# ROUND TWO THREAD: Chicago Bulls @ Detroit Pistons



## kamego (Dec 29, 2003)

<center>*







vs.







*

*Chicago Bulls (49-23) vs. Detroit Pistons (53-29)*

*Game 1 @ Detroit - Saturday, May 5th
Game 2 @ Detroit - Monday, May 7th
Game 3 @ Chicago - Thursday, May 10th
Game 4 @ Chicago - Sunday, May 13th
Game 5 @ Detroit - Tuesday, May 15th
Game 6 @ Chicago - Thursday, May 17th
Game 7 @ Detroit - Monday, May 21*

Probable Starters:




































P.J. Brown l Ben Wallace l Luol Deng l Ben Gordon l Kirk Hinrich 





































Chris Webber l Rasheed Wallace l Tayshaun Prince l Richard Hamilton l Chauncey Billups

Pistons Roster 
Bulls Roster

Powered by SportsIllustrated.com</center>












Rather then make a bunch of small game threads here is our monster 4 game thread because I would hope we sweep them.

Predictions? Cause for concern? Upset about the Tiger bullpen? Sean Casey and Brandon Inge?


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## Brian. (Jul 11, 2002)

*Re: Playoff Round 2: Pistons verus Ben x2 Series Thread*

I expect it to be a good series. A couple of things we need to focus on. Whoever Gordon is guarding needs to be posting him up constantly. I also don't mind whoever Ben Wallace is guarding to hang out on the perimeter. Sheed, Webber and Dice can all hit the jumper plus that keeps Ben out of the paint where he does his best work. We also need to expose the fact that they are going to be playing 4 vs 5 on the offensive end when Ben Wallace is in the game. Finally we have tons of quick guards we might as well use them. Whenever the Bulls offense is rolling bring in Flip and or Lindsey to pressure and trap the bulls guards. The Pistons should be able to win this but you can never get a good feel of the bulls. They rely heavily on their jump shot when they are on fire they are almost unbeatable but when they are cold they are very medicore.


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## Wishbone (Jun 10, 2002)

*Re: Playoff Round 2: Pistons verus Ben x2 Series Thread*

I'm expecting a very fierce intense series all the way through.
it's going to take 6 or 7 games to decide this one. 

matchup-wise, this has got to be one of the most involved to really disect. but to put it simply, these are two teams with very similar styles on both sides of the ball.
I think whoever brings more energy and hustle is the one who takes it.

This series is definitely going to be the most interesting one going on in the NBA in the 2nd round. it's going to be awfully gut wrenching. and my feeling is that whoever makes it out of this series will go on to represent the East in the finals.

let's all hope for a good clean, but hard-played series!


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## Goubot (Aug 16, 2006)

*Re: Playoff Round 2: Pistons verus Ben x2 Series Thread*

Sorry guys, finals are going to be the death of me.

If we stay focused and stay disciplined on both ends, we can take this without too much hassle. In the Miami series, the Heat kept making unforced errors, and the Bulls would almost always capitalize. We also don't attack the basket as much as they do, so they're not going to get as many charge calls as in Miami. 

As Brian says, this series is hard to call because the Bulls are so mercurial, one night they will blow you out because their shots are falling. Others, nothing's going in and it's just plain ugly. Others may be overstating the importance of their sweep. The general perception of Miami may have been a little overblown throughout the season, everyone thought they could just turn on the switch like they did last year and hope that something would work out, but that is not the way to go with an injured Wade, and the supporting cast was pretty awful. The Bulls deserve a lot of credit for harassing Shaq and making hustle plays, but it was a bit of a stretch to think that the Heat would be able to pull the same magic they did a year ago again. I think a lot is going to depend on our backcourt and how we deal with Deng (who has been monstrous). They have a number of bodies to throw at us because of their depth, too.

This is going to be close, but if we are focused (and we showed that in game 3 and game 4 down the stretch), we can take them.


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## IbizaXL (Sep 21, 2005)

*Re: Playoff Round 2: Pistons verus Ben x2 Series Thread*

My prediction is that Pistons will win this in 6 games.

the above post was excellent


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## Husstla (Nov 5, 2006)

*Re: Playoff Round 2: Pistons verus Ben x2 Series Thread*

This won't be an easy series. I have a feeling this will go down to atleast game 6, but I still feel we will come out on top. Every single player has to bring their A game this series. I think this series will be tougher then the Conf finals


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## Lope31 (Jun 11, 2002)

*Re: Playoff Round 2: Pistons verus Ben x2 Series Thread*

Hey guys, sorry I've been busy, but I thought I would swing by and pretty this series thread up a little bit. The game tonight promises to be of legend. I'm still kind of hungover from the Nets taking out the Raptors last night, so I am banking on the Pistons pulling this one out.

