The Essentials:
Pistons vs. Wizards
7:00 p.m.
Verizon Center
570, 1260, & 1370 AM, plus the audio will be streaming from the Wizards' blog.
Notable Pistons numbers last season:
2nd in expected winning percentage (.725)
30th in pace factor (87.3 possessions per game)
4th in offensive efficiency/offensive rating (111.4)
4th in defensive efficiency/defensive rating (102.9)
Key Links (drop any others in the comments)
Detroit Bad Boys
Need4Sheed
Pistons Nation Blog
Detroit Pistons Basketball
Competition Discussion: Detroit
Starting Lineups:
Pistons
PG: Chauncey Billups
SG: Richard Hamilton
SF: Tayshaun Prince
PF: Amir Johnson
C: Rasheed Wallace
Wizards
PG: Antonio Daniels
SG: DeShawn Stevenson
SF: Caron Butler
PF: Andray Blatche/Antawn Jamison
C: Etan Thomas
This is Pradamaster, by the way. Jake started and I finished.
My computer is still fried and will likely be for a little while (something about a broken graphics card and the new ones being on backorder), but I've comandeered a computer to write this thing up. It does mean I likely won't be participating in tonight's thread, but those there should still post post post.
This here's our only home preseason game before we hit the European vacation, armed without our most marketable player (take that, NBA!). We talked extensively about Detroit a few posts down, so there isn't much to say about them at this point.
Not sure as to whether Antawn Jamison will play tonight. Frankly, it's probably best he didn't anyway. We get more Blatche and more Taser for it.
I'm curious to see how Blatche, JaVale and Oily do against Detroit's surplus of bigs. Each brings something different to the table, and they'll be much more of a challenge than Marc Gasol. In particular, Jason Maxiell killed us last year on the offensive glass. I'm interested in how well our young bigs put a body on him.
Otherwise, all we need is to pray that nobody gets hurt.
This is an open game thread, so boo Kwame here.