Quote:
Thursday, April 24, 2008
:langlois:
Mailbag set an unofficial but undisputed record for volume in the days between games 1 and 2 of the Pistons’ first-round series with Philadelphia. In the interest of redundancy reduction – and the interest of your humble Mailbag monitor’s sanity – we’ve selected a representative sampling of a common theme to capture the mood of Pistons fans, which has almost certainly changed in the 10 hours since Game 2 ended as I write these words. Lots of sprained ankles in Pistons Nation, I suspect, from all the jumping on and off the bandwagon …
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Greg (Marquette): I sure hope you’re right that the Pistons lost Game 1 because they fed the ball to Rasheed in the post too much. I have my doubts. I remember the Pistons usually winning when Rasheed is scoring in the low post.
Langlois: The Pistons were 3-0 when they went to Chicago on Nov. 8, Greg. Rasheed scored 36 – and the Pistons lost to the winless Bulls. In Detroit’s 59 wins, Wallace averaged 12.1 points and was Detroit’s fourth-leading scorer to go with 6.5 rebounds in 29 minutes. In the 23 losses, he averaged 14.3 points and was the third-leading scorer to go with 6.9 rebounds in 33 minutes. Some of the difference you can assign to Wallace playing longer minutes against better teams in losses while taking off the fourth quarters of a lot of blowout wins. But there is at least some evidence there to suggest the Pistons are better off not making too much of an effort to become a post-dominated offense. Interestingly enough, Chauncey Billups’ scoring is also better in losses than wins, though his assists are better in wins. The biggest differential, though, is Tayshaun Prince – he averages 14.1 in wins and shoots 47 percent, 10.9 in losses and shoots 39 percent. In Game 2, Prince had 14 in the first half and the Pistons won with four players scoring 16 to 20 points.
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Chris (Toledo): It’s hard not to compare these Pistons to the Bad Boys, but there’s no comparison. The major difference is that when those great teams had someone down, they kept them down and never let up.
Langlois: Careful when you deal in absolutes, Chris. The old Bad Boys were an admirable team and, pound for pound, the most competitive bunch I’ve ever been around. But they had a game won in Boston Garden until Larry Bird stole the ball. They had the Lakers down 3-2 in the NBA Finals and didn’t close the deal. Fans tend to see a game only through the prism of their own team, forgetting that the other guys cash paychecks, too. If you want to talk about Game 1 and how the Pistons let a 15-point lead get away, you’re right – they should have held on. But this is not a team that makes a habit of squandering second-half leads.
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Tanae (Baltimore): I can’t seem to wrap my mind around this sense of entitlement that the Pistons have to winning the crown. You would think that a lesson would be learned from the last two years, but here we go again.
Langlois: The Pistons picked a particularly lousy time to play an uncharacteristic game and they lost. And that, understandably, frustrated fans. But that loss wasn’t about complacency or arrogance or entitlement – it was about making a few bad decisions they don’t normally make and missing a whole bunch of shots – layups, free throws and open jumpers – that they’ll make more often than not.
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Matthew (Fostoria, Ohio): Is there any chance of Philadelphia doing what Golden State did to Dallas last year?
Langlois: I wouldn’t bet even a subprime mortgage on it, Matthew.
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C.M. (Detroit): Coaching errors cost the Pistons Game 1. Pulling Tayshaun Prince out of the game when he was the reason we had a lead? Then you put Ratliff, Maxiell, Wallace, Stuckey and Hunter in the game?
Langlois: Prince was the reason the Pistons led? He didn’t have a great game – 12 points on 5 of 13. He wasn’t awful, but he wasn’t great. And he played 40 minutes. He came out for a few minutes to start the fourth quarter so he’d be good to go down the stretch. He had a wide-open 18 footer to tie the game in the final 20 seconds and left it well short. There were others who’d be ahead of him in line for goat’s horns, but you’ll be on an island if you’re suggesting what Tayshaun Prince gave the Pistons in Game 1 was the reason the Pistons should have won the game.
