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analysis of series thus far

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  • #1

    analysis of series thus far

    Here is my takes thus far on the series:

    1. Every game will look just like the first 3 have, so get used to it. Hard fought, every shot contested, no team running away with game, and both teams having a shot at winning at end of game. Which means this series will be decided by the team that can hit the clutch shots and stop other team in last 2 minutes.

    2. pacers need to quit doubling off of Ben and allowing him to score. If Ben is scoring 17 points a game, WE WILL NOT WIN. Ben is great at defense and rebounding but we cannot allow him to be a force offensively. IMO we dont need to double up, we match up well against them, unless one gets really hot, there is no reason.

    3. Artest has got to find his game. He is our only chance at winning this series. He looked much better last night, but is still struggling to hit the open jumper. His defense was much better last night and he needs to get back to scoring around 18-20 a game. He is our only creator and is the only pacer that has a legitimate advantage over his defender.

    4. Tinsley has been most effective when he gets into middle of lane and forces defense to either guard his tear drop shot, or play off of him. He is chucking up way to many threes which is not his strength. His ability to breakdown a defense and pass to open shooter is what we need more than his three point shooting.

    5. Foster is proving why he is no Ben Wallace. Ben is bigger, stronger, and faster. Foster must get scrappier.

    6. As a team we are passing up way too many uncontested jumpers to drive it into the teeth of their defense. We must not be hesitant to pop the mid range jumper. it is obvious you are not going to get some of the fould calls you got all season, so you must make adjustments and rely more on a jumper.

    7. The bench has to be more consistent. One of the problems RC is having is his best bench player, Harrington only shows up some quarters and not others. He does need to score bunches every quarter...but when he isnt scoring it seems to affect his defense and all around hustle.

    8. JO overall is playing good ball. he is playing against one of the best froncourt tandems in the league and is battling them hard. But he cant do it alone. The only thing i would like to see more with JO, is him catching it in post, instead of at the elbow. When he catches it out high, he has to make too many moves to get to bucket and allows more time for the Pistons to double him from weakside. His most effective shot is when he catches at low block fakes to the center of lane and turns baseline for a patented 6 foot jumper. He is money with that shot on both blocks.

    9. fred Jones looks to be getting healthier and showed last night he can create. If he continues, he might be our x factor.

    10. This series proves we need to go out and get a guard who can create their own shot next year. Rip has shown the ability to knock down jumpers and create in the clutch, and we have nobody that has shown that ability. That will be key if we want to improve upon this year.

    11. Stop whining about refs. They are not losing this series for us. They have made bad calls, yes, but they have made bad calls for both teams. Newsflash, the refs will call all the rest of the games the same way, so get used to it, bring your lunch pale, and go to work.


    Overall, we have played excellent defense as well. I think that is getting lost in all the hoopla about detroits defense, but they arent exactly tearing us up. This is this teams first ECF trip and they are playing with heart and determination. the games are close and they still have a chance to come back 2-2. I think alot of pacer fans thought we would be up 3-1 after 4 games and thats just not realistic. We have nothing to be upset about, we are playing a tough team dead even thus far and are one game away from taking back homecourt. All in all, for playing as poorly as we have offensively, we are still very much in this series.
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: analysis of series thus far


    2. pacers need to quit doubling off of Ben and allowing him to score. If Ben is scoring 17 points a game, WE WILL NOT WIN. Ben is great at defense and rebounding but we cannot allow him to be a force offensively. IMO we dont need to double up, we match up well against them, unless one gets really hot, there is no reason.



    8. JO overall is playing good ball. he is playing against one of the best froncourt tandems in the league and is battling them hard. But he cant do it alone. The only thing i would like to see more with JO, is him catching it in post, instead of at the elbow. When he catches it out high, he has to make too many moves to get to bucket and allows more time for the Pistons to double him from weakside. His most effective shot is when he catches at low block fakes to the center of lane and turns baseline for a patented 6 foot jumper. He is money with that shot on both blocks.

    9. fred Jones looks to be getting healthier and showed last night he can create. If he continues, he might be our x factor.

    10. This series proves we need to go out and get a guard who can create their own shot next year. Rip has shown the ability to knock down jumpers and create in the clutch, and we have nobody that has shown that ability. That will be key if we want to improve upon this year.

    Grest post diego. I don't really disagree with any of it.

    But I do want to add some comments to the points you made that I have quoted above.

    2) Doc made the point last night that the Pacers are doubling off of Ben. To a point i agree, they are shading their defense away from ben to a certain degree, but they aren't leaving him wide open. last night he got dunks and payups because the Pacers bigs had to double help on dribble penetration, and on the pick and rolls, and on rip when he curled around the screens.

    In fact the Pistons bread and butter play is they curl rip tightly around a Sheed baseline screen, causing pacers big man to step up and aloows Sheed to get open. That is their bread and butter play, and they ran two straight times in the last minute of game #3


    8) I agree J.O is best in the low block, but the Pistons are pushing him out so far because they know he is great at the low box. In other words pacers don't want him any place besides the low box


    9) Fred Jones. he looked healthy last night for the first time in awhile. But I was troubled that Rip posted fred up two straight times last night and scored rather easily on him. Rip has an asnwer for every defender the pacers put on him, right now AJ has defended him better than anyone.


