Without point guard Chauncey Billups, the Detroit Pistons will try to avoid matching their longest losing streak in nearly two years when they meet the New Orleans Hornets on Thursday in Oklahoma City.

The Pistons (18-11), who didn't lose more than two in a row last season, have dropped their last three contests. They haven't lost four straight since Jan. 18-24, 2005.

Billups, the team's second-leading scorer who averages 18.0 points and 8.1 assists per game, strained a calf muscle in a 93-92 loss to Indiana on Friday.

Flip Murray stepped in for Billups Sunday and set season highs with 18 points and seven assists, but the the Pistons lost 108-101 at home to Phoenix.

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"When you don't have Chauncey, it puts a lot of stress on your other players," Pistons coach Flip Saunders said. "I can't fault our guys, they came out and played hard."

Billups has been ruled out for this contest, while backup point guard Lindsey Hunter has missed the last 12 games with a sore right Achilles'.

"It's feeling better today, but I don't know," Billups said Sunday. "I'm not going to play until I feel all the way right."

One of the NBA's better defensive teams, Detroit is allowing 117.3 points during the skid, which included a 151-145 triple overtime loss at New York on Dec. 27.

The Pistons haven't shot well from 3-point range during the slide, making just 26.4 percent (14-for-53) of their attempts from beyond the arc. Rasheed Wallace, who's made the second-most 3s on the team behind Billups, was 0-for-7 against Phoenix and the team went 1-for-15 from 3-point range.

"I couldn't put a rock in the ocean," said Wallace, who is 1-for-12 on 3s during the losing streak. "I'm not worried about it. You just go back and get them the next time."

One bright spot for the Pistons has been Richard Hamilton, who is averaging 34.7 points in his last three games, well above his team-leading average of 22.4 a contest.

The Hornets (12-19) will play without their star point guard for a fifth straight game Thursday. Chris Paul, who averages a team-leading 18.4 points and 9.0 assists per game, is out at least a month with a sprained right ankle.

New Orleans fell to 1-3 without him with a 97-89 loss to Golden State Tuesday, the team's 16th defeat in 20 games. Without Paul and other injured starters David West and Peja Stojakovic, the Hornets continue to look for offense.

New Orleans averages an NBA-low 90.2 points per game and has been scoring 88.3 a contest since Paul's injury.

"We are not going to make excuses," guard Devin Brown said. "You can say that, but at the same time guys know what their responsibilities are and they know that we are going to go hard every day."

Rasual Butler, who is averaging a career-high 11.0 points a game, scored 30 Tuesday and is averaging 19.5 since Paul has been out.

New Orleans snapped a four-game losing streak to the Pistons with a 100-99 win on Nov. 15.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/preview;_ylt=An4IPyap8GpVJ7zcIwhFMay8vLYF?gid=2007 010403

damn these long lay offs between games......

Die you filthy Hornets!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.kmbrc.org.uk/ROTM/Images/Jul04.jpg

Its time to pull out our secret weapon.
http://www.bugsmart.ca/images/products/22.jpg
which is a metaphor for....
http://www.nba.com/media/maxiell_300_061024.jpg

Lack of the Hornets 3 best players = pistons victory. I prefer not to go into depth.

Hamilton could very well drop 50 if he continues to play like this.

Losing to this team right now would either mean..

we really are worse than we think
or
Billups means more to us than DAvid West, Cp3, and Peja do to the Hornets.

But we aren't going to lose so fuck that!!!!

Damn I dont pay attention to the Hornets, so I didnt know Peja and West were out too. I shoulda put my remaining 450 alpacas on this game (already had 50 on the Wings). Looking good so far, Rip was out of his mind in the first. Couple nice plays by JMax, and Dice had some decent shots. Sheed totally slept on a couple ORebs he couldve had. All in all a good game though. Please play more Blalock than Flip in the second half.

RONALD DUPREE SIGHTING!!!! It's a miracle, although we were up by 21 when they put him in.

Back to a 10 point game, hopefully Blalock, JMax, and even Dupree get some more Pt.

Where is AMIR?

Is there a reason Nazr isn't getting many minutes?

You'd think this would be a good chance to get him out there, get his minutes up, and help him feel more comfortable, but maybe they just want one of the guys that's been with the team longer to be out there with the younger guys.

Tell me why Tay is playing 39 minutes, and rip has 35 minutes.

Theres 8 minutes left and that would mean that Tay has sat out 1 minute in total...

Put in Dupree, Amir, anyone...starters shouldnt be getting over 30 minutes against the Hornets who dont even have their 3 best players

I think I just saw Amir.

Way to go fukn TNT, I swear every Pistons game Ive been able see has been switched to another game late in the fourth. No Amir for me. Oh well, happy for the win. Go Pistons!!!

