Pistons Battle; furious rally falls just short

The Detroit Pistons found themselves in an all too familiar position Wednesday night – trailing by 20 points headed into the 4^th quarter in Portland. Just the previous night, the Pistons found themselves in a 25 point deficit to start the fourth, only to cut the lead to 6 late in the quarter and force the Lakers to bring back their starters to hold off a furious Pistons rally.

Employing an aggressive full court trapping defense (for the first time this year), the Pistons caught the Blazers off guard, missing 11 out of 14 shots and turning it over 5 times to allow the Pistons to cut the lead to one point, 78-77 with just over a minute remaining in the game. On the ensuing possession, Blake missed a three pointer, but rebounded his own miss and drained a second three point attempt to ice the game with 25 seconds remaining.

So the Pistons lost their third straight game (and second on the 4 game west coast trip) but there were some good things to take away from this game…

• Resiliency: This team just doesn’t give up, regardless of the score, and you have to appreciate that if you’re a Piston fan. Now, it’d be awfully nice if they started this games off a bit better and didn’t put themselves in huge holes early, but the fighting spirit is a nice change here. The old Pistons core, while a much better team, would have mailed it in on nights like this and lost the game by 20+ points.

• A New Lineup? Kuester used a lineup in the 4^th quarter that we had not seen this year, going away from the traditional 3 guard lineup of Gordon, Stuckey, Bynum alongside Villanueva and Ben Wallace/Kwame Brown. Kuester went away from that last night, going with a Big Ball lineup of Stuckey, Daye, JJ/Summer, Charlie Villanueva, Ben Wallace… a lineup that produced a 27-8 run, holding Portland to just 3 field goals in that stretch, as they cut a 20 point lead into just a 1 point deficit with 1:05 remaining. Stuckey was the biggest contributor in that 4^th quarter comeback, scoring 12 points and dishing out 4 dimes. The strong finish somewhat offsets the awful shooting night (6 for 21). It’ll be interesting to see if Kuester goes to this lineup (or another big lineup) more often in games. I, for one, am not a huge fan of the 3 guard lineup. Our offense just becomes too predictable with the 3 guards running isolations and side pick and rolls; not enough body movement as the ball tends to stick on one side of the floor.

• Full Court Press: I loved the chaos the full court press and trapping created last night. We’ve seen this used in spurts this year, but the Pistons used the full court trap nearly the entire 4^th quarter and it really confused the Blazers and caused them to play timidly, turning the ball over 5 times during that stretch. The Pistons were behind by a lot and had to use the trap to generate more possessions, but I’d like to see them employ the aggressive tactic more often. This team is young and athletic enough to use it a lot. The full court and half court traps was a big staple in the 2004 Pistons historically dominant defense. It’d be nice to see it used more often this season.

Next Game: @ Utah Jazz, Sat, Nov. 21^st, 9:00 EST