At the Pistons’ shootaround Tuesday morning, Saunders was asked a standard question about what he planned to do while filling out the active roster for Game 1, and the coach gave his standard answer:

“Joe [Dumars] and I will talk about it,” Flip Saunders said.

After the chat, the Pistons decided to activate little-used forward Amir Johnson, who gives the team more depth in the frontcourt, and deactivate guard Juan Dixon, forward Walter Herrmann and rookie Cheikh Samb.

Johnson did not play in Game 1, as Saunders went to a nine-man rotation.

But just the fact that the Pistons have to sit down and make decisions regarding whom to activate for a playoff game proves that one of the organization’s main priorities last off-season — developing a deeper bench — has come to fruition at the most crucial time of year.

“When we signed some guys over the course of the summer and the draft, and as far as the trades we made,” Saunders said, “we had the ability to play a lot of different guys depending on the style of play we’re playing against, who we’re playing against and what we feel we need to do.”

I guess Dixon’s deactivation can be justified with Stuckey’s performance, but I would have liked to see at least an attempt to stick Walter Herrmann on Kevin Garnett.  Not only do I think his great defense on mobile big men could possibly shut KG down, but I’m not sure if KG would be able to guard such a versatile player such as Herrmann. Call me Walter-biased…

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