Cleveland gave us many more problems than Detroit

[Tricky Ricky]

that's only the first game.

Yep, calm down everyone theyll be better in game 2. The refs seemed to give us a lot of calls tonight.

[P2]

Let's not get overconfident. Pistons did NOT play well in Game 1.

Because WE made them play so.

[MyInsatiableOne]

Let's not get too overconfident....if we win game 2 I will feel better, if we split in Detroit and come back home up 3-1, it's over.

[bingoboyraps]

...I think Boston is the better team, but to be fair, between Billups, sheed, and rip, Detroit played pretty bad...

[Mahoney_jr]

We just did our business yesterday. We went from 0% to 25% for this series and are facing another must-win-game on Thursday.

[sam_I_am]

Cleveland had answers defensively for Pierce, Garnett and Allen. Then they had Lebron who can single handedly carry a team on his back. Detroit lacks the size and lacks the great individual defender to totally take the big 3 out of their games.

However, Prince, Rasheed and Billups are certainly very good defenders and can definitely do as good a job on our big 3 as most teams. And all 3 are better offensively than anyone on Cleveland not named Lebron. Throw in Rip a guy who can drop 35, Stuckey a young scorer who can drop 15 and McDyess who is a very hard guy to defend for Perk, Baby, PJ or Powe.

What you have is a team that won't stifle us but will give us everything we can handle too. They can play very badly - like last night - and still be in position to steal a win. The series comes down to game 2. If we lose game 2 then we are in serious trouble.

[spf211]

Cleveland had answers because they had a coach capable of making a gameplan and figuring out how to defensively shut down the Celtics.

The Pistons have no such coach -- the only adjustment they can make is to put Billups on Ray Allen because Chauncey is playing on one leg and would look foolish guarding Rondo.

Right now, the only positional advantage the Pistons have is at shooting guard and they haven't gone far enough in exploiting it. We'll see how this continues.

[DorfonCeltics]

We looked good after Game 1 against CLE.

No we didn't. We looked sloppy and bad. We barely pulled out the win in that game.

Last night we looked really good. I'm not trying to be over confident but I feel good about where we are right now. I'll be at the Garden tomorrow night giving it my all and making sure this team heads back to Detroit up 2-0.

[GuyClinch]

Wow. Look at all the bandwagon hoppers - LMAO. As for the OP - it's one game. The Pistons sometimes don't give full effort - last nights game was one of those.

Pete

[MyInsatiableOne]

Cleveland had answers because they had a coach capable of making a gameplan and figuring out how to defensively shut down the Celtics.

The Pistons have no such coach -- the only adjustment they can make is to put Billups on Ray Allen because Chauncey is playing on one leg and would look foolish guarding Rondo.

Right now, the only positional advantage the Pistons have is at shooting guard and they haven't gone far enough in exploiting it. We'll see how this continues.

So now you're a Celtics fan again?

[MyInsatiableOne]

Wow. Look at all the bandwagon hoppers - LMAO. As for the OP - it's one game. The Pistons often don't give full effort - last nights game was one of those.

Pete

^Fixed.

And I agree, look at all the front-running C's fans jumping on the bandwagon now!

[greenbeans]

they can win by 40+ Thursday, doesnt matter imo. ill get excited when they win Saturday

[GonzoLays]

Out of our last eight games, last night was the easiest. Can anyone tell me different? Absolutely not.

Everyone needs to stop rubbing detroit's ego and realize CLEVELAND beat Detroit 4-2 last season to get the NBA finals and we beat Cleveland.

Detroit is a solid team but history shows you need a SUPERSTAR to win an NBA championship and they don't have one.

The year they won it, they had Chauncey, Rip, Ben Wallace, and Rasheed Wallace in their primes. Off the bench they had Jon Barry, a much better Mike James, Mehmet Okur and Corliss Williamson.

You can't compare today's Pistons to that 2003 team. That 2003 team played HELLAFIED defense compare to these pistons.

They're done. They are going to win some games against us, but they're done. Not nearly as tough of a matchup as the defending eastern confernce champions Cleveland.

[s1ickd]

the sixers solid defense gave them problems at first, but they dont play good TEAM defense. in fact, the pistons havent played a good team defense in the playoffs yet. dwight howard is a one man show in orlando.

i now understand how the cavs beat the pistons. they played that same suffocating defense against detroit.... but the pistons don't have a scorer like Pierce to get them through it. Also., they dont have someone like KG to alter lebron's shots.

[TommyPoints]

I've thought this for a while and felt that Detroit was very lucky to not get Cleveland because I dont think they would have gotten by Lebron once again. We'll have to see what kind of Detroit team shows up tomorrow, but if we win I think we have the series. I dont think we're going to lose both games on the road yet again. Thursday is important and we cant let up.

[Datruth345]

lets talk about this after a game in detroit

[tombattor]

Detroit will make their adjustments and Billups will play much better before the series is done. I'm not anticipating an easy, short series.

[JHTruth]

I think we can say with confidence that Detroit is better matchup for us. Doesn't mean we will pound them in the series or even win, but they are much easier than Cleveland. Z and LeBron were an absolute nightmare last series. And with Joe Smith, Varajeo, and Big Ben, they could just pound you on the boards. And LeBron just wears you down. I am confident we can pull this out..

[ParticleMan]

I agree that Detroit is a better matchup for us offensively. The main problem with Cleveland was that they had a size AND strength advantage at almost every position. The one exception was KG vs Ben, but Ben still had strength and was able to push KG off the block. Ray could beat Wally off the dribble but help was always waiting. Paul struggled against Lebron. KG was OK but Wallace played him tough. The trouble is, we rely mostly on our size and strength to beat teams. We are not a super-quick or super-fast team outside of Rondo. When we play someone like Cleveland, it's tough for us because we don't have our usual advantage.

Detroit has size on us, but not strength. Pierce can outmuscle Prince. Sheed is a good defender but can't muscle KG. Allen isn't going to get pushed around by Rip, and he has the strength to drive by him. The real matchup nightmare for us is Billups vs Rondo. Unless Detroit wins that matchup big-time, we should win the game. Obviously in Game 1 Rondo was up to the task. We'll see for the rest of the games. Hopefully Billups is still bothered by that hamstring. If he isn't 100%, that's a big plus for us.

I can definitely see how Cleveland beat Detroit last year. But I'm not couting any chickens either. Detroit played a listless game last night. I bet they will come out hard and try to steal on tomorrow. Remember they looked listless against the Sixers before turning it on and just blowing them away. I don't think they will blow us away, but they will put up a better fight than last night for sure.

[MyInsatiableOne]

^^Maybe. They are arrogant and blase and seem to overlook everyone and everything. Even Scoop Jackson, who is a shite writer at ESPN, has a good article about them today.

I do expect a tough series, but one in which we will prevail.