    10) If and when the pacers lose this series, IMO it will not be because of their lack of another big man, contrary to what many are saying today, the pacers will lose because of their guard play. Both offensively and defensively. They get beat off the dribble, or Billups just shoots over Tinsley and we know what Rip is doing to us. And offensively like you said deigo

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    • #3
      Re: analysis of series thus far

      Great points UB. I still think we have a great shot in this series. If we can start hitting some jumpers, it will change a lot.

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: analysis of series thus far

        2) Doc made the point last night that the Pacers are doubling off of Ben. To a point i agree, they are shading their defense away from ben to a certain degree, but they aren't leaving him wide open. last night he got dunks and payups because the Pacers bigs had to double help on dribble penetration, and on the pick and rolls, and on rip when he curled around the screens.
        I saw much less of it in game #3 than I saw in game #2. In game #2 it was constant, and was one of the reasons I was so furious at the team after the game.
        BillS

        A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
        Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

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        • #5
          Re: analysis of series thus far

          2) Doc made the point last night that the Pacers are doubling off of Ben. To a point i agree, they are shading their defense away from ben to a certain degree, but they aren't leaving him wide open. last night he got dunks and payups because the Pacers bigs had to double help on dribble penetration, and on the pick and rolls, and on rip when he curled around the screens.
          I saw much less of it in game #3 than I saw in game #2. In game #2 it was constant, and was one of the reasons I was so furious at the team after the game.
          less in game 3??



          Fully 15 of their 30 baskets in game 3 were scored on dunks and layups. 2 or 3 were on transition, but most of the rest were caused by dribble penetration drawing help defenders.

          Interior passing exploiting the help defense was the primary way the Pistons attacked all night long.
          The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!).

          Comment

          • #6
            Re: analysis of series thus far

            I meant less of the doubling off of Ben and giving him a completely free look at the basket.

            What I saw in game 3 was that at least the dunks and layups were contested, as opposed to game 2 where they were clear path to the basket kind of thing.

            Game 3 also had an awful lot of man-getting-beat-makes-stupid-foul, which has the same effect but isn't the same as game 2's man-late-rotating-off-double-makes-stupid-foul
            BillS

            A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
            Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: analysis of series thus far



              9) Fred Jones. he looked healthy last night for the first time in awhile. But I was troubled that Rip posted fred up two straight times last night and scored rather easily on him. Rip has an asnwer for every defender the pacers put on him, right now AJ has defended him better than anyone.
              Regardless of those post-ups, Freddie can guard Rip better than Miller. He can put more pressure on him and he can also make Rip work harder on the other end. Reggie is too slow.

              I think that Larry Brown would rather have Reggie in the game than Freddie. So, as soon as Freddie goes in the game, they will attack him and try to score on him so that Rick will put Reggie back in the game. Having Reggie in the game is a more comfortable situation for Detroit. What Detroit doesn't want is Freddie getting into the lane. With Reggie, they don't have to worry about it.

              Rip has to work harder on offense to get shots against Freddie than he does against Reggie. If Freddie played more, Rip would get tired quicker.

              Also, I hope Reggie was watching and taking notes last night when Freddie showed people how to take it to the hole LIKE A MAN.

              Comment

              • #8
                Re: analysis of series thus far



                9) Fred Jones. he looked healthy last night for the first time in awhile. But I was troubled that Rip posted fred up two straight times last night and scored rather easily on him. Rip has an asnwer for every defender the pacers put on him, right now AJ has defended him better than anyone.
                Regardless of those post-ups, Freddie can guard Rip better than Miller. He can put more pressure on him and he can also make Rip work harder on the other end. Reggie is too slow.

                I think that Larry Brown would rather have Reggie in the game than Freddie. So, as soon as Freddie goes in the game, they will attack him and try to score on him so that Rick will put Reggie back in the game. Having Reggie in the game is a more comfortable situation for Detroit. What Detroit doesn't want is Freddie getting into the lane. With Reggie, they don't have to worry about it.

                Rip has to work harder on offense to get shots against Freddie than he does against Reggie. If Freddie played more, Rip would get tired quicker.

                Also, I hope Reggie was watching and taking notes last night when Freddie showed people how to take it to the hole LIKE A MAN.

                Comment

                • #9
                  Re: analysis of series thus far

                  Speaking on #10, I want Vashon Leonard. I think he'd be great here.

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Re: analysis of series thus far

                    I think we're plaing the game too slow, which favors Detroit. I loved it when we put in our bench players in the 4th last night, their offensive talent are what got us back in the game. If we play a faster-paced game tommorow night I'm positive we'll win and then go on to win the series.

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      Re: analysis of series thus far

                      Great points UB. I still think we have a great shot in this series. If we can start hitting some jumpers, it will change a lot.
                      I definitely agree with that. If we hit 20+ foot shots, I think the series would be totally different. Jermaine's game would open up immensely.

                      One point I would make that has not been made is that Jermaine and Al absolutely MUST start blocking out on the boards. In Game #3, Ben got a layin to put the Pistons up 4 not because Jermaine left him but because Jermaine did not block him out.

                      Ben and Rasheed to a great job of blocking out for each other. And for the Pacers, I think Austin, Jeff and Artest do the same. But for Pete's sake, Al and Jermaine must quit relying on their athleticism to get the ball and get down and dirty in throwing a body on someone.

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