Preseason #4 10-13-09 Washington at Detroit

•Charlie Villanueva needs to go through a full practice before playing in his first preseason game and that didn’t happen Monday, so he won’t dress Tuesday night in Grand Rapids when the Pistons play Washington, now led by former Pistons coach Flip Saunders. Villanueva is targeting Saturday’s game at Memphis, so he hopes to practice Friday after Thursday night’s game in Dallas.

Pistons, ex-coach Flip Saunders to meet again at exhibition game in Grand Rapids
By Greg Johnson | The Grand Rapids Press
October 11, 2009, 11:30PM

AUBURN HILLS -- Flip Saunders visited Grand Rapids often years ago as a CBA coach, and made a few visits as coach of the Detroit Pistons for preseason games, too.

On Tuesday he heads to Grand Rapids as coach of the Washington Wizards, who will be the Pistons’ opponent in their annual preseason visit to Van Andel Arena.

Saunders, 54, was named Washington’s coach in April. He last coached the Pistons in 2008 and has a 587-395 career record. His .597 winning percentage is seventh best among active coaches. He was 176-70 as Detroit’s coach from 2005 to 2008.

Washington is 1-2 in the preseason after a 100-93 loss to Toronto on Sunday.

Saunders will find a few familiar faces, including Ben Wallace, who is back with the Pistons this season. Wallace left the Pistons in 2006 as a free agent to join the Chicago Bulls, and let it be known he didn’t agree with Saunders’ coaching methods.

Wallace returned to the Pistons this year as a free agent after playing in Cleveland last year.
Current Pistons coach John Kuester was an assistant in Cleveland last year.

Pistons face familiar foe
Tuesday's game will be the first for several Pistons players against former Detroit coach Flip Saunders.

Rodney Stuckey, a rookie during Saunders' final season with the Pistons, isn't overly concerned about facing his former coach for the first time since Saunders was fired.

"Flip's a good guy, but the past is the past," Stuckey said. "Now, he's with the Wizards. I know he's going to do a good job with them. He's a really good guy and a really good coach."

Arenas leads Wizards over Pistons
Posted Oct 13 2009 10:40PM

NBA.com Post Game Recap
Box Score

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.(AP) Flip Saunders was facing the Detroit Pistons for the first time since being fired by the team he led to the Eastern Conference finals three straight seasons.

But for the new Washington Wizards coach, the memories of being with the Pistons from 2005-08 remain extremely pleasant.

"I had a lot of great times although we didn't have the success we would have liked to have had in winning a championship,'' Sanders said after his new team beat his old one 101-98 in an NBA preseason game Tuesday night at Van Andel Arena. "Outside of that, we had a lot of success.''

Gilbert Arenas, who was fined $25,000 by the NBA earlier in the day for not making himself available to the media, scored 24 points to the Wizards.

The NBA fined the Wizards organization $25,000 for not ensuring that its players follow the league's media interview rules.

After the game, Arenas twice declined to comment on his fine.

"Both teams played hard,'' he said in the locker room. "I feel fine.''

Arenas was 9 of 11 from the field and played nearly 28 minutes.

"I've been impressed with his work ethic. That's never been a question,'' Saunders said. "He wants to be a great player. He's been good when he decides he wants to show a little bit of flash and he can dominate for a few minutes.''

In his three seasons with the Pistons, Saunders had a 176-70 record but he was let go by team president Joe Dumars after the 2007-08 season.

"My regret is that we didn't win the whole thing,'' Saunders said. "From a standpoint of being in the city, Joe gave me a great opportunity and he always did whatever he could do to try to better our team and try to win a championship. The one thing Joe always talks about is that championships is what it's all about.

"There's a lot of things I learned in Detroit that I've brought to Washington with the idea it will give your players a better opportunity to have success,'' Saunders said.

"In this business, you're going to play against a lot of people that you played with previously,'' Pistons guard Richard Hamilton said of his former coach. "It was fun.''

Antawn Jamison added 15 points and 11 rebounds for the Wizards (2-2), who led 46-45 at halftime. Arenas scored 13 points in the third quarter as Washington opened a a 75-68 lead.

