Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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I love the fact people seem to think the Mavs are the second coming of the 90's Bulls or something.

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Nobody thinks this, not even tdarko.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

The people on here saying the Mavs will sweep the Heat and it will be a totally one sided Finals.

Three words...Shaq, Wade, Riley. There is no way that the Heat lose unless it is in a game 7.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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Lakers swept the Nets in 01-02, so not so many years...

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I wouldn't be surprised to see a sweep again.
This Pistons team is playing horribly ("pathetic" and "ridiculous" have been used a lot by the my local commentators) and their only down by 6.

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Whatever...Dallas came how close to losing 3 home games in a row and they're going to sweep Shaq & Wade? OK

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Spurs is the magic word missing in your post.

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Phoenix?

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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The people on here saying the Mavs will sweep the Heat and it will be a totally one sided Finals.

Three words...Shaq, Wade, Riley. There is no way that the Heat lose unless it is in a game 7.

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I never said they would sweep, I never even side it was likely to be a 4 game series, I just said I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

PS: I'd be much more surprised to see a game 7.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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The people on here saying the Mavs will sweep the Heat and it will be a totally one sided Finals.

Three words...Shaq, Wade, Riley. There is no way that the Heat lose unless it is in a game 7.

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care to make a wager?

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

Charlie,

I still think the Pho/Dal series is far from over.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

If i wasn't broke as a mutherfer then yeah i would.

Tdarko...yeah and I agree....though only really having 5 or 6 players who can actually play leads me to believe it is pretty close to over.
Also I'm not 100% sold on the Heat/Det series being over. I could easily see a let down in game 5.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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If i wasn't broke as a mutherfer then yeah i would.

Tdarko...yeah and I agree....though only really having 5 or 6 players who can actually play leads me to believe it is pretty close to over.
Also I'm not 100% sold on the Heat/Det series being over. I could easily see a let down in game 5.

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forget game 5. if we have any championship resolve left Game 5 should be a gimme. if we lose game 5 at home, we will need major offseason overhauls.

Game 6 will be the series decider.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

Ehhhh game 5 is why Pat Riley will or will not prove his value to the team.
I'd bet money that a Stand Van Gundy would lose Game 5 and maybe even but more than 10 points. With Riley I wouldn't be surprised if he can get them as energetic as they have been the last two games.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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if we lose game 5 at home, we will need major offseason overhauls.

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...yCola/flip.jpg

I like the Pistons. This seemed like a bad hire right away to me.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

Has a first-year 60 win coach ever been fired? I'm curious.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

I'm losing respect for the Pistons. The players all year praised Flip for letting them play, and with him as the coach they won 64 games. Now all of the sudden he's the problem?

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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Has a first-year 60 win coach ever been fired? I'm curious.

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Good question. Somehow I doubt it, but I really believe it could happen to Flip if they lose game five.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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I'm losing respect for the Pistons. The players all year praised Flip for letting them play, and with him as the coach they won 64 games. Now all of the sudden he's the problem?

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I can't speak for the players, of course. My own view is that he was never the right coach for this Pistons team.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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I'm losing respect for the Pistons. The players all year praised Flip for letting them play, and with him as the coach they won 64 games. Now all of the sudden he's the problem?

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I can't speak for the players, of course. My own view is that he was never the right coach for this Pistons team.

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I know this isnt accurate and Flip probably knows what he is doing, but he looks like the coach in The Waterboy. I dont know why, but I expect the line, "so anybody got an idea?"

He just doesnt seem to fit in with the team, but the series isnt over so who knows. They can still win.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

-this is the same Pistons team as the one from the last 2 years, with the exception of Flip Saunders.

-Flip Saunders has a horrible playoff record

how can anyone think it ISN'T his fault? or maybe Larry Brown was a much bigger part of recent Piston teams than he's given credit for.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

People already discussing a Mavs-Heat finals are a bit premature. I can totally see the Pistons winning game 5 at home, gaining Big Mo, then winning the series over the weekend. Likewise, I think the Suns are lucky to even still be playing but they have a chance against DAL...something to consider.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

"how can anyone think it ISN'T his fault?"

because they had a great regular season

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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"how can anyone think it ISN'T his fault?"

because they had a great regular season

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tell that to the Minneapolis Tribune. Maybe they will bother to laugh at you.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

no Elden Campbell

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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"how can anyone think it ISN'T his fault?"

because they had a great regular season

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tell that to the Minneapolis Tribune. Maybe they will bother to laugh at you.

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MN was a 1seed once(lost WCF, but top4 seeds within 2gms) a 4seed, and then 5-8 the rest of the playoff years, they never really had a great team

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

Rumor mill says Flip Saunders has been giving food to Tayshaun Prince. Could be the reason for their decline.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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"how can anyone think it ISN'T his fault?"

because they had a great first half of a regular season

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FYP. 2nd half records for the teams left:

Dallas: 29-12
Detroit: 28-13
Miami: 28-13
Phoenix: 28-13

the spurs went 32-9 over that stretch.

