll play our Pistons. Toronto owns the tie breaker if it should come to that.

If these two teams do meet up in the first round Tim Legler pretty much says Toronto has to play perfect and utilize all their strengths at once.

• Cuzoogle: Raptors get bench-pressed in Motown
• BOX SCORE

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Rodney Stuckey’s been getting most of the Zoo Crew shine lately, well last night was Jason “OH-BEAST” Maxiell’s night to get down.

Max had a monster night! Jason scored a career high 28 points in 28 minutes. If that wasn’t efficient enough he did it on 11-for-13 shooting. And don’t think he got all his buckets off rim annihilating dunks either, he was stroking shots from everywhere inside the arc with lobs and putbacks thrown in for good measure.

Darius Songaila will be sure to remember to remember Max’s big night. Darius was nearly the victim of death by dunk when Max threw a one-handed thunderdunk off an offensive board on him in the 4th. It was frightening.

Rip Hamilton finally got back after missing 8 of the last 9 games. It took the Ripster some time to shake off the rust, he missed all 5 of the first half shot he attempted. He ended up 4/13 for 9 points. Like Rip did when he was in a little slump to begin the season he stepped up his assist game going for a game high 10 dimes, which included a signature Rip-to-Tay ally oop.

Rip played a team high 30 minutes, and was the only starter over 24 minutes. In the 4th quarter Rip debuted his “Warriors” extra look while taking in the game benchside.

“Wizzzards, come out to plaaaay-aaayyy!”

GAME NOTES:

[Box score]…With Philly losing to the Pacers and the Raptors beating the Nets the two teams swapped playoff seeds meaning the if it stays that way the Pistons would face face the 76ers in the first round of the playoffs