http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 90406/1127For Pistons, time to snap out of it is now
Pistons need to win during stretch against contenders if they are to stay in playoff picture.
The way Michael Curry sees it, there's only one way for the Pistons to extricate themselves from this current, potentially season-crushing malaise. Start fighting. "That's what you always do when you are in any tough situation, you go out and fight," Curry said after a short practice Wednesday. "In all my experiences in basketball, not just in the NBA, the way you get out of tough situations is to go out and fight hard so that at the end of the day, at least you can say you played harder than your opponent."
Truth is, if the Pistons don't fight any harder than they have during this four-game losing streak, they could find themselves outside the playoff picture. "That's crazy," Richard Hamilton said. "That's kind of insane to me. It doesn't do anything but make you think it's crazy. You look at our record (27-25) and see the type of talent we have on this team and it doesn't make sense. But the season isn't over." Detroit is tied for sixth in the East. It has two more victories than eighth-place Milwaukee and three more than ninth-place New Jersey. And now comes a stretch of games Tayshaun Prince called the "toughest of our season." Starting tonight, the Pistons face seven playoff contenders -- the San Antonio Spurs, then on the road against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat, New Orleans Hornets, Orlando Magic and Boston Celtics before coming home to play the Denver Nuggets. Safe to say it's put up or shut up time for the Pistons. "It doesn't matter who we play," Curry said. "We've played really well against the elite teams and we've played some our worst basketball against the teams with the fewest victories. We aren't going to always play at a really high level, but the least we can do is compete. That's all I am asking. Let's just be aggressive and play harder than our opponent."
Curry is turning to his youngest starter, Rodney Stuckey, to establish that aggressive tone. "We have to figure a way to get Stuckey on track," Curry said. "He ignites everybody else. ... He spends a lot of time making sure everybody else is OK on the court, but his natural instinct is to be aggressive. We just want him to be himself." The last five games, Stuckey has averaged nine points, had one more assist (12) than turnovers (11) and shot 33 percent (17 for 51). "Rodney is the key to our team," Curry said. "I am not blaming him for nothing. Don't write that we are blaming him. It's just that we need him to play well. Other guys can play well but it doesn't affect everybody else. When Stuckey plays well, everybody plays well." In the past, the Pistons have relished a stretch of games like this. You wonder, though, if this team has the stomach for it. "This is what we need," Allen Iverson said. "... We need to beat quality teams. We need that challenge. We need somebody that's going to come in here and want to kick our butts all over the basketball court, just to see how we respond." Newsflash: The Pistons need to beat anyand all teams. The challenge is to stop the free fall toward lottery-land. The challenge is to start winning and restore their confidence and maybe, eventually, their credibility as a potential contender. Either now or never.
