Well...my sports moment for the weekend happened when Vladislav Tretiak lit the Olympic torch.
Pistons playing a .500 team at home. Pistons won their last game. Can't have too much of that.
Time for a loss.

The Piston FA went off with Jennings going for 35 points and 12 assists. (and only 1 turnover compared to 8 last night.) Smith had 30, 10 & 8. Not to be ignored was the performance by Dre who withstood the early thunder dunks of Hickson and Faried to score 18 and grab 15 boards. Dre had the double-double at halftime.

The fast pace seem to open it up and they are playing well with Stuckey the only reserve to get in the scoring column so that was 107 points from the starters.............

The Denver scrubs tried to make a game of it trimming the lead down to 6 with about six minutes left, but the Pistons responded with a bucket by Stuckey and steal by Drummond that put them up by 10 and they never looked back closing the game on a 20-9 run. Final 126-109.

This one of the few games we got out rebounded, and gave up 15 three pointers and still won.

Back to Back wins and 4 straight wins at home sent the palace fans home with smiles.

What can I say, this game was tense through two quarters but Denver continued to hunt for buckets in transition and the Pistons started to pull away. Big time lead was whittled down to 6 in the 4th quarter, but that was as close as it was going to get.

Jennings had a monstrous game including back to back dagger triples in the 4th. 35/12 and he shot 50% for the game, 100% from the FT. His 12 assists looked good too. He really picked up the slack.

Smith looked great. He really opens up when the game is fast. Went full Lebron for this game, 30/10/8. Shot over 50%. Ugly from the FT line though. Towards the end he made a few errant passes, obviously looking for the triple double. Marred a fine performance from him.

Drummond continues to be savage on the glass. He is shooting some absurd % from the field as well. Ladies & Gents, he is legit. There is no question about it. I don't like him getting so much burn, he did start to look a little tired out there.

KCP didn't play much, had a couple of bad fouls and missed shots. Not a good showing.

Our defense still looks shabby. I counted at least 3 times in the fourth quarter where Fournier was left wide open at the FT line for jumpshots. You can't do that. Pistons in transition are exciting, its undeniable, but against teams like Miami, Indiana or SAS we are not going to get away with letting people shoot warm up jumpers.

Jennings and Smith go off for quadruple doubles. Drummond snags 31 boards and is zero for 11 from the line.

No idea who wins.

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Since Jennings and Smith both had 30/10 games, you are quite close enough in your predictions. And Drummond had his usual monster rebound game as well. Oh but darn, Drummond was 2-2 at the line tonight. Your crystal ball might need just a tad of adjustment.

The only surprising thing about this one, coach took Singler out for 2 minutes in the first half. Otherwise, he played 46 minutes. He scored some points, so Denver finally started guarding him. He did score one bucket after that too for a total of 10 to go with his 3 rebounds and one assist.

The other four starters between them scored 3 shy of 100, gathered 32 rebounds, had 22 assists.

Stuckey scored an efficient 19 off the bench. Pope played just 12 minutes, was minus 2. Of significance though, he played those 8 minutes mostly at shooting guard, along side Stuckey, who actually served as the backup point for the 8 minutes Jennings was off the court. It did not look bad, but in all, we were plus 29 with Jennings on the floor, and minus 12 in those 8 minutes with Stuckey at point. But note, Pope was only minus 2. And JJ did not play with the bench, but simply subbed in for the last two minutes of the first half. Pretty much a 6 1/2 man rotation.

We started out slow, with them hitting a bunch of outside shots as Lawson was hurting us. But starting with Drummond, and with Monroe and Smith chiming in mightily, our front line guys kept us right in the game. And then Lawson got injured, apparently his back, at the end of the first half, giving us an easier time of things in the 2nd half. Still, Denver kept hitting outside shots, and hung in there until, as mentioned, we closed with a 20-9 run, where Jennings did a lot of his fireworks including a few threes at the end.

With both Jennings and Smith getting 30/10 games, we got to ask, when was the last time two Pistons came up with 30/10's? And how about if one was a 35/10?

This puts us at half a game out of the playoff picture. And the Nets are bit further ahead of us. As we saw when we played the Nets, we can outclass them pretty badly. I'd say unless the Knicks heat up big time from here, we will make the playoffs.

Excuse me while I check out this figure skater. Er, I mean, check out the figure skating. Been watching real closely. Pretty sure her outfit would be banned a couple of decades ago.

Ok, back to the game. Drummond looked very credible on his post ups in this one, but Denver has so little post defense you can't get too excited about it. But its been a trend, Drummond trying more and more, and I applaud every bit of it, as its going to make us a ton better in the playoffs with Drums being aggressive, and scoring, inside.

