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Is the solution to beating the Pistons as easy as trapping Billups up high and then driving on Tayshaun with your wing?

In their losses to Miami, Cleveland and this past loss to Boston that has been the winning formula. The Pistons players have never been fans of zone defences, but if this is going to be the formula don't the Pistons need to rely on a zone like the one-three-one Flip used in Minnesota?

I'm happy with the Detroit interior defence, but penetration creates too much help and the Pistons are very vulnerable to big, strong penetrators.

As for the trap, it doesn't seem Chauncey has the quickness or explosion to split the trap. This is where a secondary ballhandler is really useful and where Stuckey, Prince or Hamilton must be better used in bringing up the ball and taking it out of Chauncey's hands initially.

Opinions?

Driving on Tayshaun doesn't work, Tay is one of the best defenders in the league.

Our biggest weakness is when a stronger player is on Billups. When Ray Allen is guarding him, it takes away everything Billups likes to do. He relies on his strength and isn't that fast.

The Spurs figured that out along time ago when they put Bowen on Billups.

And we haven't lost to either the Heat or the Cavs this year, so I have no idea what your talking about. People are making it seem like the Pistons are crap just cuz we lost to Boston, when the series is split.

I'm talking about the series loss to Miami in 2006 and then the 2007 series loss to Cleveland.

And driving on Tayshaun, in my opinion, has been successful for Pierce, Lebron and to a lesser extent Wade who really had a host of defenders try to contain him.

Driving on Tay has been successful since Ben Wallace moved to Chicago. Tay's length effects jump shooters, however in order to get the benefit of this length to alter the shot he needs to play up close. This is a ticket to put the ball on the floor and go around him - in the past Ben Wallace was an intimidating factor that made opponents think twice, however without that intimidating shot blocker down low, there is little deterrant factor other than the dribble penetrating skill of the opposing player.

Pierce can create his own shot and he ate up Prince. He's why Big Baby went off on us, Pierce would fake a jumper and when Prince would react, he'd put the ball on the floor and go around him causing BBD's defender to come off him to block Pierce, and Paul would just dump it to the wide open Davis for the easy two.

That's funny.
When I read the title the first thought that came to my mind was "Pressure Billups, abuse Tayshaun".
I MUST reiterate: Richard Hamilton is NOT a good ball-handler. I wouldn't trust him to bring the ball up against a WNBA team.

The answer to your question is Yes. It really is that "easy".

So far, yes, trapping and pressuring Billups with a BIGGER/STRONGER guard has indeed been the way to shut us down. I mean, it's worked, from the moment Popovich switched Bowen onto Billups in crunch time... to Cleveland the two years before (last year actually moreso)... to last night.

I used the word "easy" in quotes because many (most?) teams don't have that asset (Chicago for instance just doesn't have such a guard on their roster - in fact, as Pippen famously put it, they have a midget backcourt), so they can't... in fact that was the big advantage of having Billups, he's a mismatch 80% of the time because of his strength. but the answer to your question is Yes.


It's been happening for 3 years now, and will no doubt happen again if we face either Cleveland or Boston in the playoffs.

So the real question is, what is this guy gonna do about it?

What worked in the Cleveland series last year was making Chauncey more of an off the ball player, get the ball in Tay's hands, and let Chauncey come off of screens and become an aggressive wing scorer.

That strategy worked, and suddenly we went away from it, and then we started losing. Simply put, Chauncey can't dominate the ball when he has Larry Hughes, and Ray and Tony Allen on him.

I hope Stuckey is ready for big time minutes, because I think Stuckey and Billups will have to be on the floor at times together during the playoffs.

Low-Ki wrote:He's why Big Baby went off on us, Pierce would fake a jumper and when Prince would react, he'd put the ball on the floor and go around him causing BBD's defender to come off him to block Pierce, and Paul would just pick up the ball, take five steps, and dump it to the wide open Davis for the easy two.

Fixed it for you.

Low-Ki wrote:
Pierce can create his own shot and he ate up Prince. He's why Big Baby went off on us, Pierce would fake a jumper and when Prince would react, he'd put the ball on the floor and go around him and DICE would turn his back on his man and Paul would just dump it to the wide open Davis for the easy two.

Alternate Fix for you when the fix mentioned above was noticed by any refs

jab wrote:-= original quote snipped =-




Alternate Fix for you when the fix mentioned above was noticed by any refs

Ahh yes, the notorious Dice hater is back... good to have ya back jab.

I don't know that it is necessarily that easy.

Prince was certainly glad to have Ben Wallace backing him up. But I wonder if Prince is playing D as well as he used to. I remember when he first came into the league that players were boggled by him and his long arms. Those long arms would allow him to cover the jump shot from farther away than other players, seemingly compensating for his relative slow-footedness.

Is Prince slower than he used to be? Have we seen the hustle from him that we used to see (e.g., racing the court to block Reggie Miller from behind)? Or are we just picking on Prince? Who the crap can guard LeBron James, especially when he is allowed to fend of defenders on his drives with his off arm (i.e., getting physical)? I know, Bruce Bowen, maybe (I just thought James went weak against San Antonio).