FH aren't you a basketball coach? If players consistantly play worse individually and as a team than they normally do, isn't that almost always the coach's fault?

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

Wow, Detroit had such a [censored] second half, they only went 28-13.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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"how can anyone think it ISN'T his fault?"

because they had a great first half of a regular season

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FYP. 2nd half records for the teams left:

Dallas: 29-12
Detroit: 28-13
Miami: 28-13
Phoenix: 28-13

the spurs went 32-9 over that stretch.

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their second half of the season was still on par with the teams left, you can't say it was bad.

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FH aren't you a basketball coach? If players consistantly play worse individually and as a team than they normally do, isn't that almost always the coach's fault?

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Sure, I certainly think the coach deserves his share of the blame when things are globally going wrong but it seems almost everyone wants to blame the way the pistons are playing exclusively on Flip.

PS: I also realize he probably got more credit than he deserved for their great start.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

let's break it down further:

1st 27 games: 24-3
2nd 27 games: 21-6
last 28 games: 19-9

and now they look like crap in the playoffs. This looks like a team that was the best in the NBA to start with but is probably only "very good" now. Hopefully another season with Flip won't knock them down to "better than average".

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

Let's break it down further:

last 4 games: 1-3

Clearly, this team is the worst team of all time.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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Let's break it down further:

last 4 games: 1-3

Clearly, this team is the worst team of all time

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edit: before you edited, you said the last 10 games they were 5-5 and clearly average.... compared to the teams left at that point, i'd agree.

after the edit, you have their record for just this round and say it shows they're bad... compared to the teams left at this point, i'd agree.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

td, detroit didn't even try the last 4 games and only beat new york because... it's new york.

I'm just having trouble accepting that the manager who was a godsend the first half of the season, and was talked about by all the players as amazing, liberating, etc, is now the cause of all the troubles. These guys turned on their coach awfully quick, especially when so early on in the season these guy didn't feel as though they needed a coach in the first place.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

I was trying to prove a point using absurdity, then edited to make it more absurd, and you didn't get it.

The last 4-games was meant for the last 4 games of the season.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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I was trying to prove a point using absurdity, then edited to make it more absurd, and you didn't get it.

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except it wasn't absurd....

what point exactly were you trying to prove?

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

Did I miss something where the Pistons players are blaming Flip? Link?

Of course I blame Flip but I'd be interested to see if the players are too.

Edit: Donkey, I think he's talking about sample size.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

Breaking down the season and looking for "trends" can be very misleading, especially when the last 28 games includes garbage games that hardly mattered in the scheme of things.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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I'm just having trouble accepting that the manager who was a godsend the first half of the season, and was talked about by all the players as amazing, liberating, etc, is now the cause of all the troubles.

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my thoughts exactly

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

"It's like night and day (from last year)," he said. "We've gone from like the first- or second-best team in the league in holding teams to low field-goal percentage to now we're in the middle of the pack. It's night and day."

He put some of the blame on coach Flip Saunders for putting too much emphasis on the offense.

"We work more on offense," Wallace said. "We practice more on the offensive end, than we do on the defensive end. What you practice hard you usually bring to the game."

Clicky

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

Did you watch any of the pre-game?

Both Wallaces ragged on flip and the game plan.

Chancey seemed to stand up for him.

I hope Rasheed just keeps blaming him instead of actually trying to score points. The Heat will as long as that happens

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

Ugh. With this new information, I say Detroit has no chance of winning this series.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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I was being sarcastic. I suppose I should be grateful he won us a title, but I think we could have won with Carlisle and that we're better now with Flip in part because of Flip.

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History may yet be kind to Larry. There's a 1-year grace period between when a team loses a great coach and when they lose all discipline and fall apart.

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I wrote the above response in February. This is a recurring story in sports, very good team loses very good, tough coach. Team temporarily does better under new, laid back coach and complains about the old coach. With time, team performs worse and worse. I was thinking of Bill Parcells specifically when he left the Giants and Patriots, but there are other examples.

My hypothesis is that the loss of practice habits degrades performance over time.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

Does Rasheed really regularly stand at half court during timeouts? He did this in game 3 late in the game and the announcers pointed it out, but right at the beginning of game 4 they made a big deal saying how he did this every game and that it wasn't because of any troubles with the coach or team.

Re: The refs have drastically favored the Heat so far.
 

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"It's like night and day (from last year)," he said. "We've gone from like the first- or second-best team in the league in holding teams to low field-goal percentage to now we're in the middle of the pack. It's night and day."

He put some of the blame on coach Flip Saunders for putting too much emphasis on the offense.

"We work more on offense," Wallace said. "We practice more on the offensive end, than we do on the defensive end. What you practice hard you usually bring to the game."

Clicky

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ok you have basically the same roster as you have had for the 2yrs before this, where you were a top defensive team, much weaker offensive team, finished 1st, 2nd .. and Ben is saying that they need to spend more time on defense??

come on they shouldn't need to practice very much on the defensive side