Our 5 starters, we all know them as the best in the league, look worn out just over halfway of the season. Defensive rotations are incredibly late, rebounds are only gathered if they fall into one of the player's laps, blocked shots are a rarity, and they are having trouble getting easy buckets on offense.

They looked really tired against Indiana, but we could give them the benifit of the doubt with the bad scheduling. But after two days off to lose to a team that we absolutely mauled a few months back, that's hard to handle.

The Pistons have now dropped 3 of the last 5 games. I considered this game a given because they always respond well to losses, they had two nights off, and they were playing the Hawks.

The main problem is that the bench has not taken the burden off the starters' shoulders at all. You can't just look at minutes and say if the starters played to much or not. The bench has to bring a LIFT, a spark, take some of the ease off of the starters. But that hasn't been the case. The bench goes in and digs a hole for the starters to try and make up.

Flip has been great, but I put a lot of the blame for this on him. His bench rotation is very questionable. I don't get bringing a player in with 6 minutes left in the 2nd quarter and leaving him in there the rest of the half. This is the case with Delfino. He needs to play with freedom. Besides, I think Delfino is a vastly superior player to Maurice Evans. Delfino should be getting 20-25 minutes behind Rip and Tayshaun. He is a guy that can give the starters a lift given the chance.

Arroyo is just a bad fit here. I hope Lindsey can bring his defensive spark in and help complete our bench. But when Arroyo comes in, our offense grinds to a halt, there is poor ball movement, and we have trouble scoring. On the defensive end, he gets penetrated on at will.

Darko has looked like he cares the last few times he's played. When Darko goes out there and plays hard, he is a very good backup. I think it's time to try him out there again, he deserves another chance. McDyess is having a very below average year. I don't want to look at his averages because they don't really matter, because he's just been very inconsistent. He's had some games where he is unstoppable, others where he is just trying to buy time for the Wallaces.

I can't stand to see our starters look this tired this early in the year, it shows you how important the bench is.

Like i've been saying, get a real back up PG, that can get guys like Dice and Delfino and Evans the ball in their spots. Arroyo cant. While I agree with you about Flip, Arroyo does a shitty job on both ends and costs this team lots of big leads.

I've been saying they look tired for the past 2 weeks and some people are telling me that they don't care. They care. Its just they don't have the energy from playing hard.

Dumars will make a move. This team is desperate for a legit backup PG right now.

IMO, once we get that backup point, we need to say HCA be damned, and just worry about resting starters and developing the bench. We aren't going to win games with tired starters and a bench that doesn't know how to play together.

Its funny how we brought back Hunter to ease the load off of billups minutes.... and he played 12 seconds (according to nba.com), while Billups played 37 minutes.

Billups, who is injured. I see we got out-rebounded, and torched by a guard. Arent those some of the reasons we had dale davis and lindsey hunter? espn says they didnt play at all.

This is all on Flip, all the way.
I dont want to get too down on the guy considering the team's great success, but this is the kind of thing that can (and HAS last year) cost us playoff wins.
That's more important than any regular season record. Joe D needs to have a serious talking to with Flip about minutes.

I believe this deserves a LOL@the Pistons.

Detroit doesn't play with any sense of urgency anymore - either their shots are falling and they win games or they are not falling and they accept the loss. They don't seem to try and make things happen when they shots are not falling - just keep shooting the three pointers.

And for a team who hasn't shot a lot of threes in recent years they don't know how the long season will effect their legs and thus their three pointers.

It's kind of tough to play the bench more when nobody outside of Dice provides the team with positive contributions. Arroyo sucks, Darko suck and neither Delfino or Evans are setting themselves apart from the other. We're in a dog fight for HCA throughout the playoffs. Problem is the Spurs and Mavs have great benches os they'll be able to go all out all year. We can't.

Flip has been great, but I put a lot of the blame for this on him. His bench rotation is very questionable. I don't get bringing a player in with 6 minutes left in the 2nd quarter and leaving him in there the rest of the half. This is the case with Delfino. He needs to play with freedom. Besides, I think Delfino is a vastly superior player to Maurice Evans. Delfino should be getting 20-25 minutes behind Rip and Tayshaun. He is a guy that can give the starters a lift given the chance.

Thank You. I thought I was the only one that noticed this with Flip. The thing that bothers me the most about Flip is the fact that he plays the starters for long stretches at a time, like say entire quarters.

I also agree with the fact that Delfino deserves twice as many minutes as Evans is getting, especially given the shitty play from Tay.

It's kind of tough to play the bench more when nobody outside of Dice provides the team with positive contributions. Arroyo sucks, Darko suck and neither Delfino or Evans are setting themselves apart from the other. We're in a dog fight for HCA throughout the playoffs. Problem is the Spurs and Mavs have great benches os they'll be able to go all out all year. We can't.

That's kind of hard to do when nobody on the bench knows how many minutes they will play on any given night.

Shitty play from Tay?

i REALLY don't understand why Flip is resisting going to his bench earlier and more often. yes, we want to win everygame....but at what cost? little bench development and burned out starters.

I don't buy the tired argument. I also don't buy the too many minutes argument either. Someone go show me where any Piston is in the top 15 in avg. mins played per game.

edit: I just went and looked. Rip is 16th in the league w/ 37 mins. He shouldn't count either cause he is the one thaat holds himself out as the most conditioned athlete in the NBA. Billups is next at #32 @ 36 mins per game

I see a team that is playing more unfocused than tired. This team doesn't have a Michael Jordan that will carry them with his "won't lose" attitude on days they lack focus.

Ben Wallace seems to be one of the only players out there playing with some purpose.

Flip's job is to find ways to motivate this team to play with purpose and energy in these dog days of February.

Also, the bench knows very well how many minutes they have. If they can't perform in those minutes than maybe Joe got the wrong types of players for the bench (talking about Arroyo and DelFino). I personally never want to hear about Darko being a solution to anything for this team.

I don't buy the tired argument. I also don't buy the too many minutes argument either. Someone go show me where any Piston is in the top 20 in avg. mins played per game.

I see a team that is playing more unfocused than tired. This team doesn't have a Michael Jordan that will carry them with his "won't lose" attitude on days they lack focus.

Ben Wallace seems to be one of the only players out there playing with some purpose.

Flip's job is to find ways to motivate this team to play with purpose and energy in these dog days of February.

focus is an interesting comment.

starting the season, i think we are all surprised that the Pistons were coming out every night like it was a must win game. we reel off 30+ wins and now it seems like the urgency isn't there.

i think it's hard for Flip since the Pistons quickly became the darlings of the NBA, with all the Bulls record/70 win talk.

Our starters minutes today:

Tayshaun Prince - 39 minutes
Rasheed Wallace - 38 minutes
Ben Wallace - 32 minutes
Rip Hamilton - 41 minutes
Chauncey Billups - 38 minutes