Detroit vs. Toronto

Tonight wasn’t one of those games where it was expected to be a battle. In fact, tonight was supposed to be a blow out where the Pistons were supposed to dominate the Raptors. Things would go as planned, but the first was closer than the rest of the game was. The Pistons and the Raptors started the game off going back and forth, but then Sheed showed up and slammed the ball to give the Pistons some momentum. Later good ball movement found Rip for the three, and then Chauncey hit a three near the end of the quarter. Toronto came out of a timeout firing trying to make this a game by tying the game up, but then Chauncey nailed another three to give the Pistons a 25-20 lead. The only person that seemed to score for Toronto was Chris Bosh, who kept Toronto in the game as the Pistons led the Raptors 32-29 at the end of the first.

Dice had already been in the game because Sheed got into foul trouble early, but he would not disappoint. He was 4 for 4 in the second providing scoring from the bench. Carlos Delfino and Moe Evans were scoring as well, Delfino on a long 2 and Evans on countless trey and turn and guns. Carlos Arroyo also got into the mix when he made a tear dropper from the lane. Nothing changed when the starters came back into the game, Tayshaun hit a triple to extend the Pistons lead to 55-39, and then Sheed made his own three to follow Tayshaun’s. Soon after, Chauncey made a three to give the Pistons a 20 point lead (61-41). At halftime the Pistons were up 63-45. In the first half the Pistons shot spectacular as they went 60.5% from the floor while Toronto was only able to connect on the 40% of their shots.

Chris Bosh cooled off some in the third which was very bad news for Toronto. Most of the Pistons Bench was in midway through the quarter and after Moe Evans floater the Pistons led 80-66. In the middle of the third, Ben Wallace went up for a rebound and got hit in the jaw real hard and fell to the ground. Although it was not serious, at the time it was a scary thing because he went down real hard, but he got up and went out and he looked ok for the rest of the game. At the end of the third the Pistons were up 90-75 over the Raptors.

The fourth quarter was mostly garbage time, which meant that most of the bench got some more minutes. Moe Evans was the highlight of the fourth by scoring 6 points with one of them being a spectacular dunk. Darko Milicic got into the game with one minute to go, and had one dunk, one block, one turnover, and one assist all in one minute. The turnover isn’t good, but the other stats look pretty good to have in one minute of play. If he continues to improve both on the court in games and in practices, maybe someday he’ll be able to be a nice threat off the bench. Until then he is going to be saved for garbage time like tonight. The Pistons ended up winning the game 113-106 eclipsing the century mark again.

The Bench Power House of the Game: The bench power house of the game goes to Antonio McDyess, because of his ability to perform when called on. He received
extended minutes tonight due to Sheed’s foul trouble and Ben Wallace’s scare. Dice played 32 minutes while grabbing 11 boards and scoring 12 points.

Here are tonight’s leaders in the major stat categories:

Scoring: It was the leading scorer of the Pistons that leads once again in the scoring category. Rip had 24 points as he connected on 10 of his 17 shots.

Assists: King of the Hill (Chauncey) led the Pistons in assists once again as he dished out 13 of them.

Rebounds: Tonight it wasn’t Wallace*2 that led in rebounding, it was Dice who answered the call nicely because of Sheed’s foul trouble and Ben’s slight injury. He led the team with 11 boards.

Blocks: Sheed filled in for Big Ben on the defensive side by blocking 3 opponents’ shots in the game.

Steals: Arroyo and Dice each bench players, led the Pistons in steals with 1 a piece.