PistonsNationBlog.com - Detroit Pistons News & Views

The Pistons (11-19, 8-6 home) will be hosting the New York Knickerbockers (11-19) Tip off is 7:30 pm est from the Palace of Auburn Hills. The game will be televised locally on Fox Sports Detroit, and can be heard on 97.1 fm.

Knicks’ Snapshot
Road record: 4-9
Last game: 12/27 (Sun) L 95-88 Vs. Spurs
Last 10: 6-4
Streak: Lost 2
Injuries: N/A

Lately the Knicks have been playing diametric D’Antoni ball.  Instead of trying to race their opponent to 100 points they’re averaging a hair over 90 points while holding opponents to around 92 in their last 7 outings.  A lower scoring pace is better suited for the Pistons returning stars who are trying to work through the rust of missing large amounts of playing and practice time with their injuries.

Here’s my prediction; the 7-game skid ends tonight.  Nothing too scientific in my thinking I just believe the Pistons are do for a win and will get it in front of the Palace faithful tonight.  Besides the gut feeling the returning Pistons, Rip and BG in particular, should have better games than they did against Toronto.

There’s still so much basketball to be played and the Pistons can still be in the thick of the playoff hunt by stringing together some wins like Rip said:

“We know we’re not out of it. If you win five games in a row, you’re in the fifth spot. It’s still promising.”

Darko, Darko, Darko:

Joe Dumars’ biggest GM bomb, Darko Milicic, makes his Knicks debut at the Palace tonight.  Darko got a preseason vote of confidence from Knicks pres. Donnie Walsh who believed Darky would thrive under coach Mike D’Antoni’s uptempo style.  But like everywhere else Darko has gone disappointment has followed.  The 24 year old Milicic has only gotten into 8 games for D’Antoni averaging about a couple of points and rebounds per.

Now Darko, who has recently been named one of the decades top sports flops by SI, told the NY Post that’s he’s 100% certain that he’s leaving the NBA at the conclusion of the season feeling his still has the ability to be one of his homelands #1 goat herders.

If Darko gets into the game tonight it’ll be interesting to see what kind of Palace reception he gets.

Lee Vs. Norse:

A matchup I’m looking forward to seeing is Double J against New York’s David Lee.  I see Jonas in the same mold as a David Lee.  A scrappy guy who manufactures points off rebounding the basketball and pure hustle.  Lee Gives the Knicks a double-double (18.4 & 10.8) and that’s what I envision/hope for Jerebko’s Piston future.

Click to enlarge

ALSO OF NOTE: Pistons are a 5 point favorite tonight … Are the Pistons the decade’s most lovable losers? … the Pistons are 1-9 when their opponent scores 100 … Charlie V missed Monday’s practice with a stomach ailment …  Eddy Curry may not return to Knicks rotation this season … 2nd year man Danilo Gallinari (6′10″) is shooting .397 from beyond arc leading the NBA in attempts with 6.9 per game … Bill Simmons’ Celtics boner suggests the Pistons trade Prince for Glen Davis …  The NBA has fined NY’s Nate Robinson $25,000 for his agent publicly demanding a trade … New Jerebko threads at the Palace … The Knicks opened the season just 3-14 … Danilo Gillinari does Beyonce [vid] … The Knicks Blog preview …  Al Harrington is leading the league in bench scoring at 18.7 … realistic Pistons trade suggestions … Knicks have held 10 straight opponent to fewer than 100 for the first time since a 19-game run from Feb. 18-March 26, 2001  … Is Prince the league’s top wing defender? … Pistons among a couple of the decades top NBA stories … Jonathan Bender rejoins the NBA after a 4 year retirement …

Don't ever invite a vampire into your house, you silly boy. It renders you powerless.

This comes from Sunday’s Free Press:

In comments to the New York Post, Knicks president Donnie Walsh said: “He was a very skilled player when he was drafted. I think the thing that’s held him back is he’s been thought of as a guy that has to play with his back to the basket. And everywhere he’s been, people have tried to do that.”

I’ll tell ya, Darko better thank his lucky star’s that he’s a quasi-athletic 7-footer otherwise this guy is back in Serbia selling Armani knock-offs out of the back of a Yugo.

God forbid you want a 7-footer to play with his back to the basket.  So Mike D’Antoni’s fun-n-gun system is going to play right into Darko’s game huh?  Joe D’s draft mulligan is a *decent* shooter but he’s sure the hell no Dirk Nowitzki.  I think trying to turn Darko into a jump shooter isn’t even going to turn out as well his previous two stops in Orlando and Memphis.

