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Monday, April 28, 2008
Matt (Fostoria, Ohio): Antonio McDyess had a great game off the bench. I think he’d be a force off the bench in the playoffs. I know he had a good game as a starter in Game 2, but do you think he gives more of a spark and feels more comfortable coming off the bench like he did last season?
Langlois: McDyess told me in December that, despite his initial reluctance to join the starting lineup, he now felt more comfortable starting. The Pistons might bring him off the bench again in Game 5 and perhaps beyond that, but at some point I would expect him to rejoin the starting lineup.
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David (Modesto, Calif.): Is Afflalo big enough to come in and play the three, because we need to give Prince some rest and Hayes isn’t getting any minutes. Also, is it a turnover if an unsecured rebound trickles out of bounds?
Langlois: The Pistons have maintained since day one with Afflalo that he can guard all three perimeter positions. They’d be careful about putting him on bigger small forwards – someone like Hedo Turkoglu, for instance, should the Pistons advance to the next round and face Orlando – but Igoudala swings between the three and the two. It’s no doubt something they’re considering as Hayes’ minutes dwindle. As for the second question, no … but whether the rebound was secured or not is a judgment call.
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John (Grand Rapids, Mich.): Prince needs to be the focal point. He’s the only guy that should get an isolation against the matchups Philly presents and he’s totally demoralized Igoudala. I don’t know whether to be pleased or irate that the Pistons have been reduced to a team that lives an dies by the 3, but I was ecstatic to see Rip coming off myriad screens when the chips were down.
Langlois: Prince needs to be more than the fourth option, I’ll agree with that. When the Pistons get him a fair number of shots, they’re a much better team. That’s reflected in his clearly superior stats in wins compared to losses – a wider disparity for him than for his teammates. The 3-point line was an important component of the comeback, but there were a lot of reasons the Pistons executed a 20-point turnaround in about six minutes – the seven offensive rebounds they had and the seven Philly turnovers they forced in the third quarter come to mind.
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Vivian (Brooklyn, N.Y.): During TNT’s halftime show of Game 4, Chris Webber said that Joe Dumars comes into the locker room and gives the team the riot act. I feel that is extremely tacky of Chris to give out information like that. What do you think?
Langlois: I think Webber might not have conveyed that exactly the way he meant to. He was asked what Saunders would say to the team at halftime and he said words to the effect of, no disrespect to Saunders, but the team has adopted Joe Dumars’ character. Dumars has acquired all of the Pistons players – and all of the starters have been here longer than Saunders – and what he meant was that they weren’t the kind of team that would really respond to a rah-rah halftime speech from a coach because they would be mad enough at themselves. When he said something about Dumars threatening to trade them all, he wasn’t suggesting that Dumars would literally threaten such a thing, in my interpretation.
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David (Washington, Mich.): The Pistons don’t have the drive to make it to the Finals, pure and simple. Their Game 1 defeat is proof of that. It’s been a problem for a few years and no matter how much youth they have, that complacency will stay there as long as their starting lineup stays together. After they lose this season, who do you think will be traded first? My guess is Rip.
Langlois: Not sure exactly how this misperception about the Pistons has grown into something that many, if not a majority, seem to accept now as fact. As far as I’ll go down that road is this: I think after winning 64 games two years ago and seeing the emotional and physical toll it took on them – being the team everybody in the league got up to play and taking on that challenge every night – when the playoffs arrived, the Pistons treated the regular season a little too casually a year ago. And I think that had something to do with the lack of resilience they had in last year’s playoff loss to Cleveland. But they attacked this regular season much differently. You don’t win 59 games – while simultaneously putting some games at admitted risk by breaking in young players – by having a turn-it-on, turn-it-off mentality that they are consistently accused of having. Every team in the league loses inexplicable games. That’s the nature of basketball and of professional athletics, where even the worst teams have tremendously gifted players. But I’ll indulge the last half of your question, anyway. Rip Hamilton would be a logical candidate for a lot of reasons: He has tremendous trade value because he’s a three-time All-Star who just turned 30; he plays a position where the Pistons have protected themselves with depth by drafting two guards last June who’ve shown great promise; and he has a reasonable contract but one he can opt out of next summer.
