i want to see Stuckey abuse a Boobie.

can't wait for this one

Yep, excited.

Any word on Amir?

Different Directions
While Pistons muscled up over the summer, handcuffed Cavs did little

:langlois:
by Keith Langlois
Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The Pistons don’t care if they beat the Cleveland Cavaliers the next time they visit Quicken Loans Arena. They only care that if they’re still paying visits to the Q in late May or early June, they’re positioned as well as possible to win then.

“It’s just an exhibition,” Rasheed Wallace shrugged after Wednesday’s practice, scoffing at the notion that the tiniest shred of redemption for last year’s conference finals loss to the Cavs could be earned by winning Thursday’s second preseason game. “I figure their starters will play about 20 minutes and we’ll probably play about 20 minutes. It doesn’t matter. We’re just trying to get that execution down pat. Every guy should know the plays from at least two spots and that’s what we’ll try to do.”

It hasn’t been a very productive summer for the Cavs. They didn’t have a draft pick and had no financial wiggle room to do anything in free agency. That includes addressing the demands of their own two restricted free agents, Sasha Pavlovic and Anderson Varejao, camp holdouts who are using the threat of offers from European teams as leverage.

Though the Cavs would retain both players’ NBA rights, their lack of roots here makes it a more credible threat than it might be coming from players native to North America. Even if both Pavlovic, who emerged as a capable starter last year, and Varejao, a difference maker off the bench, eventually return to camp, the potential for unrest will be there for a team that – even at full strength – is still considerably flawed.

Nobody gets too caught up in preseason results, but it had to be a little unsettling for the Cavs to score 62 points and shoot 31 percent in losing at home by 19 to Washington in their preseason opener in which every starter but LeBron James played 21-plus minutes.

“You want to try to have as many of your main guys in camp,” Flip Saunders said Wednesday, clearly as happy to not face the problem as he was reluctant to discuss another team’s travails. “Keep them healthy. The more you can have your main guys on the floor, the better opportunity for you to have a smooth transition when the regular season starts.”

The Pistons, on the other hand, had a significant face-lift over the summer. Check that. Not a face-lift, because the face of the franchise remains the familiar old faces – Wallace, Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Antonio McDyess. A tummy tuck is what the Pistons have had, firming up their soft underbelly – spotty bench production – by drafting guards Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo, both giving every appearance so far that they’re NBA ready; signing Jarvis Hayes as a free agent; and opening minutes for their two intriguing third-year forwards, Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson.

It had to gall Cavs GM Danny Ferry as he watched his Pistons counterpart, Joe Dumars, operate over the summer with tools not at Ferry’s disposal. As much as the Pistons believe, justifiably, that Stuckey and Hayes will play significant roles for them this season, they would have had a far more dramatic impact on the Cavs. Except the Cavs didn’t have a first-round pick – never mind a near-lottery pick obtained from another team, as the Pistons used to nab Stuckey – or the financial wherewithal to lure a quality free agent like Hayes.

Indeed, the East would look a whole lot different if the Cavs had been the team picking up Stuckey and Hayes over the summer. Stuckey in Cleveland would make the Rookie of the Year pursuit – conceded to Kevin Durant the moment Greg Oden’s doctor found season-ending damage in his knee – a real contest, because he’d get more minutes on the other side of Lake Erie than he can earn here behind All-Stars Billups and Hamilton. Hayes in Cleveland would give the Cavs offensive firepower off their bench they desperately need, especially if Pavlovic stays on the other side of the pond.

The Cavs’ projected second unit as of today is the thoroughly unimposing bunch of Damon Jones, Shannon Brown, Dwayne Jones, Ira Newble and Donyell Marshall. In the first seven minutes they were together in the preseason opener, they produced one basket.

LeBron James displayed a deadly shooting eye and improved 3-point range during his summer stint with Team USA. Good thing. Because if the Cavs don’t get Pavlovic and Varejao back in the fold, Cleveland’s not going to be able to afford many LeBron misses in order to have a chance to defend its Eastern Conference title the Pistons are chasing hard.


No mention of Afflalo as the "LeBron Stopper"?

I wouldn't really call what the Pistons did "muscling up." Maybe "growing up."

The Pistons did little compared to most teams in the NBA. Cavs did worse, however.