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Wilfred (Paramaribo, Suriname): If Game 1 wasn’t lost due to complacency, then I don’t know the meaning of the word. I have serious doubts about the Pistons’ starters. Instead of focusing on the job at hand, fooling around at the scorer’s table seemed more important.
Langlois: I’ll respectfully disagree that the Game 1 loss traces to complacency. Lousy play and fragile confidence in certain players, maybe, but not complacency. And the “fooling around” – that can only refer to Rasheed Wallace, right? Who was, hands down, the best player on the floor. Rasheed is an unconventional guy. I won’t pretend to understand his complexities, but it’s fair to say that he goes about his business differently than many. But whatever he did to prepare himself for Game 1 worked.
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Alex (Flint): Why did they put Dixon on the inactive list instead of Afflalo? Dixon is a scorer and Afflalo is iffy. Hayes only got five minutes. That’s terrible.
Langlois: The final spot on the active roster probably came down to Dixon or Lindsey Hunter. The Pistons went with Hunter, probably for a few reasons – he’s been there with this team before in the postseason, he looked really good in the last two regular-season games and he has one special attribute, on-the-ball defense, that you look for in an end-of-the-bench reserve who doesn’t have to be a complete player for the way he’ll be used. Hayes got limited time because Philly goes small and Andre Igoudala might have a little too much quickness for him at the three spot. Afflalo is sticking on the active roster throughout the playoffs because they can use him defensively on any number of players.
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Wallace (Hubert, N.C.): Why do the Pistons play on the visitor’s end of the court in the second half?
Langlois: Visiting team gets to choose which basket it gets to start the game.
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Mark (Wilmington, Del.): Why does Flip continue to ignore his bench come playoff time?
Langlois: Flip played more players and used his bench for more minutes than Philadelphia, which has a bench similar to Detroit’s in its youth and athleticism. Ten Pistons played in Game 1 and 10 more in Game 2. I’d expect Stuckey to have a bigger role as the playoffs unfold. He wasn’t bad in Game 1, just didn’t have many chances to assert himself. You saw in Game 2 that he played much more like the player of the past month of the regular season.
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Joe (Charleston, Ill.): After Game 1, is it possible we’ll see Maxiell start, if only for this series? Two missed layups and three missed free throws down the stretch – should we retire the nickname Mr. Big Shot?
Langlois: Regarding Maxiell starting, no. You don’t do it one way for 82 games and then change horses based on one outing. Regarding the nickname, ouch.
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Terrell (Erie, Pa.): Losing to Philadelphia in the first game was good – now the Pistons can get rid of that “switch” and play like they’re supposed to. Does Chauncey ever throw alley oops?
Langlois: Don’t think it was a good thing, but it doesn’t have to be a devastating thing, either. Billups rarely throws a lob – it’s something not everybody is comfortable doing.
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Rich (Detroit): The Pistons need to demolish lesser teams in order to send a message and silence the doubters. Winning this series in six or seven games isn’t good enough when Orlando or Toronto awaits them in round two. What do you think?
Langlois: The more games you play, the greater the risk of injury or fatigue setting in. The playoffs take a toll, especially when the starters are playing more and harder minutes. The Pistons will want to wrap up the first round as quickly as possible. Five games would have been ideal. Now that requires winning both games at Philly this weekend. Tough chore.
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Renee (Troy): Do you think five good players beat a team with a superstar – taking into consideration the 76ers are not superstars.
Langlois: Basketball is an ever-evolving game, Renee. The NBA has cycled from offensive dominance to defensive dominance back to somewhere in the middle. A decade ago creativity seemed to have been squeezed out of the game. Now players like Steve Nash and Chris Paul poke holes in defenses from every conceivable angle. There is no one magic formula to success in the NBA. Basketball is a game of infinite possibility. How does Team USA, dominated by NBA superstars, lose to international teams with little or no NBA-level talent? On another level, how did George Mason get to the Final Four a few years back? Basketball is more about the whole than the sum of its parts than most other team sports. So the answer to your question is a resounding yes.
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Paul (Essexville): What criteria, if any, are used for MVP voting? Also, did Bob Lanier or Bill Laimbeer speak at the All-Time Team reunion a few weeks ago?