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Roy (Northstar, Mich.): I’ve noticed that when there are too many days between games we have problems, so maybe going more than four games in this series is a good thing. Also, when we play one or two starters with our bench, we have good success.
Langlois: Both pretty solid observations, Roy. It does seem to take the Pistons a whole to crack things back up if they go more than two days between games. That probably doesn’t make them all that unusual, though. Rodney Stuckey, in particular, seems more at ease when he’s in the game with either Chauncey Billups or Rip Hamilton – at least when he’s in a game going up against the other team’s first unit.
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Kenyetta (Auburn Hills, Mich.): I’m a little confused. What does it mean when sports commentators say the Pistons have lost home-court advantage?
Langlois: The Pistons opened the series against Philadelphia with home-court advantage because they were going to get four of the seven games at The Palace. But when Philly won Game 1, now the 76ers had taken it away – they had one win in the bank and half of the remaining six games on their home court. But the Pistons regained the advantage by winning Sunday night in Philadelphia. Now it’s an even series, 2-2, with two of the remaining three possible games to be played at The Palace.
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Tony (Suffolk, Va.): People who write you shouldn’t question every little thing. This team won 59 games, second-best record in the league. When they win the title, I don’t want to see any of you non-believers wearing Pistons championship gear.
Langlois: I was a little surprised, I guess, not so much at the level of angst over the Game 1 loss as the accusations that it happened because the Pistons just weren’t interested enough. That’s just wrong. But the Pistons are a forgiving bunch. If they win the championship, there will be room enough for all under the big tent. I understood a little better the angst after the Game 3 loss. That one was truly troubling. And even the Pistons admitted that much.
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Julius (Lansing, Mich.): The bench needs to play – and I mean the young guys, not Theo and Lindsey, who are good in five-minute stretches. There’s no question the young guys can be counted on and are a major upgrade over the past couple of years.
Langlois: Pistons starters played their most minutes yet in Sunday’s win – Chauncey Billups 41, Rasheed Wallace 43, Rip Hamilton 44 and Tayshaun Prince 45. Now, it’s not unusual at all for All-Star-caliber players on other teams to play that many minutes in the postseason – Andre Igoudala played 46 for Philly and Andre Miller 42 – so it shouldn’t be too alarming for Pistons fans. I don’t think that will be the norm, but if the Pistons get past this round there will be games that require them to play that many minutes again, probably. It’s only a problem if they lose and come out with tired legs the next time around. But, remember, there’s no back-to-backs in the playoffs, and the Pistons saved wear and tear on their starters during the season by scaling their minutes back pretty significantly over a year ago.
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Patrick (Paramaribo, Suriname): The only team I feared last year was the Spurs and I think the Pistons made the same mistake by not focusing on the conference finals. How are they preparing to avoid the same fate this year?
Langlois: I agree that the Pistons weren’t as highly motivated to play Cleveland as they should have been. There’s no doubt the Pistons thought Chicago was the biggest hurdle to getting out of the East last year and when they beat the Bulls in the second round, they exhaled and relaxed and got punched in the jaw by Cleveland, never sufficiently recovering to take back momentum. It sure won’t happen that way this season. If the Pistons get past the second round, they aren’t going to exhale and think they have a clear path to the NBA Finals with Boston their likely conference finals opponent.
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Chris (Allegan, Mich.): I know it’s playoff time and starters’ minutes are increasing, but our bench had a big role in the team’s success and now it just seems like the energy isn’t there. Do you think Flip Saunders has what it takes to motivate these guys?