7 pm btw

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

hopefully Charter puts this on somewhere....I would really like to see Stuckey

[smilie=detective.g:
It will be on "MY 5" for us in the Saginaw area

The Pistons did little compared to most teams in the NBA.

Not true at all. The national pundits were correct in labelling the Pistons' offseason as one of the better offseasons. Dumars completely overhauled his bench and by the early look of things, he improved it dramatically.

No mention of Afflalo as the "LeBron Stopper"?

That would be Jarvis Hayes, who is one of like three small forwards in the NBA that can match LeBron's size. Dude is a brick wall.

Not to say that he'll stop LeBron, but at the very least we don't need to be using prince on him for 40+ minutes. He allows the kid to take a rest. We also finally have a swingman that LeBron can't toss around like a rag doll.

The Pistons did little compared to most teams in the NBA.
They re-vamped their entire bench and upgraded backups at three positions (four if you count re-signing Amir). If that isn't a good offseason I don't know what is.

They didn't make any sexy moves, but the guys they picked up were all guys that make this team better.

Uprgraded their bench and their backups. How about their 2nd unit and their non-starters? Did they upgrade them as well?

I never implied I was talking about two separate entities. Keep reaching for those straws though...

How about their subs?

What the hell is TV20, btw. I can't find it on DTV and prolly won't.

What the hell is TV20, btw. I can't find it on DTV and prolly won't.


It is on 15 in West Michigan.

They re-vamped their entire bench and upgraded backups at three positions (four if you count re-signing Amir). If that isn't a good offseason I don't know what is.

They didn't make any sexy moves, but the guys they picked up were all guys that make this team better.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind what the Pistons did, but really their big offseason aquisition was Amir and the kids in the draft. They got Hayes, but besides that, what else? Their offseason consisted of letting the young guys play.

They lost Webber, got Hayes. That was the extent of our summer besides the draft.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind what the Pistons did, but really their big offseason aquisition was Amir and the kids in the draft. They got Hayes, but besides that, what else? Their offseason consisted of letting the young guys play.

They lost Webber, got Hayes. That was the extent of our summer besides the draft.


And that's arguably all they need to get back to the finals-a productive bench and better perimeter defense.

I have no problem with Jarvis Hayes, Rodney Stuckey and Amir Johnson being the three biggest additions to the team this year. Those guys are all young, strong, athletic and active, which is what this team needed the most. Not to mention, they can all score in the paint.

As I said before, no they did not get a sexy big name, but I don't believe they needed to get one. A lot of teams not named Boston did a lot less than we did or sacrificed more to get it.

I'm watching and, damnit, I swear I won't get too excited when we blow these pricks out.

I like Kelser and Blaha together, but I do miss Laimbeer. Can anyone tell me why he doesn't call games anymore?

I hate tv20 cameras.

I hate tv20 cameras.

STOP IT! I'd take a snowy Pistons game right about now.

Nothing is on so I'm watching some cooking show on how to bake a potato or something, but at least the baseball game is coming up.

Now I know why Wil hates Cleveland..those were some ugly cheerleaders.

Stuckey!

We got kids on the court.

LeBron still can't shoot...which can be both good and bad news for us.

Stuckey stuffed.

That was a swat of bukdow post level.

The team is much more athletic. The old men starters shooting jumpers. The kids off the bench driving to the rim almost every possession.

Tahoe. Word is you can stream the radio broadcast off ESPN. Don't have a link though.

more details please?! who swatted stuckey? was it bad?

Stuckey made a rookie mistake. He dribbled down the clock too long playing for the last shot, and got blocked at the rim because he narrowed down his options and the help defender knew it. Not a big deal.

he did the exact same thing in the 2nd quarter and got maxiell an easy dunk.

In other news, James tried to take it to the rim on Jarvis and Jarvis swatted him clean.

He provides a different look. Not as quick as Tayshaun but a whole lot stronger.

Thanks Fool, I think its a sign up deal. I just went and checked. I paid for the NBA DTV package so I'll pass on this one. But mucho gracias, Senor.

JUST START THE SEASON SO I CAN WATCH.

Lookin forward to see Jarvis.

Jarvis has had a lot of mistakes, and shoots too much for a guy who has great form but can't hit anything.