To be honest the Bulls surprised me buying sweeping the Heat, that in a way is kind of intimidating, and considering they also won the season series with us this year make them down right scary. 

That being said, we led the Eastern Conference for a reason. This will be a GREAT series, with the Pistons ultimately coming out on top. Book it.


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## thrillhouse (Apr 18, 2003)

allright guys, i am finally excited for some real playoff basketball for the pistons. i really hope we win this series because living in south bend now, and a lot of my classmates are bandwagon bulls fans.


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## P33r~ (Nov 22, 2004)

95-69 Pistons win.

I didn't get TV coverage of this game here down in Aus so it's been frustrating. Kind of like a repeat of last year when I only started getting Pistons coverage during the ECF.
It's been annoying to see people so high on the Bulls after their sweep of Miami, and predicting a Bulls win in 5 or 6. This should put some of those guys back in their place.

I still think Pistons in 6.


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## taurus515th (Oct 13, 2005)

Well yall blew out my team :brokenhea.

Good job on the win tho. Dont take us 2 easily we needed a lose 2 get hungry again just like we lost 2 NJ we got hungry and took that round. Monday nite should b interesting.

Lets c which team is better when Chicago actually shows up.


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## Pay Ton (Apr 18, 2003)

taurus515th said:


> Well yall blew out my team :brokenhea.
> 
> Good job on the win tho. Dont take us 2 easily we needed a lose 2 get hungry again just like we lost 2 NJ we got hungry and took that round. Monday nite should b interesting.
> 
> Lets c which team is better when Chicago actually shows up.


The Bulls are probably one of the only teams in the league that can't use the "didn't show up" excuse. We show up every night.

We just got our asses handed to us, plain and simple.


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## step (Sep 19, 2005)

> We just got our asses handed to us, plain and simple.


Indeed. Impressive win by the Pistons, darn it!


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## Lope31 (Jun 11, 2002)

The thing about the game is that from a glimpse (literally, I had to watch the game in a bar) the Bulls didn't appear to be playing _that_ poorly, we just walloped them. That being said the Pistons were money from outside, moreso than they usually are. I think it was a great win for the Pistons but this series is far from over, and I don't think there will be any more games decided by more than 15-20 points for the rest of this series. The Bulls and the Heat were the only team I was afraid of, and that's still the case... well not Miami anymore.


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## Wishbone (Jun 10, 2002)

Lope31 said:


> The thing about the game is that from a glimpse (literally, I had to watch the game in a bar) the Bulls didn't appear to be playing _that_ poorly, we just walloped them. That being said the Pistons were money from outside, moreso than they usually are. I think it was a great win for the Pistons but this series is far from over, and I don't think there will be any more games decided by more than 15-20 points for the rest of this series. The Bulls and the Heat were the only team I was afraid of, and that's still the case... well not Miami anymore.



Well when the Pistons are hitting most of their outside shots and the Bulls aren't you get what you had on Saturday... I don't agree however, when you say the Bulls weren't playing *that* poorly. To me they looked nervous and out of sorts the whole night.

That can be attributed at least in part to the team being totally 'new' to the 2nd round of the playoffs... I suppose jitters and butterflies are not out of the question. The way I saw it, the Bulls had a very high number of unforced errors - lazy passes, poor decisions with the ball, and a whole lotta butter fingers. Seriously, I've never seen a game where so many guys had so much trouble just catching or holding the ball. In that regard, I think the Bulls beat themselves just as much as the Pistons beat them. Granted, the way Detroit played game one, even if Chicago HAD managed to hang on to the ball at a more reasonable percentage, I still think Pistons end up winning that game by a few points.... the shots were just falling for them, so it wouldn't have been possible to stop alltogether.

I'm holding out hope that for game 2, the Bulls get the jitters out of their system, and that the Piston's shooting drops down a few percentage points... that would at least make it a close game


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## Goubot (Aug 16, 2006)

No mercy, fellas. We took care of home court, now we have to keep them from making this a series on their floor. This is about the best I've seen the Pistons play in about two years. If our focus doesn't waver, we could do some real damage.


