No Piston had a positive plus-minus at halftime – and the Hornets were only up 10. It was incredible how every Piston did his small part to help the team fall behind.
More amazing: they did it again in the second half. All the Pistons who played in the first also posted negative plus-minuses in the second half.
Talking about a team effort, right? Gotta keep a sense of humor here ... This loss was truly annoying. I only got to watch the second half, but boy was that horrible. Ben Gordon was the only player playing well, showing what he's best at, shooting, shooting and more shooting. It was bad enough to hear the New Orleans announcers make fun of the roster (they really got a kick out of the number of guards. Quote when Bynum entered the game: "Oh, a substitution, look, another guard [laughter]".
We have so many guards and neither one of them gets a rhythm. The announcers talked about Bellinelli and how much confidence he has now because he is not afraid anymore to get pulled out after a missed jumper ... Well, how are you not afraid if you are a declining Rip Hamilton when Ben Gordon and T-Mac are sitting on the bench waiting to gobble up your playing time? Same issue for the other too!
I'm still wondering why we got McGrady if we are not going to use him a lot more. I'm starting to beg to make a trade so we don't have this jam at guard. Shooting is 50% about confidence and 50% about practice and talent. None of the players are truly confident. We have two potential game changers sitting on the bench most of the time (Gordon and T-Mac).
Another question: Why did we get Gordon if he's obviously not allowed to take jumpers? What made him great for the Bulls was that he was the leader of the second unit and got the green light. He could any shot anytime he wanted. He had 20+ quarters for Jesus Shuttlesworth's sake. You can't bring in players and take away their biggest strengths, they've been developing them for a mighty long time. Gordon won't be anything else BUT a jumpshooter. If you aren't going to use him you might as well sit him.
You can make the case Kuester is trying to develop the young talent. While Monroe is getting a lot more burn he's still not playing enough minutes. He's lacking confidence in a major way. He's trying to adjust but let's face it, it is not as easy for a big man, because they don't handle the ball as much.
What really annoyed me last night though, was passing up good looks for bad looks. I don't know how many times I saw a player catching the ball with a wide open look, faking, taking one dribble INSIDE the three-point line and fading away for the jumper. That's a streetball move, but you aren't going to win games with that. The Hornets didn't respect the jumper so they didn't leave their feet since they learnt rather quickly Detroit was going to take a bad shot anyway.
Detroit needs to change something! Coach, players ... I don't know, but this roster isn't built to compete. The Hornets are a bad opponent for the Pistons. They match up very well. They have a big man with a great touch (David West), a guard who's strong and fast enough to keep Stuckey from driving at will (Chris Paul) and quick and athletic wing defenders to close out on the jumpshooters (Trevor Ariza). But that's just not good enough of an excuse ...
