Game #12: Pistons played like crap
Posted by pistonsnation
The Pistons followed their ugly loss to the Celtics eleven days ago with a even bigger stinker last night. {box score}
It looked promising enough with the Pistons jumping out to an 13-2 lead to start the game but that just turned out to be an empty promise.
Again Boston’s bench did more damage than their “Big 3″. The Celtics’ bench produced 42 points and 22 boards on us. An outsider seeing last night’s game might have thought Boston’s big three consisted on Leon Powe, Eddie House, and Tony Allen.
Allen Iverson (16 pts) again had trouble staying in front of Rajon Rondo (18 pts, 8 asts in 26 min). This is a big problem because when AI’s guy blows by him it puts the interior defense in a bad position and creates easy buckets or fouls. Iverson was literally chasing Rondo from behind on multiple occasions.
The defense as a whole was totally out of sync and porous. The rotations were slow or never got there at all. At times guys just looked lost, like they hadn’t been playing with each other since the dawn of time. Even in past bad losses the Pistons never looked like they didn’t know what was going on.
The offense was no better than the defense. Bad possessions. Poor ball movement. Over dribbling. The combination of bad D & O provided for Boston leads that got up to 29 points in the second half.
“We’ve got to be a lot better. We lost to them two times by 20 points — that’s absolutely bananas. We don’t play like that.- Richard Hamilton via Detroit News
Yes, it was the second of back-to-backs against two of the conference’s elite, but that isn’t an excuse for losing the way they did. The team, like Rip said, needs to be a lot better.
It’s too bad that Joe D couldn’t have done this “shake up” over the summer so we’d have a better idea as to whether it’s still a lack of familiarity with the Pistons systems and schemes or if Iverson is just a bad fit for the way this team is and has been constructed.
GAME NOTES: Walter Herrmann suffered a concussion near the end of the game and did not travel back with the team … Sweet dunk by Bynum in the 4th … Every Celtic that played had at least a point and a rebound … Rasheed Wallace was a -28 for the game (ouch) … The Pistons two lowest point totals (76 & 80) are against Boston … Joe Dumars Q&A at NBA.com …
This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 11:37 am and is filed under Celtics, Game recap. 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.
Boston has our number right now and it doesnt matter who we have. Their bench has outplayed us in both game and that shouldnt happen.
November 21st, 2008 at 11:49 amAnd Iverson is not a bad fit. I agree that we should have changed the team sooner but in time things will be fine. Let’s just hope it wont take too much time.
Utah has our number.
Getting embarrassed two straight games isn’t Boston having our number, it’s us not being up to par with them, which I HATE.
They’ve made us look bad on both sides of the ball and that’s unfortunate. It’s not a shame to lose to a good team, but it is to lose the way we have.
From Coach Curry right down to Alex Acker they’ve outdone us. It’s very frustrating to watch.