Walsh was asked if he could think of another player who was greatly helped by a change of scenery.”(Steve) Nash to a degree,” Walsh said of the Suns point guard. “He was a very good player in Dallas and became the MVP of the league in Phoenix.”

To what degree Donnie?  I admire Walsh’s optimism but he should have passed on the change of scenery question, or at least offered up a less conspicuous example. Putting Darko in the same discussion as a 2 time league MVP puts everything he said prior on squash.

He’s right in saying that Nash was good in Dallas and became great in Phoenix.  So when has Darko ever been good?  If he was at least good he wouldn’t be about to join his 4th team going into his 7th season.  If he was good he would have got some shine on Memphis teams that averaged 23 wins in his two seasons.

The only role I see Darko in would be a big bodied foul eater off the bench.  A goon.  Instead of wanting this guy to be a shooting star Walsh should be more concerned about his mental game.  Rasheed was right, Darko has a little gangsta in ‘em.  The crazy kind.

Oh well.  I’m just glad he’s not in Detroit any longer so I don’t have to read comments from all the Milicic apologists.

Since Donnie Walsh still believes I wanted to send him this long distance dedication.  Oil up that Serb and let’s get this party started, WOOT WOOT!

If you think the stuff Starbury’s doing now is bizarre well, actually, yeah, it is pretty bizarre. Anyways this video from 2007 should have let people know that Planet Starbury doesn’t have enough oxygen on it to support intelligent life.

If you’ve never seen this video before it’s from an appearance Stephon did on the sports talk show Mike’d Up that airs in the NY Metropolitan area. I could go onto to give you all the WTF moments on the video, but I’d basically have to transcribe the whole interview. So just sit back and be discombobulated.

Enter power forward option #3, David Lee.  I like Lee.  He’s rugged post player in the same mold as Paul Millsap.  Just another scenario to mull over.  One thing that’s clear though is that Joe is going to get someone of note and he’s pretty much in the free agent driver’s seat unless, as Dave Dial points out, he puts all his eggs in the Millsap basket…Utah resigns him and the other targets look for deals elsewhere seeing that Millsap is the guy leaving Joe with all that money and no place to shop.

Thanks for giving us that to worry about Dave, but he’s got a point.

MLive.com detailed a blow-by-blow offseason plan that Joe Dumars could follow to lock up one of the major power forwards on the market this year. In this scheme, Lee is the Pistons last option if they aren’t able to outbid Utah for Paul Millsap, or fork over enough cash to get Carlos Boozer in town.

That plan also assumes that the Knicks would go for a package of Amir Johnson and the 15th pick in exchange for Lee -Dime

PISTONS (113) @ Knicks (86) / {box score}
What the hell got into the Pistons last night?  The energy level they played with looked like first month of the season energy, not the last.  The word is that the Pistons had all the extra pep in their collective steps via a canceled morning shoot-around from Michael Curry.

The were opening a can of whoop Knicks right from the start jumping out to a 10-0 lead with the Pistons getting basically whatever they wanted.  It didn’t get any better for the Knicks who were down by 20 or more most of the night.  Apparently 3 points attempts –which the Knicks went 9/28 on– are a defense substitute under D’antoni.

The ball movement was great (25 assists) and they were definately not shy about attacking Knicks down low scoring 56 points in the MSG paint.  Points in the paint and overall great shooting netted the ‘Stonz a 53.8% shooting night.  The Pistons murdered New York on the glass 57-33.

All Piston starters reached double figures led by Rip’s 22 (10/18 shooting, 2/2 3ptrs) and 7 assists.  All the scoring and assisting gave Rip a pretty ridiculous +30 +/- stat.

Antonio McDyess recorded his team leading 15th double-double with 13 points and 16 boards.  So, in the last two games ahgainst the Knicks Dice has a combined 38 boards.  That’s putting in work kids.

Rasheed, inspired by his own pre-game break dancing, also had a double-double with  14 points and 12 boards.  He and Dice both had a pair of blocks.

With the victory the Pistons are again in a tie with the Bulls for the 7th seed.  The Pistons are one win (or one Bobcats loss) away from clinching a playoff spot.

GAME NOTES: The Pistons and Knicks split the season series at 2 games a piece … First time since Feb. 1983 that the Pistons & Knicks played one another with both teams having a losing record … Rip was happy to play a full game in NY after being ejected from 3 of the last 4 @ the Garden … the 27 point win is the Pistons largest winning margin of the season … Hoopsworld: Bynum on the rise … The Pistons scored 63 by the half tying their season high … No starter played over 32 minutes for the ‘Stonz … Stucky: 14 pts, 7 asts … Rick Kamala’s rant on the Iverson experiment (vid) … Everyone but Walter Shape scored for Detroit …

KNICKS (116) @ Pistons (111) OT / {box score}

The Pistons didn’t get the W, but it’s hard to find too much fault in the way they played for most of the game.