I think I just saw Amir.I think I saw TNT cut away to a damn Indiana game when he checked in. I'm sure showing the last couple minutes of the Pistons game would have killed their ratings.

I think I saw TNT cut away to a damn Indiana game when he checked in. I'm sure showing the last couple minutes of the Pistons game would have killed their ratings.

Fuck a TNT. I think Ill watch the second game though just to hear 2+ hours of Chuck. Best guy on TV for the NBA, he cracks my shit up.

I like how they cut away to a game on FSN, a game that people who want to see it (people from Indiana and Dallas) can see. Even though they have the ONLY telecast of the Pistons game. Its not like the locals can just flip it to FSN Detroit and see the game. I have no respect for TNT games.

i'm still amazed how Rip's game is so effective.

i'm still amazed how Rip's game is so effective.

I LOVE how he has picked an aspect of his game to work on each offseason, and has succeeded in doing so. Last year it was the 3 and he led the league in 3-point percentage. This year I remember him talking about slashing to the basket more and he has done well with it. Once in a while he has looked a bit overzealous but that goes with a lot of slashing. Tonight Rip made that lead and the rest of the team held it. I dont think any of us ever doubted Rip but he is another guy that will be deserving of top dollar come payday. I also love how he runs til his dogs are tired, which if I remember are pits. One day I was playing tug-o-war with my pit, a friend came over so I passed the rope to him, another friend came over and it was passed, etc, for 8 hours and my dog was still going. That says a lot for his conditioning, unless his pits are lazy but I doubt that.

[smilie=rip.gif]

Rip got payed last year I thought.

Yea, Rip has been playing awesome lately. He has stepped it more than I think anyone even imagined with Chauncey gone.

Rip got payed last year I thought.

I think he can opt out the year after next.


I missed this game (sick).

Ack.

Anything noteworthy besides what has been posted already?

I've never seen any report that Rip had a player option in his contract (which runs through the 2010 season.

Anything noteworthy besides what has been posted already?

Tyson Chandler's vicious block on Tayshaun made SC Top 10

Anything noteworthy besides what has been posted already?
The TNT cutting out to the Indi Dallas game pissed me off too. They had 11 minutes left in their game. I can understand if there was only a minute left there and they wanted to show the finish, but no.

Max looked great. He was very active on the boards and played good defense too. Blaylock looked solid. Nothin great, but nothing out of control either. Delfino played like he has been lately. made a few jumpers, passes well, jumps passing lanes and plays good defense. he'll miss a couple open threes, but make enough FT's to make up for them. Dice and Max worked real well together on the boards. They kept a lot of balls alive. RIP drove the hoop quite a bit tonight, which was nice. Sheed was MIA. Flip had trouble keeping Pargo out of the paint too. We need to figure out how to stop dribble penetration because that's how Nash killed us. Amir played garbage time and wasn't really involved at all...nothing to report there. Prince played well like usual. I didn't even see Nazr out there (missed his 10 minutes) so I couldn't say why he didn't get much run. Probably because Dice and Max were playing so well together.

I've never seen any report that Rip had a player option in his contract (which runs through the 2010 season.

from Patricia Bender's site...


Detroit Pistons Date # of total
Player signed years salary misc FA
Chauncey Billups ...... 7/17/02 6 $33.7 million p-opt '07
Will Blaylock ......... 10/2/06 1 minimum '07
Dale Davis ............ 8/23/05 2 $7 million '07
Ronald Dupree ......... 7/18/06 2 minimum p-opt '07
Antonio McDyess ....... 7/14/04 4 $22.5 million p-opt '07
Carlos Delfino ........ 7/14/04 4 $4,776,941 rc '08
Richard Hamilton ...... 8/12/03 7 $62 million p-opt '08
Lindsey Hunter ........ 7/18/06 2 $4.5 million '08
Ronald Murray ......... 7/18/06 2 $3.5 million '08
Jason Maxiell ......... 7/7/05 4 $4,798,012 rc t-opt '09
Rasheed Wallace ....... 7/22/04 5 $60 million '09
Nazr Mohammed ......... 7/12/06 5 $31 million t-opt '11
Tayshaun Prince ....... 9/2/02,10/31/05 4+5 $4,541,153+$48 mill '11
Amir Johnson .......... 8/11/05 ?? ??? '??

http://www.dfw.net/~patricia/contracts

Damn it, I even looked at Patricia before posting that. I wish she'd get someone to make her a real damn website.

I didn't think it was possible for their to be a player's option in anything other than the last or second-to-last season of a contract. If there were an option, I'd think it'd be for the 2009 season.

^i thought that too. I think options have to be in your last two years as well.

edit - found the answer:


Options can occur only when one season remains on the contract, while ETO's can occur when two seasons remain if the contract is for six seasons