That said, he shows a lot of potential both as a defender and as an inside scorer. Every time he gets inside, he gets very easy looks. No opposing wing is strong enough to bother him in the paint.

If they can get him to drive the lane more, he'll be an awesome pickup.

Who is he crewing with? Has he ever played with the starters?

I always feel it helps a guys development to play with peeps who know when to shoot and when to pass.

bench unit right has been pretty consistent so far- Stuckey, Afflalo, Hayes, Maxiell and Nazr.

Shots selection isn't any of their strong points, aside from Stuckey. They've just been running teams into the floor thusfar. Halfcourt offense has looked chaotic aside from the occasional stuckey drive and dish in the paint.

Cleveland is really using lebron a lot for a preseason game. He's on pace for 33+ minutes out there and 20 shots or so from the floor.

Daniel Gibson looks terrible when he's forced to make actual point guard decisions. He has trouble just completing simple passes.

lol @ a tech on Sheed.

Sheed is yucking up the big lead and the Cavs are taking it personally. leBron is out there like its game 7 of the finals trying to get back into this game.

Too bad Sheed got pulled. Things were starting to get interesting. Sheed looked like he wanted to humiliate Gooden on the low block, and Sheed NEVER plays hard in preseason.

I see penishead Gooden got some sweet new ink this summer.

Hey, we got a Cav with an English D tat! What a bandwagoner! Who is he? LeBron James?

Does anyone actually think Super Dupe is going to make the team?

Maxiell had a god-awful game tonight. Got manhandled by some guy named DeWayne Jones.

Every rebound that went up, he tossed Maxiell out of the way like a little girl.

...and he burns Maxiell for the game tying points with 0.4 left.

OT in preseason!!!11

Well, if Maxiell had any chance of challenging Dice for the starting PF spot, he doesn't anymore...

he pretty much humiliated himself tonight, and that's really hard to do in a preseason game. The Cavs were having a field day going at him on the glass.

really. that's disappointing. i was just going to ask how he was looking on the defensive boards. with his physique, he needs to understand that positioning and boxing out is EVERYTHING when defensive rebounding. sure a lot is about 'wanting it more' and hustle. but he's so short that guys can easily go over his back and snatch boards away from him if he doesn't get proper position on them. he needs to plant that big ole butt on guys and clear them out a bit, and THEN go up and attack the board.

if anything, he's actually gotten worse on the defensive glass...

if it wasn't Jones going over him for the board, it was another Cav tipping the rebound away from him from behind for an easy layup/dunk.

This is his third year in the NBA, and I'm getting tired of this shit. Either learn to rebound or learn to play small forward.

On a positive note, we showed in the first half that our bench is ridiculously athletic and defensively active.

We just need to get them to share the ball more when the game slows down. Way too much 1 on 1.

The Cavs were trapping Stuckey like it was game 7 of the finals, and whichever big man he passed the ball to would jack up a bad shot instead of waiting and giving it back.

bah, i hate losing to the Cavs.....preseason or not.

makes me wonder if we're better off with j-max starting then.....because at least then he'd be paired with sheed who is an excellent rebounder. then we've got another great rebounder in dice coming off the bench.

because it's clear that amir and j-max are both poor defensive rebounders. amir has a much better chance at improving in this area. but they can't be on the floor together if that's the case.

then again, they're probably not going to be paired together anyway as i would imagine either dice or sheed will almost always be on the floor.

where's JYD when we need him? ;o)

It's clear Amir is a bad defensive rebounder, but at least we haven't seen if he's improved or not. Maxiell is a whole different level of terrible.

And no, giving him even more time isn't going to solve the problem. Our starting 5 looked strong defensively tonight for the first time in I can't remember how long, and Dice had a lot to do with that.

well i wasn't saying give him more time, but perhaps just give it to him more at the beginning of the game, with the first unit.

it seems strange to me that a blue collar kid with j-max's work ethic would come to camp this year without having improved in such a key area. especially since this was a big weakness for him and something he was told he had to improve. and if you're saying he's actually regressed in this area.....well that's a huge disappointment.

let's see if there's any improvement going forward.

it was just disheartening watching the cavs humiliate max on rebound after rebound. Every freaking ball was either grabbed a foot over his head or tipped out of his hands into an open Cav under the hoop as if it was a planned freaking play to miss the shot in the first place.