The Pistons controlled most of the game but the Knicks were able to make a late run to send the game into overtime where momentum carried them to their second straight come from behind win on the road.

For the Pistons it came down to some tough misses, and bad foul, and a inopportune turnover in the games closing second that left the door open for the Knicks to steal one on the Palace floor.

The Pistons entered the fourth leading by 10, but the Knicks kept battling and hitting shots while the Pistons were getting some tough luck misses.  Rip’s foul on Larry Hughes in the act of shooting a 3 with 10 seconds to go was the killer.  Hughes hits all three and ties the game up at 101 a piece.  Then with one more chance to win the game Stuckey’s dump off pass to a wide open Dice under the basket goes out of his hands and out of bounds.

What more can you say about Antonio McDyess?  Another ‘Ultimate Pistons Warrior‘ effort for the Dice-man.  Antonio had a man’s double-double pulling down a career high 22 renbounds (10 offensive) and putting in 21 points in his 43 minutes.  To put his performance in historical perspective; it’s Dice’s first 20-20 game since 2001, the first 20 rebound game from a Piston since Big Ben did it in 2006, and the first Pistons 20-20 since Bison Dele in December of 1997.  But, in true McDyess fashion the individual effort meant very little in a losing effort:

“It’s more disappointing to me,” we played hard, just came up short.” - mlive

McDyess was joined by three teammates who scored over 20 points.  Tayshaun scored 25 points along with 10 boards, 3 blocks and 4 assists.    Rip scored a team high 27 to go with 5 assists and 9 rebounds but he also commited a season high 8 turnovers.  Rodney Stuckey played one of hisbetter all around games  23 points, 8 boards, and 8 assists.

The Pistons, behind McDyess, owned New York on the glass.  The Pistons won the battle of the boards 64-39.  It’s hard to believe that with that big of a rebounding disparity, shooting 47% from the field, shooting 20/24 from the free throw line and getting 26 assists the Pistons lost the game.

New York took amazing care of the basketball though committing only 3 tunrovers in 54 minutes of play, whereas the Pistons came in high at 15.  The Knicks were lead by Nate Robinson who had 30 off the Knicks bench.  Nate has been on a 27 ppg tear since jumping over Dwight Howard.

GAME NOTES: The Knicks at 27-37 are in 13th place in the East, but only 1 1/2 games of the last playoff spot … David Lee racked up 16 points & 18 boards … The Pistons Care telethon raised 440,221 (including $1,000 from Knicks Quentin Richardson) for needy families … HHR with a good Bill Laimbeer interview … send your well wishes to Chuck Daly …

The Pistons (11-7, 6-3 road) will be in New York to take on the Knicks (8-11) Tip off is 12:00 pm est from the Madison Square Garden and will be televised locally on Fox Sports Detroit

Knicks’ Snapshot
Home record: 6-4
Last game: 12/05 (Fri) L 95-98 @ Hawks
Last 10: 2-8
Streak: Lost 3
Last meeting: Nov 26th – Knicks (96) @ Pistons (110)
Injuries: Danilo Gallinari (lower back), Eddy Curry (bruised right knee),

Sunday matinée with the Knicks.  The last time we played the Knicks it resulted in the best team win of the year with eight Pistons scoring in double figures, which hadn’t happened since 1990.  The Knicks though were short handed.  They’ve since had guys (Nate Robinson, Jared Jefferies) come back from injuries giving D’Antoni a couple more options.

The Knicks are tied for 3rd in the NBA in scoring averaging 104 per game, but they also give up the second most points in the league at 108.4 a game with their opponents shooting a league best 48%.  They also give up a league worst 49 boards per game. Plenty exploitable areas if the Pistons don’t get sucked into shoot out.

Unfortunately the Pistons play about as well as the Lions on Sundays.  The Pistons went 0-4 on on Sunday’s in November, and for the most part weren’t in any of those games.  Maybe an earlier start time should wake these guys up?

NO DYESS: The earliest Detroit can re-sign McDyess is Sunday. However, with the league office closed on weekends, the signing will wait until Monday with Tuesday’s game at Washington being the earliest McDyess can return to the floor. – mlive

ALSO OF NOTE: How bad have Sunday’sbeen? The Pistons are averaging a putrid 81.8 points on 38.6% shooting … Marbury to get release, sign with Boston, Miami, Orlando … Allen Iverson’s Hairstyles Match the News-Makers …