jep Coleman wurde Anfang Januar gewaived...
da hat sich jemand das Bulls-Pistons etwas näher Spiel angesehen
Will the Pistons be able to defend their title?
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Charley Rosen / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 24 hours ago
There have been plenty of surprises so far this season — from the astonishing successes in Seattle and Phoenix, to the presto-chango disasters in New York and New Orleans. But after Detroit overwhelmed the Lakers in last year's finals, the Pistons early-season woes have been anything but expected.
Sure, there are mitigating circumstances, most of them stemming from the notorious Brawl. Yet Detroit's difficulties have continued into midseason.
Rip Hamilton had 32 points Saturday against the Bulls, but it didn't help as the Pistons lost their third straight game. (Allen Einstein / GettyImages)
What's even more puzzling is Detroit's inconsistency. After starting January with a modest six-game winning streak, it proceeded to lose in Orlando (a marginally forgivable defeat), and then to the lowly Bucks. Indeed, in the last seven weeks, Indiana, Orlando, Cleveland and Dallas are the only halfway decent teams the Pistons have beaten. So what's with these guys?
Is their overall equilibrium so fragile that they need an entire season to get everybody back in the same championship time zone? Perhaps they've underestimated the difficulties inherent in winning back-to-back titles? Do they think they can wait for the playoffs before switching from cruise-control to the baseline-to-baseline belligerence they exhibited last year? Maybe Larry Brown's incessant whining and preaching have turned them sour.
Hey, but could it be that the Pistons are right on-track after all? In truth, their numbers don't seem very far off the mark: Detroit is second to San Antonio in defense (the identical ranking of last year), 26th in scoring (also comparable to last season), and (as of Saturday night) their current record of 23-16 is only three games behind where they were a year ago.
Are the Pistons seriously out-of-gear and headed for a postseason crackup?
Saturday's hosting of the upstart Bulls just might reveal a sign of things to come in Detroit.
DEFENSE
Let's start here because the name of the Pistons' game is defense. What the Pistons want to do is force the ball into any of the four corners and then trap it hard. They managed to accomplish this only six or seven times, but each time they squeezed the Bulls to the end of the shot clock, forcing turnovers and bad shots.
Ben Wallace fronted Eddy Curry for most of the game — except for the opening play of the second half when the young fellow held his ground and scored on a hard drive to his right. With Curry reduced to put-backs and leftover shots, the Bulls had to focus their offense elsewhere. Fortunately for Chicago, their efficient ball movement easily created scoring and plenty of opportunities for everybody else.
For the most part, the Pistons' bigs were extremely aggressive on the Bulls screen-rolls (S/R) and except for a nifty cut hoop-ward by Tyson Chandler that resulted in a profound dunk, the S/Rs were strung out and ineffective. But not even ferocious double-teaming by Big Ben could pry the ball loose from Hinrich. It should be noted however, that while Ben Wallace and Antonio McDyess attacked the ball, Rasheed Wallace was much more passive in defense of the S/R.
At times, the Pistons were so ball-conscious that down-picks on the weak side generated wide-open looks for Hinrich, Antonio Davis, and Andres Nocioni.
Unfortunately, Detroit only played a total of about eight minutes of tough defense for the entire game. They seemed helpless against the Bulls dribble-penetration — especially when Kirk Hinrich was moving and grooving. And just about every offensive rebound corralled by the Bulls (a total of only nine) resulted in points. Even worse, time after time too many Pistons failed to make a hustling transition from offense to defense.
The Pistons did crank up their intensity for the last two minutes of the third quarter and the opening minutes of the fourth quarter. But Chicago doggedly ran their offense and Detroit ran out of steam when the game was up for grabs.
A bad sign indeed.
OFFENSE
Approximately three of every five plays were run either for, or through Rip Hamilton. Mostly they were a variety of curls and pops, always toward the middle and always executed with verve. (On many of Hamilton's curls, the screener faded and was thusly in position to launch unimpeded jumpers.) Hamilton finished the first quarter with 16 points and tallied 32 for the game. The trouble was that nobody else had a chance to get involved.
McDyess posted up a total of three times and showed an unstoppable fadeaway turnaround-jumper. He scored virtually all of his points (13 on 5-6 shooting) when teammates found him cutting to the hole.
Chauncey Billups forced several shots (4-11, 13 points), and demonstrated a remarkable lack of intensity. Tayshaun Prince was invisible (1-8, 5 points). Except for his praiseworthy defense against Curry, Ben Wallace wasn't much of a factor (4 points, 13 rebounds).
But the Pistons most notable absentee was Rasheed Wallace. Like McDyess, he scored most of his points (6-10, 15 points) by converting slick passes into layups. He took only three jumpers (making one), and got to post-up only one time — late in the fourth quarter when he drew an offensive foul.
The only Piston who regularly was sent into the pivot was Hamilton, who had some early success with his four-inch height advantage over Hinrich. Larry Brown's play-calling encouraged an outside-in game plan — the reverse of what normally constitutes an effective offense. The Pistons' point-making designs were so disjointed that only their offensive rebounding (18 for the game) kept them competitive. (Just as curious was the fact that Brown gave playing time to all four of his point guards — Billups, Lindsey Hunter, Anthony Goldwire, and newcomer Carlos Arroyo.)
From the get-go, the Pistons were yapping at the three blind mice over every call that went against them. 'Hey, we're the champs! That's why WE'RE supposed to get the close calls!' Late in the fourth quarter, with the game still on the line, Billups and the two Wallaces were nailed with technicals.
The final score was 100-89, but if the game had lasted another five minutes, the Bulls would have won by 25 points.
That's three straight losses for the defending champs. And unless they get a wake-up call sooner rather than later, the Pistons just might turn out to be nothing more than one-ring wonders.
Charley Rosen, former CBA coach, author of 12 books about hoops, the next one being A PIVOTAL SEASON — HOW THE 1971-72 LA LAKERS CHANGED THE NBA, is a frequent contributor to FOXSports.com.
so langsam sollten die Jungs mal zu Pote kommen, trotzdem noch lang keine Zeit für Panikmache
vor allem da das Team nun nicht mehr aus 7 Spielern besteht, mit Carlos x 2 wird das ganze besser, dann muss die starting 5 auch nicht mehr 40+ min spielen, das schlaucht und dann ist das mit dem Effort und Hustling auch nicht immer da, und das braucht dieses Pistonsteam um zu gewinnen...man muss es mehr wollen als der Gegner, mehr arbeiten, so ist man letzte Season Champ geworden...