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## thrillhouse (Apr 18, 2003)

wow, these two games have been absolute clinics. i dont get to watch the pistons too much so seeing these games has been very impressive. lets keep it up in chicago


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## step (Sep 19, 2005)

> wow, these two games have been absolute clinics


It's really looking like another Miami situation. It's expected to be one hell of a series and it really looks like it could end really quickly.


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## kamego (Dec 29, 2003)

Goubot said:


> No mercy, fellas. We took care of home court, now we have to keep them from making this a series on their floor. This is about the best I've seen the Pistons play in about two years. If our focus doesn't waver, we could do some real damage.


If the Pistons doesn't sweep its all Flip's fault. I think this team made a huge jump when they finally won a game 3 on the road against Orlando.


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## Goubot (Aug 16, 2006)

That first half was freaking _ ugly _, but we turned it around, thank God.


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## ChrisWoj (May 17, 2005)

I would absolutely love to come in here and mock everybody that called this series as a six or seven game marathon... and I could since I didn't make a prediction myself... but we all know damn well I would have said this'd be a six game set too, heh. I guess Kamego gets the award for best prediction here, eh guys? Good call on the opening thread.

Oh, and since he also brought these things up:
1. Yes I am upset about the bullpen. Jose Mother-****in Mesa? Seriously? Why was he signed in the first place? Why is he our stopgap with Zumaya out? Where the hell is Andrew Miller? I'm enraged. I'm outraged. I'm absolutely fanatically devoted to this team and I feel that Jose Mesa is a 100% complete and total bum, he should be S.O.S. in Detroit... that's shoot on sight! In this town you'd think we could find a crazy *** Tiger's fan with enough balls to put a bullet through the guy's forearm! Okay, I'm done...

2. Sean Casey is a professional hitter, and a more than passable first baseman, a big target. He had a horrendous April, but after getting two games off late in the month he's been hitting at a .350+ clip. I like the guy and I like that they re-signed him. As for Inge, well... simply put he's fantastic. He's a hell of a defensive gem and he too has heated up this month with two hits in each of the last four games, hitting at .380+ clip since the start of May. Go Tigers!

Sorry for the tangents guys, but blame Kamego! He asked about them in the first post in the thread!


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## P33r~ (Nov 22, 2004)

Ehh.. I was way off on my prediction too, I called Detroit in 6 (although I was leaning towards Detroit in 5). At least we're not one of those delusional Bulls fans who called Bulls in 5. Wow.


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## delfino (May 19, 2007)

Someone should go ahead and make a new thread for Pistons vs. Cavs.


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## ChrisWoj (May 17, 2005)

ChrisWoj said:


> I would absolutely love to come in here and mock everybody that called this series as a six or seven game marathon... and I could since I didn't make a prediction myself... but we all know damn well I would have said this'd be a six game set too, heh. I guess Kamego gets the award for best prediction here, eh guys? Good call on the opening thread.
> 
> Oh, and since he also brought these things up:
> 1. Yes I am upset about the bullpen. Jose Mother-****in Mesa? Seriously? Why was he signed in the first place? Why is he our stopgap with Zumaya out? Where the hell is Andrew Miller? I'm enraged. I'm outraged. I'm absolutely fanatically devoted to this team and I feel that Jose Mesa is a 100% complete and total bum, he should be S.O.S. in Detroit... that's shoot on sight! In this town you'd think we could find a crazy *** Tiger's fan with enough balls to put a bullet through the guy's forearm! Okay, I'm done...
> ...


I would like to thank Jose Mesa for proving me right and being released because he's a ****ing bum, and Sean Casey for getting his average up to a respectable number and having a good season! Thank you gentlemen for making me look smart (or smarter, because as we all I know I'm damn smart, handsome, charismatic, and humble).

Oh, and I predict that the Pistons sweep the Cavs in the Conference Finals! WHO'S WITH ME!?


... *crickets*

... Guys?


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## ChrisWoj (May 17, 2005)

I would like to personally express my gratitude to the mod who unstickied this. You are awesome. The end.


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## Gman9855 (Dec 5, 2007)

maxiell is doing amazing the past few games, oh and check out this cool site for pistons trivia http://www.triviafix.com/qod.php?date=20071205


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