Orlando dug a huge hole for them when Billups went down, and Detroit
never quite saw the light. In the end, what killed them was an inability
to get the Magic's 3 point shooting under control. They simply didn't
stay close to guys hanging out behind the line. Orlando had the range,
for sure, based on the one three that went in over Wallace while he was
very close, but there's no reason to give them time to set their feet and
take aim before the shot.
Hamilton got his shot down, but also forced way too many plays. I wish
he had taken all of the time he spent practicing his 3 and put it into
working on his fundamentals. Wallace went into hibernation. Prince on
the other hand, was great again, and Stuckey grew extremely quickly. I'm
not expecting Billups to be playing a lot of minutes on Saturday, but for
once I'm glad that the schedule is being stretched out with game 5 not
until Tuesday. It will also give the Pistons a little more time to tune
up their defense, which is getting burned by failing to switch from
inside to perimeter quickly enough.
No doubt Joe Dumar's greatest mistake was drafting Darko Milicic, despite
Webbie's belief that in just a year the stores will be filled with
Milicic sneaks. On the other hand, he did end up essentially trading
Milicic and Arroyo for Stuckey. Based on the way Arroyo's been playing,
I think Dumars would have pulled off a bit of a coup just by getting
Orlando to take him for a roll of tape.
I don't like the way the games have been reffed so far, and that's with
Detroit arguably getting more of the calls than Orlando. It's neither a
case of letting them play nor whistling everything, so much as giving the
guy with the ball wide latitude while whistling the defenders tight. I'm
sure it's under some philosophy of encouraging aggressiveness or
something, but it ends up just being frustrating to both clubs.
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