Pistons-Celtics game 5

That was the closest, nail-biting-est 19 point victory ever. The
margin should have been about that the whole game but for some — yes
I’ll agree — bad reffing. I didn’t complain about the refs in any of
the Pistons losses in the playoffs (or the regular season, as far as I
can remember) and it seems odd to complain about that after a win, but
jeez. As Flip said after the game, they called a bunch of ticky-tack
fouls on Detroit of the sort they haven’t been calling the rest of the
series, AND they weren’t calling them both ways (including potential
techs on Boston), AND they missed a couple of basic “whose ball is
it?” calls. The discrepancy in FT attempts, especially after 3
quarters, was, well, felonious.

But Detroit survived and didn’t melt down. I actually liked the tech
on Flip, sticking up for his guys. Massive props, of course, to
McDyess and Maxiell (what a block and great shooting) and also to Rip
(8-10 from the field). In fact, all the Pistons that got significant
minutes not named Tayshaun had very good shooting nights. And Tay can
say he helped limit Pierce to 16 points on a ridiculously low FG%.

For game 5: keep the defensive intensity and hope the FTs are more
even; don’t be afraid to use the bench, Stuckey and Maxiell obviously,
but I don’t mind putting Theo and Jarvis in for a few minutes just to
see what they can do (Hayes’s airball three and foul didn’t inspire
confidence, but hey, he hit a meaningless 3 at the end); Chauncey has
to make even more progress on figuring out what he can and can’t do;
and Detroit must contain the Celtic “role” players (oddly, 5 Celtics
were in double figures, and the two that weren’t the Big Three had
better shooting nights, percentage wise).

Boston, of course, has to feel like they accomplished their objective
of getting a split and regaining home court advantage, and also that
they were in this game with under 4 minutes left despite shooting
really, really badly. So now it’s a 3 game series with Boston having
home court advantage, but then again, home teams are 2-2 in this
series so far. --Joe

>
> Wallace had a very strong game.  He showed some great moves down low and
> blocked a ton of shots, and could have done more except for the fouls.  
> Still, I think I prefer seeing him play well for only 30 minutes due to
> picking up fouls than to play weakly for 40 due to avoiding them.

Very true. It's easier to limit 'Sheed's minutes, of course, when
your other bigs (Maxiell and McDyess) are producing offensively. --
Joe