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Promising start, but the Lakers got rolling in the second quarter.

They played good defense on the Pistons' guards, forcing the frontcourt to carry the team. Villanueva was out of it for a second straight game, but worse with just 2 points and 4 rebounds. He did play solid defense.

Bynum and Maxiell led a great fourth quarter comeback, though. Bynum got the team's energy going again. Maxiell had his best game of the season with 13 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocks. One of 'em was a great point blank block at the basket of Shannon Brown who climbed the ladder to throw down a dunk. Maxiell just went up one rung higher and put up a "no fly" zone.

It was an odd lineup with DaJuan Summers, Chris Wilcox, Kwame Brown, Jonas Jerebko, Bynum, and Maxiell who brought Detroit to 98-91 with 1:55 left to go. Kuester is sending a message to the starters to compete and have no let downs. The Pistons can't afford them any time, but especially when they're still without Hamilton and Prince. Hopefully, Maxiell can be to the frontcourt what Bynum is to the backcourt. And Wilcox showed some activity and production during his few mintues on the court. The Pistons need him to step up and join Villanueva as a scorer and rebounder. Solid defense won't hurt.

The rest of the West Coast trip will be brutal now.

The starters did get a break in the second half, which hopefully, they'll put to good use against a hot Portland team tonight.

This is a growing time for the young Pistons.

Trade Maxiell now, RIGHT NOW

Damn, looks like I should have watched the fourth.

thesack12 wrote:Trade Maxiell now, RIGHT NOW

Max would be worth his contract if he could play like that everynight- I don't know what happened to him... Maybe after getting his contract he just lost it...

Max has always played the Lakers tough....he seems to pick up his game for them.

princeofpalace wrote:

thesack12 wrote:Trade Maxiell now, RIGHT NOW

Max would be worth his contract if he could play like that everynight- I don't know what happened to him... Maybe after getting his contract he just lost it...

"If", being the key word in that proclamation

Unfortunately we are well aware that last night was the exception, definitely not the rule. That was the absolute maximum contribution that he is capable of. There isn't any one facet of the game that he can hang his hat on and perform well night in, night out. Which would be ok if he was solid in multiple facets, but he isn't.

On the +/- stat thing, I didn't say it was a good judgement of how good a player is.

I said it was 100% accurate in showing how the team does when a player is in the game.

Of course Bynum is going to have a lower +/- because he plays more with bench players... and our bench is garbage when we're missing RIP/Prince in our starting lineup.

I never said it was good as showing how good a player is, but it does show how well a team does when a player is in the game.

durant had the lowest +/- on his team last year. it's pretty much a useless stat.

c rasheed wrote:durant had the lowest +/- on his team last year. it's pretty much a useless stat.

Its a great stat if you look at it to see how well a team does when a player is in, rather than trying to use to to gauge how good a player is.

You just don't understand it I guess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN_Qd1nXOtw&NR=1

Jason's badass block!

You can't judge a specific player off them.....

Bynum and Kobe killed us last night. Ben Gordon had a terrible +/-, but did not guard either of those two players.....

Piston Pete wrote:You can't judge a specific player off them.....

Bynum and Kobe killed us last night. Ben Gordon had a terrible +/-, but did not guard either of those two players.....

I never said you could judge how good a player is off of +/-...
That's obviously not the case. But you can look at how good the team does when a player or players are in.

For example, you can look at the +/- of Bynum/Gordon/Stuckey and see that small ball has been successful this season, whereas last season it wasn't.

You can also look and see that our team does best when we've got both CV and Ben Wallace in at the 4/5 spots.

Piston Pete wrote:You can't judge a specific player off them.....

Bynum and Kobe killed us last night. Ben Gordon had a terrible +/-, but did not guard either of those two players.....

=.= have you watched the game at all? Ben Gordon GUARDED KOBE. Not the entire game but for significant minutes he guarded or at least was suppose to guard Kobe and he got torched obviously.

thesack12 wrote:

princeofpalace wrote:

thesack12 wrote:Trade Maxiell now, RIGHT NOW

Max would be worth his contract if he could play like that everynight- I don't know what happened to him... Maybe after getting his contract he just lost it...

"If", being the key word in that proclamation

Unfortunately we are well aware that last night was the exception, definitely not the rule. That was the absolute maximum contribution that he is capable of. There isn't any one facet of the game that he can hang his hat on and perform well night in, night out. Which would be ok if he was solid in multiple facets, but he isn't.

That wasn't Maxiels max production- see Pistons/Orlando series circa 2008. I've never been particularly high on Max but he was playing considerably better in 08 but I guess that was a fluke year