Detroit (29-13) at Philadelphia (16-26)

By KATE HEDLIN, STATS Writer

The Detroit Pistons have had plenty of success against the Philadelphia 76ers, but given their recent play, they aren't likely to take Wednesday's visit to the Wachovia Center lightly.

The Pistons (29-13) have the second-best record in the Eastern Conference, but go into Philadelphia having dropped six of their last nine games and three straight, including a 102-100 loss to the Orlando Magic on Monday. The loss ended a nine-game winning streak over Orlando, which included four playoff games last season.

Detroit's previous two losses came against struggling teams: a 97-81 loss at Chicago two days earlier and a 100-93 loss to the Sacramento Kings at home.

"Nothing is where it needs to be right now," Pistons guard Chauncey Billups said. "We are going through a rough patch. ... We just have to stay poised and keep plugging away at it."

The Pistons, who are looking to avoid their first four-game losing streak since 2004-05, feel they can get things headed in the right direction, however.

Detroit had six players score in double figures in Monday's loss, led by Richard Hamilton, who had 21 points on 8-of-17 shooting. Tayshaun Prince added 20 points and Rasheed Wallace had 15 points, 15 rebounds and five steals.

Billups, who finished with 18 points, hit a 3-pointer that made it 100-all with 3.6 seconds left, but Orlando's Rashard Lewis hit the game-winner as time expired. Detroit trailed 55-49 at the half after committing 10 first-half turnovers.

Coach Flip Saunders said he isn't overly concerned with the Pistons' recent slump.

"There are a few things we didn't do well from a standpoint of execution at times, but we'll clean those things up," Saunders said. "It's a long season and we're finding some things out about all of our guys, which is good."

The Pistons will look to end their losing streak against a team they've dominated. Detroit beat Philadelphia 83-78 at the Palace of Auburn Hills on Nov. 23 for its seventh win in its last eight games against the 76ers (16-26).

Philadelphia also comes into Wednesday's game in a bit of a slump. The Sixers have alternated between wins and losses in their last four games after dropping seven in a row to start January.

They lost 110-103 to the Indiana Pacers on Monday. Andre Iguodala scored 23 points and Andre Miller added 21 for Philadelphia, which gave up 63 points in the first half. The Sixers allowed the Pacers to shoot 51.9 percent from the field and go 14-of-25 from 3-point range.

Monday was just the fourth time in 21 games that Philadelphia has scored more than 100 points. The Sixers average 93.8 points per game and are among the five lowest scoring teams in the NBA.

"We need to do a better job as starters coming out and starting the game well," Sixers guard Willie Green said. "Once we got in the hole, it was like we were fighting the whole game."

Philadelphia has also lost four straight at home against Detroit.

GO SIXERS!

sportsbook plz plz plz

Pistons at 76ers Gameday

:langlois:
by Keith Langlois

TV: FSN Detroit | Radio: WDFN 1130 AM - The Fan

Last Meeting: Detroit won 83-78 (November 23, 2007)

The skinny: The 76ers appear to be just what the Pistons require to break their first three-game losing streak of the season. Philadelphia is 2-9 for January and coming off a 110-103 home loss to Indiana on Monday. Since losing to the Pistons in late November, Philly has fired Billy King and pirated Ed Stefanski from New Jersey’s front office to take over as GM. Stefanski made his first significant move shortly thereafter, swapping Kyle Korver to Utah for Gordan Giricek’s expiring contract and a future first-round pick. There is heavy speculation that point guard Andre Miller – acquired from Denver last season in the Allen Iverson trade that signaled the beginning of Philly’s reconstruction – will be moved before the trade deadline. The core of the future in Philly is now playing significant minutes off the bench – rookies Thaddeus Young and Jason Smith and recent draftees Louis Williams and Rodney Carney. Andre Igoudala turned down a contract extension before the season started and becomes a restricted free agent in July.

What to watch: If the Pistons take the fight to Philadelphia early, there’s not much chance the 76ers can come from behind. Despite the disappointment of losing to Orlando on Rashard Lewis’ buzzer beater, the Pistons left Florida generally encouraged that the lethargic play that marked weekend losses to Sacramento and Chicago was behind them. Rodney Stuckey showed signs of emerging from his cocoon of indecision in the second half at Orlando, making a strong move to the basket for a layup and another that resulted in a layup attempt for Jason Maxiell. Maxiell also played with more bounce in his step. The plan to give Stuckey more minutes at the expense of Arron Afflalo apparently has been altered pending Stuckey’s struggles. Jarvis Hayes needs to get an easy basket or two to get him going. He’s in a shooting slump, but it doesn’t help that almost all his shots are 3-pointers or post fadeaways with a high degree of difficulty. The Chauncey Billups-Rip Hamilton backcourt has remained highly productive throughout the team’s struggles.

We'll take it up the ol' poopshot tonight.

"cocoon of indecision"

Unfortunately, I like the Pisstains in this one.

Hopefully we can get back on track to how we were about 3 weeks ago.

^ Awesome post.

I've voted the lose the last 3, so I'm going to go ahead and guess we pull our heads out of our asses and win this one.

