Game 22: Magic (8-12) @ Pistons (11-10) - 6 PM EST

[DTP]

It still unbelievable to me how up and down you guys are after every single game. I really don't know how you guys do it...its 82 of these damn things.

[Blkbrd671]

just to be clear, i was stating "I" was overreacting in my post, not indicating you are

No worries man I understood what you were saying, I was addressing other posts.

Kudos to you for acknowledging that though, everyone is entitled to their own opinion but hey...personally I think if someone is going to suggest something as radical as benching our best player last season and starting PG after playing his first game in 8 months I think they should maybe preface it by admitting they just might possibly be jumping the gun a little bit.

i try to see outside the box on most topics, and i think i even said, i expect a adjustment period. What i didn't expect is to see the same type of sh* defense.

[DET_Athletics]

i have a couple take aways from this game, i am very glad we have Ish, there were so many levels to that signing that i couldnt see in the summer, but ish is the perfect back up to reggie, because he does all the things that reggie doesn't do, like not killing the ball rotation. SVG has someone now that he can go to when reggie starts holding on to the ball too much. now even tho this is the first game back for reggie, i'll give him a break for a while, but he need to find that sweet spot of when to turn it on and take over and when to be like ish and just push it, pass the ball and move without it. and secondly Baynes has got to go, but that more of a personally belief and im willing to accept that.

[ImHeisenberg]

i have a couple take aways from this game, i am very glad we have Ish, there were so many levels to that signing that i couldnt see in the summer, but ish is the perfect back up to reggie, because he does all the things that reggie doesn't do, like not killing the ball rotation. SVG has someone now that he can go to when reggie starts holding on to the ball too much. now even tho this is the first game back for reggie, i'll give him a break for a while, but he need to find that sweet spot of when to turn it on and take over and when to be like ish and just push it, pass the ball and move without it. and secondly Baynes has got to go, but that more of a personally belief and im willing to accept that.

Reggie's over dribbling has always been a problem. It was on full display last night. Reggie still got his own, but everyone else suffered for it. With exception to Morris, who was white hot in the first quarter.

[ElectricMayhem]

I know it's Reggie's first game back, but it's a fair point to question whether we are a better team with Ish or Reggie at the helm. Reggie is without question the better individual talent. But Ish has the ability to make his teammates better. It's interesting because I think when Reggie is locked in, he gets Andre locked in. However, Ish does a better job of including KCP, Tobias, and Morris. I really hope Reggie picked up some stuff from Ish while he was injured and can use that to improve his game. As someone said, and I'm too lazy to go back and see who, when Reggie has the ball, other players on the court develop trunk-legs. That does not happen with Ish. Then again, I don't think we can ever choose Ish over Reggie without tanking Reggie's value. Remember what a spurned Reggie was like in OKC's locker room.

Overall, I think Reggie will improve our team as the starter. But that doesn't mean Ish's contributions to the starting lineup were insignificant. Ish showed just how much ball movement can help our team. If Reggie implements that, we will be full throttle ahead. We are at our best when Reggie is our starter AND he realizes that ball movement is the key.

[whitehops]

We are at our best when Reggie is our starter AND he realizes that ball movement is the key.

Pretty much. SVG didn't sound too happy with Reggie in the postgame presser, implying that he scored well but wasn't moving the ball well enough (which he didn't).

We've seen Reggie do it in the past and I'm sure SVG will work with him to get that fixed. Personally I think it was rust, he's barely had 5 on 5 practices in the past two months so the game was probably sped up for him yesterday.

I wish some of the people on this board would give time for the team to work through the kinks instead of assuming that this is the way they'll play forever. But hey, I understand their frustrations since we've looked so great offensively lately.

[JohnReese]

We lost last night for winning in long term. But the question is if it would have been better to start Reggie against a team that we have less possibilities to win.

Reggie needs to realize that we are no longer at the same point that we were last year, a lot of people can get the ball and produce. So, there is no reason that Reggie spends tons of time with the ball. Harris and KCP has stepped up and need their piece of the cake.

[russkopp]

We also can't overlook that the magic were hitting 95% of their shots and Jeff Green had his best game in a loooooong time.

