Pistons Blow by Bucks; Replacement Ref Drama
Pistons PG Rodney Stuckey combined with guards Will Bynum and Ben Gordon to score a combined 68 points for the Pistons in their 113-104 preseason win over the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night.
The 6’5” Stuckey, who usually plays point for the Pistons, played small forward along with the 6’ Bynum and the 6’3” Gordon in the fourth quarter in a new-look lineup for Detroit.
“We’ve never tried that before, not even in practice, but I thought it was great,” said Stuckey. “I’m not worried about guarding bigger people — I can handle myself out there.”
“Those three guys are going to stretch a defense, and give Tayshaun [Prince] and Rip [Hamilton] a chance to save their legs and have more explosiveness,” Pistons head coach John Kuester said. “I’m sure teams will try to post them up when we play that group, and that’s where we will have to get help from our bigs.”
The game wasn’t without drama though, as the referees botched a free throw call on a 3-pointer in the first quarter. Initially, the refs ruled that Ersan Ilyasova was fouled on a jumper and awarded him two free throws; during the next timeout more than 90 seconds later, they decided the jumper was actually a three-pointer and awarded him an extra shot.
However, Prince jumped in and pointed out that the error was only correctable within 24 seconds. Prince also “had to remind [the ref] to tell the scorer’s table to take it back off the board.”
The Pistons’ first round pick, Austin Daye, experienced his own kind of drama, being thrown out in the fourth quarter along with Carlos Delfino for fighting. Fellow rookie Jonas Jerebko was ejected from Monday’s win against Miami for fighting.
“I have no idea what I got thrown out for — I was getting ready to shoot the technical free throws when they told me was I was gone,” Daye said. “I know I didn’t throw a punch — it would have been stupid to do that after Jonas got thrown out of the last game.”
