Monday, March 24, 2008
David (Grand Rapids): The Pistons have been to five straight conference finals and have just one ring and two Finals appearances to show for it when they were the favorite to win the whole thing at least one or two other times in that five-year span. So how do you think the Pistons will be remembered once this run is over?
Langlois: Started to answer this one, David, and then decided it needed a little more of an answer. So I’ll direct you toward the blog we posted on Friday on Pistons.com.
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Eric (Greensboro, N.C.): In watching the Cleveland and Washington games, it’s like the Pistons have everything sewn up and they’ve flipped the switch off again. I hope not, because I think that’s a dangerous way to play. What do you think?
Langlois: I think there were different reasons at play in each game for what I wouldn’t argue were good performances. Against Cleveland, the Pistons were playing their third game in four nights and I think they were truly worn down after big home wins against San Antonio, New Orleans and Denver. Against Washington, it was almost the opposite – they came out with a bounce in their step but it looked like the three full days off had thrown off their timing and dulled their competitive edge. I’m expecting a more typical Pistons performance against Phoenix tonight.
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Cheryl (Newaygo): With the top nine teams in the West playing like every game is a playoff game, they’ll be finely tuned when the actual playoffs arrive – or somewhat worn down. The Pistons seem to be playing like they’re bored. After the Cleveland and Washington games, I think we need to find some fire. Am I reading too much into this?
Langlois: It’ll be intriguing to see what effect the wild jockeying for playoff positioning in the West will have on those teams. I think it’ll be more evident in the early rounds than later on. The survivors of the West’s first-round series will have had a chance to catch their breath after that – the playoff schedule is a little more forgiving than the regular season’s and everyone will then be on the same footing. In other words, I don’t really think the East’s winner is going to have much of an advantage come the Finals. As I said above, I’m not going to try to tell anyone the Pistons played well against either Cleveland or Washington. This week will be interesting with four games over the next six nights and all of them against playoff teams except Thursday’s visit from Miami.
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Donald: I know it’s a long season, but these last two games were bad. What’s up with these guys? From the outside, it looks like they’re having locker-room problems. Have other teams figured these guys out?
Langlois: If they’re having locker-room problems, that’s the first anyone I know has heard of it. Not sure what gave you that indication. They ran into two pretty good teams have good nights when they were having mediocre ones. If it’s something more than that, we’ll see the evidence soon enough – Phoenix, Toronto and Cleveland are all on the schedule this week.
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Joe (Marquette): The Pistons have played hot and cold since the All-Star break. You can’t blame these last few losses on tinkering with the lineup because the starters have played big minutes and Pistons starters should beat the Sixers and Wizards most nights. As in seasons past, the Pistons respond to big games but can’t “flip the switch” against teams they think they’re better than.
Langlois: Again, I don’t think the Pistons are in “flip the switch” mode. Different teams, different losses, different nights, different circumstances. The Pistons didn’t measure up either night because they didn’t play their best. I thought offense was more the problem in Cleveland and defense was the bigger culprit against Washington. Let’s give it a few more games before we declare an organizational emergency, OK?
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Tony (Bloomfield Hills): When the Pistons’ jump shots aren’t falling, why can’t they seem to find other ways to score?
Langlois: Now there’s a timeless question, to which I’ll borrow from Chuck Daly to supply a timeless answer: Good shooting covers a multitude of sins. It’s easy to find other ways to score when your jump shots are falling because teams must respect the jump shooter. But when the defense is the aggressor and forcing tough jump shots, offenses get rocked back on their heels and become passive. And when that happens, nothing seems to work. The only way out of it is to fight your way out – constant movement, with and without the ball, picks set with resolve, hard cuts to the basket. All easier said than done. The Pistons did very little of that against Cleveland and Washington.
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David (Lansing): The Pistons will be very lucky if they do not see the Cavs in the playoffs. I’m a big fan, but they are a huge disappointment when they play the Cavs.
Langlois: I think the Pistons would be fairly happy to see Cleveland in the playoffs. Because that almost certainly would mean they wouldn’t be seeing Boston. The East’s top four seeds are pretty safely set and if form holds in the first round, the second-round pairings would be Detroit-Orlando and Boston-Cleveland with the winners advancing to the conference finals. The Pistons know Cleveland wouldn’t be a pushover, but you’d rather face the Cavs than the Celtics, wouldn’t you?
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Paul (Essexville): What is the highest point total for an NBA team in a game that didn’t go to overtime and what is the highest assist total for a team?
Langlois: Boston and Phoenix share the points record with 173 in a non-overtime game, the Celtics doing it in 1959 and the Suns in 1990. Milwaukee amassed 53 assists against the Pistons in a 143-84 win on Dec. 26, 1978. The Pistons must have had a little too much turkey that Christmas.
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Adam (Chicago): The smartest team in the NBA, the Pistons, needs to move the ball more. One-on-ones and mismatches are successful in moderation, but jumper after jumper won’t get it done, as seen in Cleveland.
Langlois: Flip Saunders says it after every game the Pistons bog down offensively – too much one-on-one, not enough ball movement to get the ball from the strong side to the weakside, which gets the defense moving, creates lanes and open shots and opens the court. But it’s not “jumper after jumper” that’s the problem – it’s getting open jumpers as opposed to contested ones that result from stagnating offense where one player dominates the ball and his teammates are flat-footed and no threat to grab an offensive rebound.
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Treva (Toledo): Why does it seem like the Pistons play against Cleveland as if the Cavs are their friends? I read that LeBron said he hated the Pistons and it shows when they play. The Pistons need to change their attitude.