Will Bynum scored 23 points for the Pistons (3-1).

Ben Gordon gave the Pistons a 91-90 lead with 3:30 to play, but the Wizards, led by Mike Miller's 3-pointer went on a 7-1 run over the next 2 minutes to take control. Miller had a steal late in the game to secure the victory.

Hamilton scored 10 of the Pistons' first 12 points in a first quarter that ended in a 27-27 tie.

Two of Detroit's top three picks in the 2009 draft, Austin Daye and Jonas Jerebko, combined for 19 points in extensive action.

"That's what the preseason is all about, giving the young players a chance to play,'' Pistons coach John Kuester said.

Pistons forward Tayshaun Prince sustained a cut under his right toe and did not play in the second half.

Game Notes: Jonas Jerebko has his best game, but the Washington Wizards beat the Detroit Pistons
By Patrick Hayes
October 14, 2009, 12:54AM

The Pistons were in Grand Rapids Wednesday, hosting the Wizards, once again sans television coverage.

For the first time this preseason, they lost. It was also the first time the team has allowed the opposition to shoot above 44 percent, as the Wizards shot 46 percent and gave Flip Saunders a win in his first time running into his former team.

A few trends:

The guard play struggles, the team struggles:

For the second time in four games, Ben Gordon and Rodney Stuckey both picked the same game to have miserable shooting nights. They combined for 3-for-16 shooting against Miami in the opener and were 6-for-26 Wednesday against Washington.

Gordon is streaky and known for having the occasional poor-shooting night, but Stuckey, who gets most of his points on drives or 15-foot jumpers, isn't a guy who would be expected to have wildly up and down shooting nights. Hopefully the trend of both struggling on the same nights doesn't continue.

The Wizards don't have a very good defensive backcourt, but they do have really big guards in Gilbert Arenas, Nick Young, Caron Butler and Mike Miller, which perhaps caused some shooting problems for the smaller Gordon and Stuckey. The smallest guard, Will Bynum, however, continued his great preseason with 23 points. He's leading the team in scoring this preseason at about 18 per game.

Is Jonas Jerebko playing DaJuan Summers out of the rotation?

As ASB points out, Jerebko was very good, with nine points and nine rebounds against Washington. He also played well against Atlanta.

Summers, meanwhile, is the only one of the four rookies who doesn't have a signature moment that sticks out this preseason. I thought a key to Summers getting minutes early in the season was the fact that his strength -- he has a more NBA-ready build than Jerebko and Daye -- would allow him to grab some minutes at power forward as well as his more natural small forward. Perhaps Jerebko is making a case for those PF minutes as well? No one's improved more from game one to game four than Jonas.

Daye's all but won the backup small forward job. He had 10 points and hit both of his threes. He's better already than the Jarvis Hayes/Carlos Deflino/Maurice Evans combos who have taken those backup SF minutes in the past, and he'll keep improving this season with consistent minutes.

The bigs are the biggest surprise:

This potential weakness is becoming less of a concern each game. Kwame Brown (Kwame Brown!) had nine points and 11 rebounds in just 23 minutes. His roughly eight points/seven rebounds averages in about 20 minutes per game this preseason would satisfy anyone if they carry over to the regular season.

The captains:

Rip Hamilton's had two straight nice games, getting 14 in 24 minutes against Washington after scoring 15 in 28 minutes against the Hawks. He shot over 50 percent in both games. The Pistons could conceivably get 35-40 points per game out of the Hamilton/Gordon shooting guard combo this season.

Tayshaun Prince left the game with a cut on his toe. Doesn't sound too serious.

Ben Wallace only played 10 minutes, and I'd assume he won't play much more than that the rest of the preseason as John Kuester tries to figure out the frontcourt rotation. Ben's all but locked up a starting job with the injury to Charlie Villanueva taking some time to heal.

Brian at Motown String Music can't wait for Charlie V to get back to help when the guards go in the tank:

The Pistons' quartet of guards shot a combined 36% (19-53), so on nights like these, it'll be nice having Charlie Villanueva pick up some of the scoring slack. It'll be nice having him help out no matter what kind of shooting nights these four have, but you know what I'm saying.