I misspoke. Willie Green isn't comparable to either Piston starting guard. One could argue that Iguodala should be a guard, and He and Miller would be a better back-court.
In any case, the Sixers ARE the better team, and they STILL aren't getting any respect. Most of you, if you watched the game, saw it on ESPN, and the color guy wasn't giving the Sixers any credit. He put it all on Detroit "not being focused enough" and "not playing Piston basketball" The bottom line is the Sixers forced 23 turnovers and turned them into relatively easy buckets. When was the last time the Pistons suffered 15 steals! Even when they weren't forcing turnovers, they were pressuring the Detroit shooters into a 40.9% performance. That is great defense, and this moron keeps saying the Sixers aren't that great a defensive team. No respect whatsover!
But I think the Pistons respect them now, after being thumped, 95-75.
The Sixers now have the edge after winning the pivotal third game, and must defend their home-court on Sunday. Going into Detroit with a 3-1 lead is exactly what I expect.
This game started out with the teams playing even at the beginning of the game, playing at the Pistons pace. The Sixers only had a 4 pt. lead at the half. But in the third quarter the Sixers really turned up the heat and forced more turnovers and got some easier shots. The Pistons never give a team a chance at a shot, preferring to foul instead, and in those cases the Sixers made their free throws. More importantly they held Detroit to 16 points in the quarter, making them look as pathetic offensively as the Sixers had on Wednesday.
The Sixers 15 point lead at the end of the third eventually got as high as 24 before falling back to 20. The last few minutes Flip put in the reserves and threw in the towel.
So far the Sixers are on track to win this series in 5 or 6 games. Clearly, Phila. was able to adjust to the Pistons single minded determination to stop Andre Igoudala, by letting the others take the open looks Andre created by moving both with and without the ball. One of the prime beneficiaries was Sam Dalembert who got some easy dunks courtesy of Iggy. Sam had an absolute monster game, 22 points, 16 rebounds, 2 blocks and who knows how many altered shots.
The Pistons picked their poison and lost. For the past three games, they have stopped Iguodala from putting up his normal numbers. Now that the Sixers have adjusted, what will the Pistons do? If they stop focusing on Andre, he will get his points, but if the do, the rest of the Sixers are more than capable of scoring.
The series is far from over, but the choice for how it will evolve depends on what the Pistons try to do differently in game 4.
The real player they need to try and stop is Andre Miller, 21 points on 9-14 from the field, although he only had 3 assists. He continually beat the Pistons players either sinking the shot or getting the foul. In truth, I thought he should have had about 10 more trips to the free-throw line than he did, he always got those calls in the regular season.
I don't think the Pistons can stop Andre Miller, they don't have a guard on their squad who can stop him. As long as he can score his 20 and Sam gets a double-double, the rest of the team is good for enough points to win most nights. Billups has no shot in handling Andre, he is simply better at this point in their careers than Chauncey.
The Sixers didn't shoot all that great themselves, only 45.9% so there is still room for them to play better. What puts them above the Pistons is their ability to force turnovers and defensive stops. The only way for the Pistons to adjust is to take care of the ball better, but they were clearly trying to, and being unsuccessful. So far, no team has had an answer for the Sixers when they play ball like they did tonight. It will be interesting to see if the Pistons can find a way to play that nullifies their defensive dominance.
