12/30 6PM Toronto Raptors @ Detroit Pistons

[Deleterious]

It's over.

[buddha]

2 hours ago, buddha said:

i put $10 on the pistons moneyline tonight.  the raptors have half a team!  no way they lose.

(i also did the same thing for the utah game.  stupid is as stupid does.)

winner winner chicken dinner.

[Betrayer]

Finally!

 

[Deleterious]

Watch them lose their next 30 and break the record.  

[Deleterious]

I'm cancelling my Athletic subscription if JEIII mentions "Play-In Game" once in his article.  

[gehringer_2]

Cade and Ivey with 19 points at the line. They have to play that game more.

[Hart]

14 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Cade and Ivey with 19 points at the line. They have to play that game more.

Cade's free throws per game are creeping up each month.  Which is also helping his scoring average creep up each month.  That's a good sign.  When you can go for 30 and it feels like it was somewhat a quiet 30, it's a good sign.  

Edited December 31, 2023 by Hart

[Shinzaki]

Is it my imagination, or are Cade and Ivey  starting to mesh a bit

[buddha]

36 minutes ago, Hart said:

Cade's free throws per game are creeping up each month.  Which is also helping his scoring average creep up each month.  That's a good sign.  When you can go for 30 and it feels like it was somewhat a quiet 30, it's a good sign.  

without two centers in the game, the lane is open.

1) monty learn how to coach and not play two ground bound non-shooting centers at once;

2) troy learn how to construct a 2023 nba roster that doesnt have four centers, only one of whom is an actual nba starter (and he's 20!).

[buddha]

btw, are we over the laughable notion that scottie barnes is a better player than cade cunningham?

and i knew the raptors would lose this game.  they are the chokiest team ever.  if we sign siakem - and i give it 50/50 odds that we sign him to a massive deal - he'll come here and choke too.

[RandyMarsh]

I'm happy as hell they won but this just goes to show how bad the team is overall, I mean they shot 50% from the field, 43 from deep, 35-40 from the line, got great games by Cunningham, Ivey, Duren and unlikely guys like Knox, didn't turn it over all that much yet only won by 2 at home against a mediocre team.  There's just no margin for error at all with the team. 

[Deleterious]

1 hour ago, buddha said:

btw, are we over the laughable notion that scottie barnes is a better player than cade cunningham?

and i knew the raptors would lose this game.  they are the chokiest team ever.  if we sign siakem - and i give it 50/50 odds that we sign him to a massive deal - he'll come here and choke too.

Barnes is pretty damn good.  21 PPG, 9.4 RPG, 5.9 APG, 1.5 SPG, 1.5 BPG on 53% from the field and 39% from three and plays very good defense.

[buddha]

15 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

Barnes is pretty damn good.  21 PPG, 9.4 RPG, 5.9 APG, 1.5 SPG, 1.5 BPG on 53% from the field and 39% from three and plays very good defense.

would you trade cade for barnes straight up?

[Deleterious]

5 minutes ago, buddha said:

would you trade cade for barnes straight up?

If I was not a Piston fan?  Probably. 

The only thing Cade does better than Barnes is passing/playmaking.  Barnes is the better shooter from distance, by a wide margin.  He gets to the rim more and finishes quite a bit better.  He is the much better player on defense.  Barnes is the better rebounder.

One concern about Barnes is he hasn't done it as the #1 option yet.  He was pretty insulated with OG and Siakim as his running buddies.  I don't think he receives the defensive attention from other teams that Cade does.

[buddha]

5 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

If I was not a Piston fan?  Probably. 

The only thing Cade does better than Barnes is passing/playmaking.  Barnes is the better shooter from distance, by a wide margin.  He gets to the rim more and finishes quite a bit better.  He is the much better player on defense.  Barnes is the better rebounder.

One concern about Barnes is he hasn't done it as the #1 option yet.  He was pretty insulated with OG and Siakim as his running buddies.  I don't think he receives the defensive attention from other teams that Cade does.

we'll see how he plays on a ****ty team.  actually, theyre pretty ****ty right now but he isnt the entire offensive game plan like cade is in detroit.

[Betrayer]

5 hours ago, buddha said:

without two centers in the game, the lane is open.

1) monty learn how to coach and not play two ground bound non-shooting centers at once

I wish he had learned something. The reality is simply that Stew was out with an injury. 