Langlois: At the NBA level, I’m not sure motivational ability matters so much in the head coach. I don’t want to underestimate that quality, but if players aren’t self-motivated by the time they get to this level, there’s not a whole lot the head coach can do. Now, I think a coach can have a significant effect on the attitude a team projects, but Saunders probably has less of an impact in that regard because this team’s persona was pretty well-defined before he arrived.
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Renee (Troy): What is the problem with the play of the Pistons? Why are we losing to a lesser team? Can anything be done so this season is not a total loss? Is Flip going to be fired? Who would you trade first as it is obvious this team can not stay together? Is Avery Johnson going to be the next Pistons coach after he gets fired at the Mavericks?
Langlois: Wow – lots of questions. Philly is making this a tough series because they won Game 1 despite getting outplayed for close to three quarters of that game and then did all the punching in Game 3. I think in Game 4, even though the Pistons were down by 10 at halftime, it wasn’t because they weren’t playing hard – they just were making really poor decisions with the ball. The Pistons had six offensive rebounds at halftime to one for Philly, and that’s a pretty decent barometer of hustle. But this season won’t be a total loss if they get out of this first round and play their best basketball from this point forward. All those other questions can’t possibly be answered until we see how it plays out.
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Brunetta (Pontiac, Mich.): Why are the Pistons playing into the Sixers’ hands? They are throwing up quick shots, playing too much one-on-one and not playing defense.
Langlois: Anytime a superior team loses to an inferior team, it’s safe to say the better team got taken out of its game. Why that happens, who can say? Coaches use nebulous phrases like “impose our will” – I think most people know what that means, but explaining it is tricky. In the Game 3 loss, the Pistons got too easily distracted and frustrated. I wish I was smart enough to tell you why. The second half of Game 4 looked more like the way I thought this series would look. The Pistons have to be kicking themselves now for blowing that 15-point lead in Game 1. If they’d just closed the deal then, they could be looking at closing out the series in Game 5.
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Harsh (Rochester): Who said the Pistons would win in four or five? The media. Even the Hawks can still beat the Celtics if the stars are lined up for them. That’s the bottom line – on any given night, no team is safe.
Langlois: I think the only way the stars line up right for Atlanta is if the real stars – Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce – line up in Atlanta uniforms. Yeah, I fell in line by predicting the Pistons to win in five – and, as I said above, if they hadn’t uncharacteristically blown a 15-point lead at home in the second half of Game 1, that’s what they’d be looking to do Tuesday night.
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Scott (Sterling Heights): Before people start abandoning ship, I’d like to point out that five years ago – before the Pistons had even made the conference finals – they were facing an Orlando Magic team very similar to this year’s Philadelphia team, went down 3-1 and then won three straight.
Langlois: I think Pistons fans remember that series well, but coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA is very difficult. The other thing about that series is that it really turned around dramatically when Rick Carlisle finally entrusted Tayshaun Prince with responsibility, putting him on Tracy McGrady. That Orlando team really didn’t have much else going for it. When the Pistons got McGrady relatively under control, their ability to grind out wins came into play. I’m not sure this year’s Pistons have a similar wild card, though I think they’re clearly a better team than the ’03 version and shouldn’t have to resort to desperate moves.
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Daniel (Quarryville, Pa.): I read a comment from a Denver fan today on ESPN.com asking if a trade of Carmelo Anthony was possible because of his terrible defense. Don’t questions like that show Joe Dumars knew what he was doing by passing on him in the 2003 draft?
Langlois: Well … look, my admiration for the way Dumars has gone about the job of building the Pistons into championship contenders without mortgaging anything of the future is vast. But you can’t give him credit for passing on a 25-point scorer when the guy he got instead is now on his third team. Let me be clear about this, though: No matter what anybody says now, pretty much every GM in the league would have taken Darko Milicic with the No. 2 pick that year. Denver would have, too. I do think it’s fair to question how valuable Anthony really is. He is an indifferent defender and doesn’t seem able to carry his team against quality opposition.
