Fresh off a four game Western Conference road trip  the Pistons will return home to and have to defend their home court  against Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. These two teams have  sort of built a little bit of a rivalry over the last few years and now  that Ben Wallace is wearing a Cleveland Cavaliers uniform it makes the  rivalry a little more personal…..at least to the fans.

Unlike in the past though, Lebron James actually has  a decent supporting cast around him and are probably the favorites over  the Pistons this season to win the division. James has more shooters  around him than before, guys like Mo Williams, Delonte West, and Wally  Szczberiak are able to hang around the perimeter and benefit from  James’ penetration. And lets not even get started on Daniel Gibson….

Guards Mo Williams and Delonte West also bring  playmaking abilities, meaning Lebron doesn’t have to handle the ball so  much life before. No longer can you play 5 on 1 and hope to stop  Lebron, he has way too many other weapons around him. And last not but  not least, their strong interior play is a huge advantage, especially  over the Pistons. The Pistons are a little short handed in the front  court after the recent blockbuster trade to acquire Allen Iverson so  you know the Cleveland bigs will be licking their chops to have a big  game on both ends of the floor. Ben Wallace and Zydrunas Ilgauskas will  look to shut down the paint defensively and control the rebounding war.

For the Pistons, they are a little different from the  past as well. As you all know the Pistons now have Allen Iverson and at  times this team has been very good with AI (against Golden State and  Los Angeles) and then at other times they’ve looked very lost (against  Boston and Phoenix) so it’ll be interesting to see which Pistons team  shows up tomorrow night.

Overall it should be a fun night of great basketball  and I can’t wait to see the outcome of it. The Pistons have a lot of  their shoulders though, they can’t come out and lay an egg like they  did last Sunday against the Boston Celtics when they were booed off the  court by their home crowd. Speaking of those Celtics…..after the game,  the Pistons will hop on a plane and travel to Boston for their second  back to back of the season and play Boston Thursday night on TNT.

AI the Answer?

I’m really liking the way guard Allen Iverson is  starting to mesh with the rest of this team, I think once they really  get more comfortable with each other and other guys start hitting jump  shots this team will be really good. Good enough to beat Boston or  Cleveland? Not sure….but pretty good, especially of Tayshaun Prince  continues to play the way he’s been playing since the trade.

The team is also a lot more fun and entertaining to  watch. I’m loving the faster pace as opposed to the slower, grind out  pace, this team started the season off playing. Yeah it was successful  against lesser talented teams but it was boring and against teams like  Boston and Cleveland you have to be able to get stops, push the ball  and get easy baskets which is exactly what they’ve done since AI has  started to gell with the team.

Way too early to judge but so far so good for both Detroit and Denver on that big blockbuster deal.

One Response to “Lebron Comes to the Palace”

1. Baba Says:
   April 23rd, 2009 at 9:53 am

   Great work.

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