[Deleterious]

One big on the floor certainly helps. But Cade has been playing better even before Stewart got hurt.

I think the Cade turn around started when Bojan returned from his injury. He spaces the floor and gives Cade space to operate. He also is a second option to create offense, which is a huge weight off of Cunningham's shoulders.

[Hart]

Stewart has actually been a decent three point shooter this year so I don't think he is the problem with our floor spacing.  I agree there is probably something with Bojan getting most of Ausar's minutes that are helping Cade.  

I also hope he is just getting better.  That is what would really be beneficial to the Pistons.  We need Cade to be able to win us some games even with crappy players around him.  That is what great players can do.  Then once we get good players around him, the Pistons should be very good.  

[casimir]

20 hours ago, casimir said:

 

Guaranteed victory tonight because I won’t be able to watch it and someone will tell me about it before I can watch the recording.

You're welcome.  Thankfully I was able to watch it this morning without knowing what happened.

[casimir]

12 hours ago, Shinzaki said:

Is it my imagination, or are Cade and Ivey  starting to mesh a bit

Well, let's consider that Cunningham was out for basically all of Ivey's season and then Williams has goofy lineups and playing time allocations earlier this season.  So, it easy to see how it might have taken a while for them to gel on the court.

Ivey's quickness and speed can be a heck of an asset, but I think he needs to learn to reign it in more.  Those assets could serve well in college where the opposition is slower than the pros.  But he's now up against better opposition, better athletes.  Using that athleticism as a basketball player, being more of a basketball player than an athlete.  I think he's been getting better at it lately, but there are still times where he gets a little out of control.

[casimir]

2 hours ago, Hart said:

Stewart has actually been a decent three point shooter this year so I don't think he is the problem with our floor spacing.  I agree there is probably something with Bojan getting most of Ausar's minutes that are helping Cade.  

I also hope he is just getting better.  That is what would really be beneficial to the Pistons.  We need Cade to be able to win us some games even with crappy players around him.  That is what great players can do.  Then once we get good players around him, the Pistons should be very good.  

Yes about his shooting.  But he is in his 4th season and he still has his moments on the floor where you wonder what in the world he was thinking about.  For example, there are times when he wants to show off the handles that he ain't got.

[gehringer_2]

14 hours ago, buddha said:

without two centers in the game, the lane is open.

yup. this is exactly it. but it's just as much having Knox, Burks and Bogan on the court  - all of whom shoot the ball a little and pull defenders to the arc. You can have Thompson and Killian out there without the big men and the lane will be largely closed off because teams don't bother to defend either of them. Even Bogan was taking it to the rim once they got some spacing.

Ausar needs to go to the gleague until he has some kind of offensive game, and Killian just needs to go. In 4 yrs he is not one step closer to being an NBA player than he was when he was drafted.

Edited December 31, 2023 by gehringer_2

[NYLion]

It was really nice to see them get that monkey off their back, just wish it happened sooner so that ghastly record wasn't on the books. Cade playing like a star in the last 10 games or so, I know he's 29 so probably doesn't fit the timeline but Siakam to pair with Cade and Duren would be a really interesting trio if they were miraculously able to land him somehow.

[buddha]

4 hours ago, Hart said:

Stewart has actually been a decent three point shooter this year so I don't think he is the problem with our floor spacing.  I agree there is probably something with Bojan getting most of Ausar's minutes that are helping Cade.  

I also hope he is just getting better.  That is what would really be beneficial to the Pistons.  We need Cade to be able to win us some games even with crappy players around him.  That is what great players can do.  Then once we get good players around him, the Pistons should be very good.  

but he rarely shoots, is slow, and has no other move.  so team's dont guard him and continue to pack the paint.

[Deleterious]

Sam Vecenie had one of the Piston podcasters on his show recently.  They did 20 minutes on the Pistons and talked about Stewart.  They praised him for improving his shooting.  But they said he has no gravity, he doesn't draw the defense in so he really doesn't create spacing like you would want.

They mentioned the fact he can't attack closeouts as being the big problem.  You can really play off of him on defense because when/if he gets the ball, he will not move at all.  So you can close out on him hard and he isn't capable of punishing you by putting it on the floor and driving to the basket.