Will the Pistons win the championship? (part 2)

These things are bad enough as it is, but there´s more.

And once again, my biggest beef is the rotation. What the heck passes through Flip´s mind at times, I wonder. Some players are fresh, playing good, being efficient on the court, and still they are sent to the bench? (Rodney Stuckey against the Knicks, for instance). A starter is playing like shit, contributing negatively, but he stays on the court for long, long minutes? No matter how the game is goind, Saunders´s rotation patterns are always the same. It´s set in stone or so you´d swear, it´s predictable, and it´s depressing.

Look, it´s simple. The Pistons are the only 12-deep team in the NBA. All the guys on the bench play with energy. All of them. And still Chauncey can be having a horrible, horrible time on the court and end up with 35 minutes of playing time. These past two games have been horrendous from Chauncey. During the game against Boston, in a 5 minutes stretch, he lost something like 3 balls in a ridiculous manner, just because he was a bit lackadaisical. He had no assists, no rebounds, no points, but more importantly, for the whole stretch, he just didn´t contribute solidly, even wihout stats, besides the turnovers of course. Even his defense was kind of lacking.

I know Billups is your captain on the floor, but if he reaaally isn´t playing well, he shouldn´t be on the court. Bench him for a few minutes, give the other guys a chance, and after a while put him back there, to see if he has his head straight this time. And if he doesn´t and the others have played well, have helped their team, then let them, the ones who have HELPED their team, play.

And during these last 2 games, it wasn´t only Chauncey, but also Rip who stank to high heavens. Okay, I´m exaggerating. His defense during the Boston game was good, both on Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen. But: he got ejected in New York, which was really dumb and unhelpful for the team in the absence of Rasheed, and his shooting percentage was dismal in both games. When that happens at the same time as Billups´s problems, the Pistons have a really hard time executing their offense.

It shouldn´t be the case. Prince can score on anyone 20 points a night, and the bigs are very skilled offensively. But there´s the source of my discontentment towards Billups and Hamilton: when they are both shooting badly, they don´t relinquish their role of main scoring threats, they still try to run the show, instead of force-feeding McDyess and Rasheed and having them be the primary focus of the Pistons´s offense.

I know Rasheed and Dyess don´t try to be top dogs on the team, and that´s very helpful when the backcourt is playing well (which means, most of the time), because that´s when, as a unit, Detroit fires on all cylinders, to quote the cliché. that´s when the "best starting five in the NBA" blows all competition out of the water (scroll down till Steve´s comment at 11.30 PM). But on those rare nights when it doesn´t happen, you know the Pistons have the weapons not to suffer one bit, but they don´t use them.

And it´s frustrating as hell. Detroit is without a doubt the most frustrating team in the league, I´m telling you (the details are for a later entry).

For the good news, I´ve liked what I´ve seen from Dixon, he´s efficient, incisive and smart. I agree with Flip´s apparent decision to give him the edge over Afflalo for this year, except in certain circumstances (some defensive assignments come to mind), because for this year, he´s ahead of Arron offensively, and the younger player will learn a lot and play much more next year. Ratliff is great within Detroit´s system, he will be solid for short stretches, won´t need time to warm up, will be a great help on some players, and could hold the fort for long minutes should the need come to arise in desperate cases.

Both him and the young ones, Maxiell and Amir, could play and thrive on the team. Let´s just hope Saunders uses his bigs wisely during the playoffs, because they could be dynamite. Thank you JoeD. Come on! Rasheed, McDyess, Amir, Maxiell, and Ratliff? The perfect tools, it just has to be the perfect rotation.

And for the love of basketball, Flip Saunders, let Herrmann play! As a back-up small forward, he would become gold for the Pistons. Gold, I´m telling you. More on that later.