Houston Rockets and Detroit Pistons meet tonightfor match at Toyota Centre
The Pistons succeeded in breaking their four game losing streak and will now open up a three game road trip against the Houston Rockets Tuesday night.
The Detroit Pistons are ecstatic about their latest victory against the Cleveland Cavaliers, 102-92 on Dec. 5th.
Players to watch
Richard Hamilton scored 27 points, whereas Rodney Stuckey was a deep pain in the neck of the Cavs with his 24 points and 11 assists. These two players spell danger and can be disastrous for the Houston Rockets.
Pistons have better defense than Rockets
The Pistons had five team rebounds, and their defense was more of offense that extended their stretch from a 55-55 tie to a hot lead.
The Pistons have been improving drastically, thanks to their Coach John Kuester who seems to have a magic wand that’s doing all this for his team.
Good move
Kuester’s adjustment, to replace the power forward Jason Maxiell with Ben Gordon to start the second half proved to be a major catalyst of the game.
The irresistible three
Hamilton scored 16 points, Gordan played along with Hamilton and Stuckey as they scored 51 points. This happened in the final 24 minutes of the game as they made their highest second-half total in 10 games.
“(The Cavaliers) had done some nice things against us in the first half, so I thought it was an adjustment we could make,” said Kuester. “It worked very well.”
“ ... I thought this was a good time to try it. It was a very active lineup defensively - we got a lot of tips and deflections - and we let the defense create our offense.”
Hamilton scored his season high 27 points on a shooting of 10 of 17.
Hamilton has an average of 13.4 points, this is his lowest mark rate since he scored 9.0 points per game when he had his rookie season in 1999-00.
"It's tough to get into a rhythm sometimes when you are playing 17 minutes a game one night and 35 the next time," Hamilton who has an average of 23.3 points while playing against the Houston Rockets said. "We needed a win tonight,
because we're going on the road tomorrow, and we took care of our home floor. That was important."
The Pistons have an average of 89.2 points on the road while they are averaging 100.6 at home. They will need another winning performance to throw down the Rockets. The Rockets have ranked themselves among the league leaders with
an awesome 105.7 points per game.
Weak defense- a short coming of the Rockets
It was Houston’s weak defense that led them to a 119-116 overtime loss to the Chicago Bulls on Saturday. The Houston Rockets must work on their defense as this is their main defect, to earn them their 7-13 this season.
The Rockets let Derrick Rose of the Bulls click a 3 pointer with 10 seconds to go in regulation, the Rockets were leading by three at that point. The Bulls gained control after that and shot 57.1 percent in overtime.
The Rockets who had been having 106.9 points per game, making it to some of the highest in NBA, were down trodden to 2-10 as they gave up more than 100 points.
Before playing against the Bulls Luis Scola had an average of 13.6 points in his last five games and he scored a season high tying 27 while playing against the Bulls. Kevin Martin was restricted to a season low 14 points despite
him being the leading scorer of the team with 22.5 points per game.
Stat
The Rockets have won four games in a row at home against the Detroit Pistons.
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