The Magic's Rashard Lewis gets his shit sent back is denied at the basket by the Pistons' Amir Johnson in Detroit's 101-93 victory over the Magic on Friday night.
Photo by Duane Burleson, the Associated Press

The phrase "No Rip? No Problem" started the headline of the Associated Press' recap of the first meeting between these two teams this season. Eliminate the two negatives in the phrase and you're left with "Rip? Problem"... which is exactly what we faced tonight. Richard "Rip" Hamilton scored 32 points on 14-of-22 shooting to lead the Pistons in a curb-stomping against us tonight.

Just a bad game. The Magic, as usual, had no answer for Hamilton or for Chauncey Billups, who repeatedly broke-down our sub-standard defense and got the shots they wanted, usually uncontested. The Magic ended the third quarter on a 14-2 run after getting some much-needed stops, but obviously never capitalized against a team that is clearly in a higher class.

The frustrating thing is, as badly as we played, we could have been right there at the end with a better effort. Letting the Pistons rebound 40% of their own misses is inexcusable, and we have done better against them; they only got 27% in the first meeting and 26% in the second one, which is about average. And I don't know what it is about Detroit, but we just do not capitalize on our free-throw attempts against them: 25-of-39 tonight, 75-of-109 overall. Beating them on Monday did nothing to boost our confidence, as they appear to have a mental advantage on us.

This game leaves me asking lots of questions, but there's one answer it's given me: we have a long way to go to get to Detroit's level. We absolutely have to beat Boston on Sunday if we are to have any shot of legitimizing ourselves in the East. Right now, I'd put the Celtics, Pistons, Cavaliers, and Raptors ahead of us, with the Wizards not far behind. If we don't pick up the defensive intensity, we're looking at another first-round playoff exit.

I feel somewhat obligated to say something nice about one of our players, so I'll get to it:

• Carlos Arroyo deserves recognition for his 16-point, 6-assist effort, 1-turnover effort. He gets bonus points for throwing an elbow at Billups late in the game. Yeah, it was a cheap play, and it's not one that I usually advocate. But the Pistons dish out a lot of punishment, and it was nice to see at least one player take it to them.
• Hedo Turkoglu had a decent third-quarter and was probably our best hope at winning the game; he had his midrange jumper going, which was nice.
• Keyon Dooling didn't play great, but came back in the second half after having to be helped off the floor in the first half with a knee contusion. Way to play through pain, Keyon.
• Jameer Nelson, although inactive, enhanced my viewing experience by wearing a sharp tan suit, a blue shirt, and a blue-and-silver tie. It was glorious in HD.

No donuts tomorrow. I'm disappointed, and I'm sure Brian Cook is too.

• Deja vu all over again: note that in the 3QC recap of the Magic's first loss to the Pistons, the feature photo was Rashard Lewis getting his shot blocked baby eaten by Jason Maxiell. In last night's recap, it was Lewis getting his shot blocked by Amir Johnson. In both games, the Magic wasted good efforts from their starting point guards and from Keith Bogans. The only real difference was that Lewis played fairly well in the first meeting, and not well at all last night.
  • Need4Sheed: A Magical Ride at the Palace
  • Pistons Nation: Game #44: First quarter burst propels Pistons
• Brian Schmitz gets under my skin with this blog entry, in which he asserts Shaquille O'Neal should be an All-Star this season because, "if anybody should get a lifetime achievement award, it's Shaq." He goes so far as to say, "This is where Commissioner David Stern can step in and create another roster spot." Are you kidding, Brian? At least three guards in the West are going to get shafted because of too much talent at that position, and you want to create a "lifetime achievement" roster spot for an injury-prone, past-his-prime, ineffective center in the inferior conference? Give me a break.
• Dwight Howard also thinks Shaq should be an All-Star. Say it ain't so, Dwight.
• Speaking of Howard and O'Neal, Accuscore's Jonathan Lee has this in-depth statistical comparison of the two players at age 22.

The game preview for tomorrow should be up sometime later today.

Yes, you read that correctly: the Pistons have 68 points in the first half. That's a season-high for them. They also have 11 offensive rebounds in 19 opportunities, which is one of the reasons why they have 14 more field goal attempts than we do. It's the usual suspects who are killing us: Rip Hamilton, Chauncey Billups, and Rasheed Wallace have 45 points on 22 shots.

The reason for their dominance? We are not playing any defense. It wasn't until the second quarter that we put a hand in anyone's face. Stan Van Gundy made a critical error in starting the game with Hedo Turkoglu guarding Wallace, who simply and repeatedly overpowered Turkoglu on the left-block and took fade-aways at will.

Carlos Arroyo and Dwight Howard are the only players giving a good effort right now. Arroyo is 5-of-7 for 10 points and has added 5 assists, and the two missed shots were layups. Howard is showing poise in the paint and scoring efficiently, but he isn't rebounding. He's also scored 4 of Detroit's points, inadvertently tipping-in one shot on a rebound attempt and goaltending another. Rashard Lewis is a non-factor, with just 3 points on 1-of-8 shooting, and 2 of his misses were blocked embarrassingly. Way to come up big, dude.  

It's just that kind of night. I'm actually surprised we're not losing by more, to be honest.

	vs.
30-13		27-17
The Palace of Auburn Hills
7:00 PM
ESPN
Probable starters:
Chauncey Billups	PG	Carlos Arroyo
Richard Hamilton	SG	Maurice Evans
Tayshaun Prince	SF	Hedo Turkoglu
Antonio McDyess	PF	Rashard Lewis
Rasheed Wallace	C	Dwight Howard

The Magic are in Detroit tonight for the first time since last year's playoffs. Detroit has our number, especially in the Palace, where it's beaten us eight straight times. The Pistons will be focused after we beat them on Monday, so I'll be surprised if we don't get hammered by 37 points. As always, don't forget to check out Detroit Bad Boys, Need4Sheed, and Pistons Nation for your Pistons fix.  

A win tonight would certainly go a long way to showing that we've recovered after an early January slump. Cleveland is surging -- 9-1 in January -- and Washington is just 3 games behind us for the Southeast Division lead. We absolutely need to pick up the intensity level and get back to early-season form.

Jameer Nelson was planning to play tonight after having missed the past four games with a strained tendon in his right foot, but he's still not feeling well enough to play, says Brian Schmitz in his blog. Schmitz adds that Nelson is "doubtful" for Sunday's game against Boston. Carlos Arroyo will start in his place.

Curious fact: in games this season in which Jameer Nelson has not played, the Magic are 5-0. Might be a coincidence, might not be.

The ESPN crew will have the call at 7 PM this evening. The game will be in HD, which means you'll get an ultra-detailed view of Rasheed Wallace's bald spot.