We have seen the Pistons overcome poor play by Billups in several games this year. We have other players who can step up and score. But if Billups is taken out of his game for a whole series, you are correct that we will have trouble--especially at crunch time.

We also suck when we aren't hitting jump shots--do we rely on them more than other teams? If McDyess' touch disappears in the playoffs, we'll feel it. If Prince shoots bricks in the playoffs, we'll feel it. And so on. On the other hand, when we are hitting the jump shots, it's damn tough for other teams to beat us.

I do think our defensive rotations can be faster. Rasheed Wallace seems slower this year, though.

I would love to see us bring in a shot-blocking center. But we have decent team stats for blocks per game (5.2), with only two teams noticeably higher in that category (Denver at 7.5 and Phoenix at 7.0 bpg)--the next team below Phoenix in that category is at 5.5 bpg (source: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/statistics?stat=teamstatmisc&sort=blks&league=nba&season=2008&seasontype=2&avg=pg&order=true&split=0).
So, it seems like we do fine in shot blocking--but not as well as when we had Ben Wallace in his prime, no doubt. Could Samb get another look?

I highly doubt Samb's the answer in the middle this year or next. Maybe he's 2 years away from being a contributer, I think one more off-season in the weight room and Amir Johnson is that solution.

I agree with the general consensus. We seem to have the attitude that hey our formula has gotten us 55+ wins for like 10 years no why change it? Our guys are stubborn, it's not just flip, the players also do not adjust in these situations.

The answer: Amir & Stuckey Let Amir play the Big Ben roll, swat everything and play weakside D while Rasheed holds down the KGs & TDs of the world. Stucker can slash & bring the ball up thus neutralizing any pressure.

Also, Hunter could also help here by getting into the opposing guards head on Defense.

More Maxiell in the playoffs could be a great thing too, let teams trap and double the top, let Maxy slip open for lobs, dunks, and put backs all day.

Master Shake wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Ahh yes, the notorious Dice hater is back... good to have ya back jab.

I told you before I don't hate McNice, I just have grown tired of watching talent sit on the bench while he gets his minutes.

BTW I never left, you just didn't see me

srt4b wrote:
Also, Hunter could also help here by getting into the opposing guards head on Defense.

Hunter could help out by NOT taking diet pills so he won't be on a 10 game suspension like he was last season when we needed him

Prince could play closer to his opponent because the opponent wouldn't want to dribble drive at Big Ben policing the low post. The NBA is a machismo league and getting blocked with authority is considered a shot at ones manhood. So they'd settle for jumpers, and Princes length would alter/effect their shot.

With Ben out of the picture Tay has to play off his opponent, which allows them time to get off a jumper. So now they pump fake Prince to close in on them and then burn around him.

Basically whether Detroit wins or loses a series will come down to if they jumpers are falling or not in four of the seven games.

Sheed will play a perimeter game when playing Boston because KG makes him work so hard defensively. Sheed doesn't seem to realize that energy is zero sum, so the more he makes KG work offensively, the less he'll have to come at him offensively. Sheed seems to take the stance of I'll neutralize KG as much as possible, but you other cats better carry the scoring load. Prince seems to have this philosophy about his defense as well.

Low-Ki wrote:Prince could play closer to his opponent because the opponent wouldn't want to dribble drive at Big Ben policing the low post.

I think Prince flat out stopped a lot of players from driving in his first few years. Everybody benefited from having Ben Wallace in on defense, but that was not the determining factor in Prince's value as a defender.

Prince, with his reach, can stand farther away from the offensive player, and still cover the jump shot, obviously. His long arms are also a benefit in poking the ball away from the offensive player if he drives. And Prince's overall reach allows him to block some shots all by himself, and it allows him to contest and bother a lot of shots. While he is not the fastest of foot, he manages to get around pretty well (did well on Pierce in the first meeting this season). He is a smart defender. Is he as quick as he once was?

We are eleventh in the league in shot blocking, but we are only 0.3 bpg away from being in third place. So, we have shot blocking so far this season (I wonder how much the statistic is skewed by our garbage-time players coming in a blocking shots--but we have some regular-rotation players with decent shot blocking numbers).

Dirtgrain wrote:I don't know that it is necessarily that easy.

Prince was certainly glad to have Ben Wallace backing him up. But I wonder if Prince is playing D as well as he used to. I remember when he first came into the league that players were boggled by him and his long arms. Those long arms would allow him to cover the jump shot from farther away than other players, seemingly compensating for his relative slow-footedness.

When Prince first came into the league, Ben Wallace was the most dominate defensive player on the planet. Yes... That is why people were boggled by Prince's long arms; opponents prefered to take those jumpers becuase of Big Bad Ben rather than drive and get their **** blocked.

zone defense is for weak defensive teams to cover up for their weak individual players defenses, but we have an above average defender at all positions.

And almost the entire bench can defend with the likes of Hunter, Maxiel, Afllalo, Hayes, Hermann and even Amir and stuckey are not that bad at defense, not too sure about Primoz though.

So yea no zone defense, maybe once in a while, but never make it reliable because good outside shooting teams like boston, dallas, phoenix, san antonio will burn us.