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[MotownMadness]

Drummond just pisses me off. Still thinks he's a offensive player and not a garbage man that needs to fully hustle on defense and rebounds. If Drummond just tries harder we beat these teams even when we can't shoot. He's the difference maker and we paid him a lot of money cause of it and he just gets lazier every season. He's a negative on both sides of the ball this season. He plays like a rookie out there still (minus the raw stats).

[RasheedTupac]

LOL bench our best player for ish smith who looked awful our first 10-15 games. If we end up benching Reggie(long term) I will never watch a Pistons game again. It wasn't Reggie's fault majority of our team did not come to play.


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[hoophabit]

I too am profoundly disappointed that we don't win every game. Yes, it's all Reggie's, Drummond's, and KCP's fault. If the coach does anything I don't like I will never watch a Pistons game again. (Although talk of benching Reggie is pretty silly.)

[In SVG We Trust]

I really would do Reggie Jackson for George Hill and Dre for Cousins trades. Keep moving the ball as a team and starting plays in the high post with an elite offensive player.

[DetPistons04]

lol... One game and many are already overreacting to one "sub par" game from Reggie... Just relax people, lotta season left.
Apparently a lot of people have already forgotten how average to below average Ish looked as a starter for a good part of this season as well.

[In SVG We Trust]

I'm not about the w or l, it's about our offense getting too much predictable. We all thought it was because we lack of talent on the offensive end, but this last games has proven the opposite. Maybe the Reggie-Dre pick n roll is capping out their abilities, but limiting everyone else in the team. KCP is deadly getting the ball off screens and we need to feed Morris and Harris in better positions. They're all better offensive players than Dre. Maybe we would be much better with DeAndre instead of Dre. Just a garbage man, elite on the defensive end who doesn't demand balls on offense.

When the Playoffs comes, you need to have a versatile offense and you really can't play a pick n roll every possession if you're not LeBron.

[hoophabit]

Seriously, we just have to hope they can get back to moving the ball like they were of late.

Let's give Orlando their due. They defended as well as they could. They had lost 8 in a row to the Pistons and wanted to end that. Vuc, Ibaka, and Green all having great nights? Only Fournier had a poor shooting night. Tip of the hat.

The rotations changed and the team seemed out of sync a fair portion of last night's game. I'm sure SVG will continue coaching ball movement. They have recently proved they are capable of playing that game at a fairly high level. Lots of folks been saying to expect this when Reggie came back.

[whitehops]

for what it's worth, the team scored 47 points in the 22:51 when reggie was on the floor and 45 points in the 25:09 when ish was at the helm.

the scoring by quarter:
1st
team reggie - 16
team ish - 11

2nd
team reggie - 10
team ish - 13

3rd
team reggie - 14
team ish - 9

4th
team reggie - 7
team ish - 12

the offense definitely isn't as pretty with reggie but it is effective.

[MotownMadness]

for what it's worth, the team scored 47 points in the 22:51 when reggie was on the floor and 45 points in the 25:09 when ish was at the helm.

the scoring by quarter:
1st
team reggie - 16
team ish - 11

2nd
team reggie - 10
team ish - 13

3rd
team reggie - 14
team ish - 9

4th
team reggie - 7
team ish - 12

the offense definitely isn't as pretty with reggie but it is effective.

This was just a bad defensive night along with Orlando hitting everything and anything from midrange. I didn't think our offense was particularly bad but the defense starting from Drummond getting bullied didn't help anything.

[whitehops]

according to this shot chart: http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/shot-chart/201612040DET.html from the game, orlando shot 14/22 on two point shots from outside the paint (i'm counting that miss that's on the line as being in the paint). so they shot 64% on shots on two pointers that are essentially 10+ feet away. league average is 40%.

we did a bad job on both ibaka and vucevic

[StunnaStan]

I studied the game and honestly i can't really complain about the outcome. Yeah they were hitting shots but we still held them to 98. I feel the offense is more priority than the defense right now.

That said, i thought it was great having Reggie out there although he was slightly rusty. I feel like the 3 adjustments needed for the Pistons offense with rj back is 1. Getting rj to pass the ball immediately to get into the offense unless we start it with a Drummond screen, 2. Getting rj to push the break more, and 3. For rj to get into the paint more because good things happen when hes in the paint.

I think he'll make these adjustments for the bulls game. If he was 100%, no way does Augustin have that game

[MrBigShot]

I think this game thread is going to look really ridiculous later on in this season.