If It were Varejao, ok I'd understand it. But this was Dewayne Jones and Devin Brown soaring over him for put backs like they were Rodman and Salley. Disgusting.

Yawn. I see no fucking point in an 8 game preseason.

Because that way Amir gets to play in four of them?

Good point.

Stuckey is going to be a damn good player. And Affalo is much faster than I thought. I think they both make immediate impact by midseason.

I agree that Max struggled big time. Getting 4 boards in 33 minutes is not going to cut it.

That whole second half/OT was pretty hard to watch, kind of a buzzkill.

Unfortunately, due to work, I was only able to really pay attention during the Cavs run. Man, watching the fucking Cavs kill us for the 5th fucking time in a row just fucking made my fucking day, even if it's only the pre-season, fuck.

Rapid Reversal
:langlois:
by Keith Langlois

It’s going to take several months to determine for certain if the Pistons are a better team than the Cleveland Cavaliers, but one conclusion seemed inescapable even before these two Central Division rivals got to training camp: Detroit’s second unit was supposed to be able to run laps around Cleveland’s.

Around a Cleveland second unit missing both Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic, at least.

Nobody’s going to put too much stock in the evidence offered by one preseason game, but the Cavs built a case to the contrary Thursday night, a huge Pistons lead evaporating after both teams’ starters went to the bench in a 96-90 overtime Detroit loss that leaves both teams 1-1.

Nothing about the assumption of Detroit’s bench superiority appeared amiss by halftime of their meeting Thursday at Quicken Loans Arena. With both teams’ starters out to start the second quarter, Detroit’s unit of Nazr Mohammed, Jason Maxiell, Jarvis Hayes and rookie first-round guards Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo outscored Cleveland’s bench 11-4 over the first three minutes to stretch a five-point lead to 12.

The Pistons stretched the lead to 18 soon after halftime and still led by 15 late in the third quarter when – with mostly backups paired against each other again – the Cavs closed the quarter on a 9-0 run and stretched it to 22-2 by midway through the third quarter to take a five-point lead. The Pistons then went on an 8-0 run of their own to seemingly take control again, but two free throws by Dwayne Jones – a career 47 percent foul shooter – with less than one second remaining forced overtime.

LeBron James scored 17 points, all in the first half, to lead the Cavs, who also got 10 from recent free-agent acquisition Devin Brown. Three Pistons scored 12 – Chauncey Billups and the two rookie first-rounders.

Any confidence Cleveland takes from the game regarding its bench should come with an asterisk: The Pistons played with a dramatically undersized lineup for most of the fourth quarter and all of overtime due to the unavailability of Mohammed and Amir Johnson. Mohammed got kicked in the calf muscle and didn’t return, though the injury was not deemed serious, and Johnson remains out with a sprained ankle. With Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess already finished for the night, that left Jason Maxiell at center and Ronald Dupree at power forward – a lineup the Pistons would never use in a game that mattered.

Without the threat of an inside game, the Pistons went through dreadful offensive droughts. They didn’t score a field goal for nearly one full quarter starting midway through the third quarter and didn’t score a basket in overtime. Cleveland went on an 11-0 in OT after Dupree opened scoring with a free throw.

The highlight of the night was a running third-quarter exchange between Rasheed Wallace and Drew Gooden that saw both get hit with technical fouls, the most obvious reminder that the tense playoff confrontations of the past two seasons have created a history between these neighboring franchises.

While Cleveland’s bench surprised in getting the better of Detroit’s, the Pistons’ starters were clearly better than Cleveland’s despite getting a heavy does of James, who scored all of his points in 16 first-half minutes, going scoreless in his nine third-quarter minutes.

Both Varejao and Pavlovic, restricted free agents, are unsigned and taking a tough stance in negotiations. Cleveland can’t afford to be without either one after an off-season that saw the Cavs – who had no money to spend in free agency and not one draft pick to spend in a talent-rich draft – add no one of remote significance unless Brown, who’s spent his first four years in the league as mostly a deep bench reserve, proves for real.

The Pistons come home to The Palace of Auburn Hills for two weekend games – Friday night against Utah and Sunday night against Denver.

Langlois doesn't make sense for once!
when he says stupid shit, assume the opposite.