Pistons near elimination tonight
By David Pincus (5/22/2006)
Coming into Game 4 the Pistons were very confident. And although they appear
to be a better team than last year, they’ve acquired an arrogance that wasn’t
there last year. They lackadaisically lost Game 4, blew Game 5, and are on the
brink of elimination.
Rasheed Wallace has definetly-received karma for his pompous comments. After
guaranteeing a victory for Game 4 and reassuring a series win in Game 5, Rasheed
failed to show up. He has been the weakest of the five Pistons’ starters and was
outplayed by Lindsey Hunter and Antonio McDyess last night.
Cleveland’s depth has worked well for them. Varejao and Marshall not only
have outplayed Ilgauskas and Gooden but also have been on the floor in the final
moments for all of the Cavs’ victories. Damon Jones has become effective again
and the Cavaliers’ bench gets even deeper as Larry Hughes returns to the team
after the death of his brother.
The score was low in all three Cleveland wins, which baffled people. After
all it was Detroit who was the best defensive team in the League. However we
cannot forget that this year’s Pistons are far different from last year’s.
Detroit scored 210 points in their two victories. Especially with Rasheed going
on his own to score, the Pistons offense fails to show the equality they
performed last season.
It’ll be interesting to see how Mike Brown coaches this game. So far he
hasn’t had a problem limiting his starters minutes (aside from LeBron of
course); Drew Gooden played 14 minutes last night. But with Hughes back, will
Damon Jones and Flip Murray lose minutes? Also Clevelad absolutely has to win
the bench, because without it they just don’t have enough weapons to match the
Pistons.
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