The Pistons’ upcoming road trip will include the home courts of four of the top five Eastern Conference teams (Cleveland, Boston, Orlando, Miami) and a Western Conference contender (New Orleans), in a short span of nine days.

And then “home sweet home,” right? I wish. The first game back is against the Nuggets, a team whose now formidable status needs no explanation for Pistons fans.

A 14-15 home record goes without saying.

Pessimism is a rampant mantra in these semi-dark days of Detroit basketball, and that state of mind could well worsen in the coming days.

In the spirit of the moment, the Pistons don’t stand much of a chance against a Cavaliers team that has only dropped one of its 25 home games.

If you’re a Detroit fan with a phobia of the sub-.500 realm, get ready to call your local shrink.

This could get ugly. You have been warned.

-Adam Debrowski, PistonPost.com editor

Forward Rasheed Wallace sat out of his morning’s shoot-around at Madison Square Garden, instead getting treatment from strength and conditioning coach Arnie Kander on his sore left ankle.

There’s still a chance he could play tonight against the Knicks. Neither Wallace nor Pistons coach Flip Saunders would count him out.

“It’s 50-50,” Saunders said. “Either he plays or he doesn’t.”

[...]

My guess is he’ll sit because the Pistons can then get Theo Ratliff some meaningful minutes and begin to see what their newly-signed big man has to offer. Ratliff said he’d be ready to go if that happens tonight.

[...]

A funny thing ended the media session of shoot around. Pistons rookie Arron Afflalo missed the bus to the Garden because the departure time had changed and he didn’t get the memo. He had to cab over on his own. Team security guru Jerry Hendon waited by the elevators for Afflalo to appear. When he did, he told him solemnly, “Coach said he doesn’t want you to come in. He said to just go back to the hotel.”

Afflalo looked totally deflated. He asked, “Really, coach Saunders said that?”

“Yup,’ Jerry said, pulling him back toward the elevator. “He said just go on back.”

A few seconds passed before Jerry finally cracked up, letting Afflalo know it was all a joke.

Source: freep.com

The game will air at 2:30 on ABC.

Phoenix, coming off a big win against Boston, will have momentum. Luckily, the Pistons are pretty good on the road (18-10) and should make this a good one.

Detroit will need to contain Shaq, but more importantly, Amare Stoudamire. The guy is unstoppable if he gets going and someone will need to stop up to stop those driving lane dunks.

Yet another Grant Hill-Pistons reunion. Grant has stayed surprisingly healthy and the Suns are capitalizing; he’s averaging 15 and 5, along with 4 assists per game.

Detroit is looking to bounce back from a hard-fought loss to the Celtics Saturday night, a Boston win that snapped an 11-game win streak.

In Dallas, Dirk Nowitzki has undoubtedly recovered from his early-season slump. He leads the team in scoring, averaging 22 a night, as well as rebounds.

Devin Harris and Josh Howard have also elevated their games in the past weeks, and Eric Dampier has done surprisingly well and will be a tough cover on both ends of the floor. As usual, Jason “The Jet” Terry can be deadly from outside and must be closely guarded from the perimeter.

The Spurs, on the other hand, look like they’ve just entered a slump. As we know from the past, the Spurs always have the bar set pretty high, so five losses in the last ten games in unlike them. They remain on top of the Southwest, but their lead on Dallas has been trimmed to a microscopic 0.5 games.

Tim Duncan and Tony Parker are coming off a combined 63-point effort in a loss to the Warriors. Duncan went to the line 16 times during that game, so the Pistons will need to watch out for the soft and-1′s (followed by no emotion from Tim of course). As usual, Manu “Flop” Ginobili still remains a threat off the bench. Detroit will also need to watch Bruce Bowen for the open baseline 3 as a result of help-D or double teams, especially if the game is close near the end.

Combined, the Mavs and Spurs are 33-5 at home.

Nevertheless, I’m sure slumps mean nothing to the Spurs when it comes to facing their 2005 Finals rivals. Expect San Antonio to come out firing, but expect nothing less from our Pistons.

The Pacers have flirted with .500 all season, and currently stand at 15-14.  They’ve won 6 of their last 10.  They are currently in 2nd place in the Central Division, 6.5 games behind the Pistons.

Mike Dunleavy has taken an unexpected stand as Indiana’s leading scorer, averaging 17.5 a night.  He is having a career year, also leading the team in field goal percentage, free throw percentage and 3-point percentage.  The Pistons will need to shut down Dunleavy on offense and contain Jermaine O’Neal on defense if they want to come away with a win against the unexperienced, yet energetic Pacers.

Make sure and keep an eye on the Tayshaun-Granger match-up.  Both are 6’9″ and have similar playing styles- hopefully Tay can get his game going.

Tip-off is at 8:00 p.m.

TV: WDIV, WXSP