Wolves Trounce Pistons in Detroit

As Shakespeare once said, there's something rotten in the state of Detroit. As I noted last week, notwithstanding seemingly big wins against the Lakers and Cavs, the Pistons are reeling. Detroit is now 4-5 since acquiring AI. The team they played last night entered the game with a 2-9 record on the season, including 0-5 on the road. Detroit not only lost by 26 at home to a hapless Wolves' team, they let the visitors' shoot .530 from the field.

The Wolves spent much of Friday below the quarter-century mark, field-goal percentage-wise, against Boston. Detroit had Friday and Saturday nights off, meaning they hadn't played since Thursday.

When you trade the backbone of your team for a me-first guy who can't play D, it makes a difference.

Now questions will surely arise about the fitness of Detroit's new head coach, not exactly something you want when the goal of the move was a quick fix.

I don't think Joe Dumars is naive enough to believe the return of Antonio McDyess will help things much, either.

He's got some serious problems on this hands.

                           MINNESOTA              DETROIT
Points                       106                     80
FG Made-Attempted            44-83 (.530)            30-81 (.370)
3P Made-Attempted            7-11  (.636)            5-14  (.357)
FT Made-Attempted            11-14 (.786)            15-22 (.682)
Rebounds (Offensive-Total)   7-45                    8-36
Assists                      32                      22
Turnovers                    13                      11
Steals                       4                       4
Blocks                       5                       5
Fast Break Points            11                      8
Fouls (Tech/Flagrant)        17 (1/0)                17 (1/0)
Largest Lead                 28                      4