Pistons by 18.

We will score 105 points.

The Pistons beating the Sixers. Bold prediction. I like it.

interesting timing. the pistons are in the first real funk of the season and all of the sudden flip lets the kids play. im thinking a certain someone said something to someone about something.

Chauncey came out chucking, and he made them.

Nice to see Amir in the game, too.

anyone think we might be seeing a little showcasing tonight?

this is a depressing game to watch, empty seats, quiet crowd

if we need to find an escape goat for this bad stretch (other than the coach) how do you point the finger at anyone but #36?

stuckey has not once impressed me this year

So you're saying you didn't apreciate that missed dunk?

he blows a bunny layup, makes a beauty of a steal than blows a dunk without anyone withit 10 feet.

the man is ICE cold. i refuse to believe he cant even make an uncontested layup or dunk. the staff needs to coach him up, let him know he's not playing for his job, remind him its a game and he should be having fun too.

stuckey has impressed me with his ability to get easy shots. of course, if he cant make said easy shots, he might as well be bombing them from 3/4ths court. my guess is he figures things out. or maybe he's the only guy in the nba that cant even make a layup.

glad to see the coaching staff get stuckey out of there after blowing a couple shots. good. let him stew on it. break his confidence. getting him second guessing everything he does. let him know when his shots arent falling he immideatly loses his play time. if your coach breathing down your neck at all times doesnt get you off your cold streak nothing will, right flip?

Stuckey's ability to get to the hole impresses me. And I guess, create his own shot like you said, did.

He has the natural speed/quickness, but he needs to develop, for sure. Like most rooks do.

i think its more a confidence thing myself. im under no delusions that hes gonna start making 40%+ from 3's or even shoot close to 40% overall.

as soon as he realizes he belongs on the court, he'll shoot better than 16% from 3's, 33% overall. mean, dude is shootig almost 90% from ft's, its not like he has stone hands and no coordination. he just needs to settle. tay had the same deal his rookie year.

i really think its a combinaton of a little rust and a lot of confidence. i think he's alot closer than he look, maybe.

btw, im completely serious when i say it pisses me off that flip yanked stuckey after blowing those 2 bunneys. if im joe i chew flip out after the game. flip continues to astound me with just how clueless he is. i realize that this game is almost approaching "must win status", but flip needs to think "what would a good coach do" at all times. phil jackson would have kept stuckey on the court, flip should have too.

i wish we could bench flip everytime he made a coaching mistake. we would have sent him down to the D-leauge a long time ago.

Why/How did Amir play?

Good to see Amir get in the game. Even though he's not Kevin Garnett yet (LZ Granderson), he does hustle on both sides of the floor, and he contests shots...

And lets not forget, HE CAN FUCKING REBOUND!!!!


FINALLY!

A pretty sad win if you ask me. There is still a horrible lack of defense and rebounding (33 to 47) plus the starters played too many minutes. Sheed was pretty pathetic the first 3 quarters of the game.

What ever happened to passing? IT looks more and more like everyone wants to go one-on-one. Neither Billups nor Rip are getting shit for assists. We need top make a few more passes. This team is looking very lethargic.

I don't know why everyone is still so excited about Stuckey. I know that he is a rookie but he really kinda stunk tonight. He blew two easy shots including turning around a slowing down so that a defender could catch up to him on a break away. I still don't understand that one. At this point Afflalo is a better player than Stuckey but gets 1/10th the credit. I hope that both of them turn our to be great but I'm curious as to why the accolades and hype are so unfairly one sided.

Amir played well. I would like to see him get some serious time in the rotation. Dice looks tired so maybe we can cut back him minutes a bit.

i've been calling for us to give amir some burn for a long time. he can provide instant energy and athleticism and change the game for us in small spurts. we have nobody else on our roster who can do the things he can do, even with all his inexperience and still very raw skills.

even if he only scores on the break, alley oops, or putbacks.....those are garbage points we need and with his skill set he's very capable of doing that. not to mention he can block shots and be a pest as a weakside defender.

let the kid play FFS! even if it's just 10 minutes every few games when there's a favorable matchup for him.

I think the only reason Johnson played has to do with maxiell not being 100% physically. Something's not right with maxiell (left leg?) and he hasn't been the same player for the past 2+ weeks.

Flip has no plan when it comes to his rotations and probably "lucked" into playing johnson last night. In my opinion Antonio Mcdyess still plays entirely too much (and his porous defense at the end of the magic game cost the pistons the victory not to mention it made no sense why he even returned to the game). 30+ minutes of mcdyess should never happen.

Until Flip realizes that Mcdyess is not as good as he thinks he is this team is going nowhere. Flip has some sick love of the jump shot and people that can shoot it. Heck, he turned the most physically gifted 7-footer to ever play the game and turned him into a guy that's now only comfortable playing 10-15 feet away from the basket. Garnett could have been the next Wilt Chamberlain if he had a real coach around to develop him like a Larry Brown or Gregg Popovich.

Re: Pistons vs. Sixers poll.

Mark me down for all 9.

The one time I miss the OGT, it's added