Warriors (W-L): 13-10
Pistons (W-L): 16-7
TV: FSN Bay Area
Radio: KNBR 680
The Warriors ended a painful losing streak to Ebok and the Lakers on Friday night on national TV. Baron stole the show with his heroic, uh-I-can't-believe-he's-taking-that-shot-- HELLYEAH!, booming trey and blew kisses to the Roaracle crowd as the Warriors finished off the Fakers.
Make the jump for a preview of Sunday morning's away game...
Update: Warriors lose a "close one" 87-109.
Final Boxscore
Stay tuned for the recap...
On Sunday morning the Warriors take on the Detroit Pistons in front of the most barbaric fans in the league. If I was commish after that Palace Brawl I'd ban this sorry suburban city from ever hosting another NBA game again. I'm not pointing the finger at urban Detroit here, I'm pointing the finger at the most likely reasonably wealthy barbarians in the lower bowl. We're not talking about one or two dumb, obnoxious fans- hey even the great Roaracle Arena crowd has a few of those- I'm talking about the masses of losers who should be in jail.
Well Stephen Jackson's back and if those losers try anything stupid again hopefully Commissioner Stern will quit focusing on dumb policies and instead move the Pistons away from these barbarians. It's disturbing that still to this day Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson are painted as the sole criminals seemingly every time the national mainstream media brings up the brawl, but they never seem to bring up these barbarians in the stands (not to say that Artest and Jackson were angels that night either). They also fail to bring up incidents like a member of the Auburn Hills barbarians throwing change from the stands at then 76er Allen Iverson just a few weeks later. The rhetoric of "players getting into fights with fans" is disturbing as well. It's as if being a fan justifies idiocy, makes the fans the good guys/ victims, and absolves them of any blame for their actions. How about we call it players getting into fights with barbarians? Seems more fitting.
It's really too bad that these barbarians have been treated to a very solid team that's gone to the Eastern Conference Finals 5 straight season. They don't deserve this squad. They've done a huge disservice to the rest of the league and their foolishness is arguably what enabled the NBA's front office to justify such silliness as the NBA's dress code and zero tolerance rule with refs who don't exactly have squeaky clean records themselves. Just like those losers in Salt Lake City proved during last season's snoring and boring Western Conference Finals, the NBA has a fan problem.
On to the game (as I duck from all the flying objects and beer that the barbarians are trying to hurl at me from their keyboards)...
Despite only being 3 games over .500 the Warriors are a very hot team having gone 7-3 in their last 10 games. However the Pistons are even hotter and have been playing very good basketball thus far this season. They're currently at 16-7 and have won 8 out of there past 10 games. Even if you plucked this squad out of the Leastern Conference and plugged them into the Wessyde this is still a very good ball club. They're loaded up front with depth (Rasheed Wallace, Antonio McDyess, Jason Maxiell, and Amir Johnson) and have one of the league's best back courts in Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton. Throw in glue guy Tayshaun Prince and it's no wonder why this team has had so much success over the years. Their recent trade with the Charlotte BETcats to bring on Primoz Brezec and Walter Herrmann was interesting. I'm curious to see how that plays out for them. Actually I'm more curious to see which of these guys blows up for a career game against the Warriors either Sunday or some time in the near future.
You really have to wonder how good this roster would be if Joe Dumars and the rest of the Pistons front office didn't make one of the worst draft selections of all time in Darko Miličić over big names like Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, and Josh Howard. They would arguably be much better off had they selected Chris Kaman, Kirk Hinrich, T.J. Ford, or David West too. That was a colossal mistake that arguably cost this team a dynasty. Still, Dumars and his gang are some of the best in the business and play to win the game now, instead of building for some silly, mythical bright future that keeps many GMs their job while they frantically search for a clue.
Right now I'd call them a shoo-in for a Eastern Conference Finals date with the Boston Collusion, but are they a shoo-in to beat the We're Back Warriors Sunday morning in front of the barbarians?
Last year the Warriors delightfully blew out the Pistons twice. Despite still having Murphleavy and Dunmurphy (sorry, that doesn't make any sense, but for some odd reason it cracks me up), the Dubs dominated the Pistons at home in the Roaracle back in early November 2006. Then the Warriors snapped an ugly 6 game losing streak that had us thinking ping pong balls x13 in Detroit on a fine Monday in March. That game of course proved to be historic as it began the We Believe Warriors' 16-5 run and path towards shocking the world. Good times.
Unfortunately when the Warriors played the Pistons pre-Jack earlier this season they blew a whopping 22 point lead at home. As that game illustrated the Warriors can win a foot race with the Pistons any day of the week, but savvy, patience, and smarts trumps that any day.
Let's get this W and try to escape from here without any violent outbursts from the classless Auburn Hills crowd.
For some classy Pistons' fans thoughts on Deeeetroit basketball and more check out Detroit Bad Boys and Need4Sheed.com
Tony.psd making the collabos happen!
Predictions
- Warriors by 1
- Boom Dizzle goes for a triple double.
- Warriors win the battle of the boards by... -10.
- At least 2 Pistons get double doubles in points and boards.
- Matt Barnes plays a great all around game and collects at least 10-5-5.
- If they get to play Primoz Brezec and Walter Herrmann look much better than they are.
- No loser Pistons fan at the Palace of Auburn Hills does anything stupid. Well actually let me qualify that- no loser Pistons fan tries to provoke any violence with a Warrior player today.
- Stephen Jackson gets a tech and I crack up.
- Rasheed Wallace gets a tech and I crack up.
- If the Warriors lose I spend the first paragraph of the recap writing about how dumb the league is for having a West Coast team play their first game on the road at 9:30am on a Sunday.
Drop your predictions and live game thoughts in the comments. Let's get this open thread poppin'!