Drummond made 2-2 at the line. No secret to those who have watched him struggle at the line all season. If he calms down, takes his sweet time, the free throws go in. Merger this paragraph with the last in your thoughts.

Smith did hit some outside shots, but he was living inside. I am very glad to see a game also where Monroe did not take any of his silly outside shots. IMO, its too late for him to get good enough at shooting the midrange, which as we know, is a bad percentage shot in any case. For instance, I just watched Aldridge and company lose to the Wiz. All Aldridge did all game was hit 2 pointer after two pointer from midrange. By the end of the game, all that talent was pretty much wasted as he just did not put up enough points from that tactic. Monroe should not choose to be anything like Aldridge, but rather hone his drives in to a fine sharp edge.

As for our coaching. Starting Singler was done last season, at shooting guard, and everyone applauded the move. (Remember, our last coach started out with Stuckey at shooting guard, and this coach has at least refrained from doing that.) Its the rest of the season where he started at small forward where he did no good whatsoever. In this one, he did not look any good as the small forward. At least he did not play any power forward. Results were mixed as far as how the halves started with him at shooting guard. Poor in the first, but ok in the 2nd, although, again, Lawson was out for the 2nd and Denver struggled with ball handling in the 2nd half. Best news on coaching, Bynum has apparently been taken out of the rotation. And finally, as far as I know, Harrellson remains unavailable. If thats the case, and we plan to add him in for an 8th guy participating, that is not that bad, though not so good either. Now, if Billups can round into shape by the end of the season, and give us a nine man rotation, it should be enough to get thru the several rounds of the playoffs.

Will is revolting against Mo. Mo is revolting against Joe. So we essentially have a 6 man rotation! HILARIOUS! I love KCP, but his game is too limited to help the starting 5 and I have to face the reality that the kid struggles to put the ball in the hoop.

The Brick Laying Duo of Jennings and Smith actually made shots....I have ZERO faith that that will last.

Our bigs dominated again. Jennings is getting the headlines and give him his due for hitting shots (that is what he is suppose to do regularly though right?) but the bigs again dominated. That was suppose to be the story against most teams this season.

The Pistons can make a run now but this team needs another point guard (via trade) to get minutes when Jennings is not productive and or a shooter to space the floor. Joe needs to deal now to try and save the season.

I don't understand the blame that goes to Josh. Josh is a quality player and if he is not getting the ball where he can do damage the issue is the guard play and the coaching. Same can be said about Monroe to a lesser extent.

I don't especially like all the minutes for Singler either but this team has no bench to count on other than Stuckey. Singler is still realistically a season or two away from being a consistent offensive player.

The team is operating very thin right now. And Jennings good games and Jennings not so good games can't be the barometer of a front line experiment that can still work if given a reasonable chance (players around it). Notice that Jennings couldn't finish twice in the fourth quarter in key situations. It didn't hurt this time but his lack of finishing at the rim is a problem. I want to see those threes when the game is on the line. Still, I liked the element of long ball that Jennings can bring but I am not sold as to who the long term starting point guard should or will be on this team. I hope the Pistons can figure it out to give the big front line a real chance at success.

The Pistons can make a run now but this team needs another point guard (via trade) to get minutes when Jennings is not productive and or a shooter to space the floor. Joe needs to deal now to try and save the season.

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First of all if Andre Miller has any DNA left in him, we could probably swap him for Bynum since Denver needs a backup like we do, and both players are getting on their coaches last nerve. Throw in BoT and take a draft pick or one of those small forwards. they ...

I loved Sheed's reaction when Drummond drained those two FTs. He's already the best rebounder in the league, and his block percentage has quietly snuck him into the top 10. Get those FTs shored up and the Pistons will use him more on offense.

That might have been Jennings' best game as a Piston - 35/12 with only two turns.

Monroe, Smith, and Drummond all overlap each other too much. When two are on, the other is inevitably off. Tonight it was Monroe's turn to take a back-seat. And these six/seven-man rotations are going to kill these guys in the long run.

Denver is another team that has been decimated by injuries - Gallinari, McGee, Miller, and Robinson are all hurt and Lawson left yesterday's game early - so it's hard to get excited about seeing all this progress. I'm trying to be optimistic, but it's hard; Detroit still has some major flaws that the team does not appear to be attempting to correct.

Isiah had some really good insights as a commentator on nbatv in the post game. Paraphrasing: "coaches spend a lot of time analyzing games and watching video to see why their team loses, but rarely do they do it to see why their team wins."

He was pointing out that the fast pace seems natural for our athletic group of young players. He also touched on the concept that it is hard to force such a young group to play disciplined half court defense first. He's saying that a coach would be wise to play more to their nature to make sure the game is fun for them.

He then asked jennings some really good questions and got kind of dumb butt answers.