The Pistons dropped a real ugly one to the Rockets Thursday night. Unfortunately, Jeff Van Gundy decided to skip this party, so we were (not so) graced with Hubie Brown’s presence.

I really thought Detroit had this one after Sheed and Rip sank back-to-back clutch 3s late in the game to bring them within one. All the momentum was in the Pistons favor, but they couldn’t keep it going in the last minute-and-a-half.

Detroit shot 36 percent from the field. That is pretty pitiful, even for an off-night. Rarely will you get this close to winning with that kind of figure.

I can’t remember the last time I saw an NBA team (or any team for that matter) shoot so poorly from the free throw line. The Rockets were absolutely atrocious, shooting 6-22. The Pistons didn’t exactly light it up either, going 13-22.

With the way this one was going, I was surprised that either team scored over 70.

Max was great on the O-boards. Had it not been for Max’s spark, this may have been closer to a blowout.

This crap would’ve gotten Sheed a tech in a second. Actually, make that an ejection. And a fine.
Pistons: 15 team assists. About 10 too few.

The bad streak of ESPN announcers during Pistons’ games continued tonight at about 127 or so. It would be nice if I could enjoy at least a 5-second break every 10 minutes or so from the sickening sound of Hubie Brown’s voice. It was great to hear Hubie jabbering on about how good Yao Ming was when the Pistons were inbounding the ball with 8 seconds left in the game.

Yao Ming slowly picked the Pistons apart late in the game. They didn’t have much to show for his mid-range hook and he was grabbing rebounds left and right.

Chauncey had a solid night point-wise, but only had 2 assists.

Tay was practically invisible in 35 minutes, scoring only 4 points and grabbing 4 rebounds.

Apparently Bonzi Wells brought his temper with him, and Sheed was his target. Sheed and Bonzi were teammates from the time Wells was drafted in ’98 all the way up until Sheed left for the Pistons in ’04. I thought they were just joking around until Bonzi charged Sheed and got in his face. Of course, Sheed, who was simply holding his ground, was hit with a tech.

From The Detroit News:

“He came up into me,” Wallace said, “and it’s a tech on me. It’s all right. I gotta get that rescinded.”

Looking forward to a Palace rematch in a couple weeks, hopefully this one’s a little bit easier on the eyes…

Pistons-Hawks, Friday at 8:00 p.m.

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