Langlois: The criteria are pretty simple – who do you think was the most valuable player? Now, valuable can mean different things to different voters. Most make it some combination of best individual season and player who did the most to enhance team success. If by “speak” you mean did they address The Palace crowd at halftime, no – only Dave Bing, Isiah Thomas and Chauncey Billups did from among players named to the team. There’s only so much time available at halftime, so they chose one player from each of the approximate three “generations” of Pistons since the team moved to Detroit.
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David (Fresno, Calif.): I’ve been following the Pistons and the NBA a long time and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that to win a championship you must lose – it’s a progression. If Boston wins the title, it will prove that idea wrong and that you can buy a championship.
Langlois: Do the old rules still apply? It would have been impossible, pre-salary cap, for one team as virtually bereft of assets as last year’s Celtics were to acquire two Hall of Fame type players in one off-season. But Danny Ainge managed to parlay what little he had – a lottery pick, a young potential All-Star and assorted other parts – into Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. It came together better than all but the most wild-eyed optimists could have hoped. I don’t think anyone would be particularly surprised if Boston takes a short cut to the NBA title – but it will be interesting to see how the Celtics respond if they get in a dogfight of a series, too.
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Ian (Jackson): If somehow the Pistons lose to the 76ers or don’t make it to the conference finals, what route do you see Joe Dumars taking – trading for a superstar, like Boston did, or going young, like Portland did, or keeping this team together?
Langlois: I think it’s way too early to start guessing what Dumars is going to do because he’s still very much in evaluation mode. I know he believes strongly in the young players he’s assembled behind the veteran starters. But no matter how the playoffs shake out, he’ll be open to any and all possibilities to improve the team going forward.
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James (Plano, Texas): I think someone like Brandon Rush has a good chance of falling to the Pistons in the draft. Any chance the Pistons take him?
Langlois: Rush would definitely be among the group of possibilities at 29. But it’s a very large group right now. The deadline for early entry is midnight Sunday, so things could still change. But Rush figures to go somewhere from 20 on down. I’d guess that the Pistons have at least 20 players they think could be there at 29 that they’re spending great amounts of time evaluating now.
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Shelli (Los Angeles): I’m a crazy Pistons fan – not always easy in LA – and I’d like to remind everyone that last year the Spurs lost their first playoff game at home. Remember how that ended?
Langlois: Reminded of that the other day, Flip Saunders said it was no consolation.
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Dick (Las Vegas): I remember hearing on a national telecast over a month ago that the Pistons were on pace to set an NBA record for fewest turnovers. Did they set the record?
Langlois: Close, but no cigar. The Pistons committed 956 turnovers this season, seven more than Dallas did in 2002-03.
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Alec (Detroit): I know, it’s too early to start discussing this too seriously, but I’m thinking about next year’s big man rotation. What do you think about starting Maxiell at the four and Sheed at the five, then having Amir as the energy guy off the bench and McDyess as the veteran big off the bench?
Langlois: I think the Pistons are comfortable with McDyess in the role he’s in right now. Nobody’s putting a ceiling on Maxiell’s future, but there would be some concerns about his size as a starter that aren’t there with him matching up much of the time against other backups and changing the game with his hustle.
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Mark (Adelaide, South Australia): Why test the rookies and give them minutes leading up to the playoffs and then not show any confidence in them?
Langlois: It was one game, Mark. If the starters hadn’t uncharacteristically squandered a 15-point lead, you would have seen the bench. Remember when they started to let the lead slip away, too – late third quarter. That was right about the time you would have seen a liberal use of the bench if the lead were still at 15 or higher. In Game 2, the fourth quarter belonged to the Zoo Crew.
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Andre (Detroit): Who do you think is a better defender, Rasheed Wallace or Kevin Garnett?
Langlois: One possession – or perhaps even one game – I’ll take Rasheed. Over the course of a season, I’ll take Garnett. He would have gotten my vote for Defensive Player of the Year, which he justifiably won, because he plays with an unmatched level of intensity over 82 games.