Langlois: They’ve played twice this year, the Pistons winning in a rout at home – yes, LeBron got hurt and didn’t play in the second half – and losing a closer game at Cleveland. The Pistons didn’t play well – I wouldn’t try convincing you otherwise. Cleveland had won seven in a row at home, though, and the Pistons were coming off a game in which they scored 136 the night before while Cleveland was off. So let’s not extrapolate too much about “attitude” from that one. They play two more times in the final month of the season. Let’s see what happens.
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Harsh (Rochester): Over the years, I’ve admired the Pistons’ ability to win close games by coming from behind and grinding it out. This year, it seems like when they’re down by 10 in the fourth quarter, the game is over.
Langlois: Kind of harsh, Harsh. I’ll be if you look at the numbers, teams that fall behind by 10 points in the fourth quarter go on to lose close to 90 percent of the time. If the Pistons were better at making up double-digits deficits in years past, then they were beating the law of averages. The key is not get that far down in the first place. They have the second-best record in the NBA – they must be doing something right.
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Eric (Lansing): I hate to say it, but I’ve come to believe Boston is the team to beat out of the East. Look at how the Pistons struggled to beat Seattle and then got beat in Boston on a back-to-back. Look at how Boston went to San Antonio and Houston and won in a back-to-back.
Langlois: There’s no question that unless something goes south in the final four weeks of the regular season, Boston will head into the playoffs as the favorite. They deserve that much after their impressive Texas Triangle sweep last week. But they don’t put 10 points up on the scoreboard at the start of games for the favorite. The Pistons found that out in 2006. The Celtics are going to be a tough out, no question. But the Pistons feel good about their chances. There’s a greater sense of confidence in the bench this year, both among the coaching staff and the players, and we’ll find out how much that’s worth. It should be fun.
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Dave (Sterling Heights): It seems Cleveland has the Pistons’ number. I have a hard time understanding why we have such a hard time with them. The Pistons have similar talent to San Antonio and the Spurs dispatched the Cavs without much trouble. So what gives?
Langlois: Cleveland and San Antonio split their season series this season, 1-1, both teams winning on the other’s home court. (Yes, I do remember that San Antonio swept Cleveland in last season’s Finals.) The Pistons are 1-1 with the Cavs this year, losing at Cleveland on the back end of a back-to-back. Let’s hold off on drawing any conclusions about the current state of the balance of power between the two teams until we see how the next two games play out before the regular season ends. I don’t think there’s any great mystery to it. The Cavs are a good defensive and rebounding team that tries to keep it close to give LeBron James a chance to win in the fourth quarter. When the Pistons struggle to get good shots against the Cavs, they struggle to win.
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John (Holland): The most frightening thing about this Pistons team is how they’ve done against other excellent defensive teams. They’re 2-0 against San Antonio, but Bruce Bowen didn’t play the game at The Palace and the Spurs aren’t the defensive team they once were. They’re 1-1 against Cleveland, winning when LeBron got hurt. They’re 1-2 against Boston and the Celtics have demolished the Pistons at closing time of all three games except for Chauncey’s duping of a second-year guy. They were 0-3 against Chicago when Ben Wallace was with the Bulls. They’re 0-2 against Utah and 1-1 against Houston.
Langlois: And still, somehow, they’ve managed to cobble together the league’s second-best record. It makes sense that the league’s best defensive teams are among the league’s best teams overall, so the fact the Pistons don’t have the same rate of success against the teams you cite that they enjoy against the league as a whole shouldn’t be a surprise. Utah, surprisingly enough, is a below-average defensive team by most measures. They’re middle of the pack in points per game (15th), but 21st in opposition field-goal percentage, a better measure since it doesn’t regard the pace of the game – a team that gives up more points but holds its opponents to a lower shooting percentage would be considered a better defensive team in the eyes of most. And then there are the extenuating circumstances to factor. The Houston loss, the most recent Cleveland loss and the second Boston loss all came on the road when the Pistons were on the second half of a back-to-back and the other team hadn’t played the night before. To disregard that as a factor is foolish – statistics bear out that teams in that situation aren’t going to win very often. Chicago? For the Bulls, I have no explanation.
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Fran (Southfield): I was disappointed at the way the Pistons lost to Cleveland – bad defense, sloppy passes, turnovers. The most consistent player was a rookie, Rodney Stuckey. Why do the Pistons seem to come unglued every time they play a team Ben Wallace is on? Will they ever get over this?
Langlois: They get over it well enough to beat Ben Wallace’s Bulls four times out of six in last year’s playoffs. I can’t tell you for sure one way or the other what effect their longstanding friendship with Big Ben has on their individual or collective performance when they play against him, but last year’s playoffs at least suggested it carries no insurmountable consequences, no?
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Colleen (Ann Arbor): What is it about losing to Cleveland? We are told it’s the “fatigue factor.” How many times is this going to be used as the reason for losses?
Langlois: Indeed, what is it about Cleveland? The fan base seems unusually disturbed by one loss – which, by the way, came on the heels of successive victories against San Antonio, New Orleans and Denver. If you’re in despair over the loss to Cleveland, were you equally giddy after each of those wins? Because those were pretty nice wins, all of them. As for fatigue: Fans have to get that players are human. Humans have good days and bad days at work, days where they feel like they plow through every task and get great things accomplished, and other days where every time they start down one road, they get derailed and get very little done. The only difference? They don’t hang a W or an L in your personnel file when every day ends.
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Originally Posted by Glenn
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