Sunday, April 23, 2006 at The Palace of Auburn Hills, MI
Round One, Game One: Detroit Pistons 92, Milwaukee Bucks 74
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Boxscore
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Recap
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More Photos
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Video
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Detroit outscored Milwaukee by 12 in the second half en route to a 92-74 home playoff victory on Sunday. Rasheed Wallace scored 22 on 9-for-14 shooting, including 4-for-6 from behind the long line. Rip Hamilton added 21, Tayshaun Prince chipped in 15 and Ben Wallace grabbed 17 rebounds. The series resumes Wednesday night at The Palace of Auburn Hills (tv20 Detroit / HDTV / NBATV, 7:30 p.m.)
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Game One Leaders
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| Points: | (DET) Rasheed Wallace (22)
(MIL) Charlie Bell (13) |
| Rebounds: | (DET) Ben Wallace (17)
(MIL) Jamaal Magloire (9) |
| Assists: | (DET) Chauncey Billups (7)
(MIL) Two Players Tied (3) |
| Blocks: | (DET) Two Players Tied (2)
(MIL) Charlie Bell (1) |
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| POSTGAME QUOTES |
| PISTONS.COM |
| PLAYER OF THE GAME |
Rasheed Wallace
Points: 22
Steals: 3
Blocks: 2
3PM-A: 4-6
Minutes: 20
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Pistons Head Coach Flip Saunders
On defending Michael Redd:
“Michael is one of the most explosive scorers in our league, and I thought we did a pretty good job (defending) team-wise. Rip (Hamilton) did a good job of understanding where help might be, tried to send him to as much help as he could and contested pretty much most of his shots.”
On the game:
“I told our guys that offensively we wanted to do it too quick. We wanted to win big right away, we didn’t let things happen, we tried to make too many spectacular plays - especially when we got up by 19.”
On playing Milwaukee Bucks:
“When you take a team like Milwaukee that can really score and you can hold them to 74 (points), your team defense is doing something, and that’s the staple of our team.”
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Pistons Guard Chauncey Billups
On Rasheed:
“He’s a big time player and anytime the spotlight is big he’s at his best. Defensively he was great, offensively he was making his shots and making plays as well, so he was great.”
On if they were anxious:
“That’s how it is, we were just too excited for this game, especially when we got off to a bad start. Everybody said, ‘Alright let’s pick it up,’ and because of that we got everyone on a rhythm a little bit, but it happens, it was the first game.”
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Pistons Guard Lindsey Hunter
On Rasheed:
“I think that Rasheed has come to a point where he understands what he needs to do to make our team better. He senses that he’s our focal point, as a young player you understand how you get better as an individual and help my team and he’s done that. He was tremendous tonight.”
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Pistons Forward Tayshaun Prince
On Michael Redd:
“I think Rip (Hamilton) or Tony (Delk) who ever was on him was pressuring him up a little bit. As far as our base was concerned, if he beat us they’ve got to be there ready to help and I think the help defense was there right on time tonight with Ben and Rasheed and those guys who were on that backline when he did get past Rip. When he did get shots I thought we did a good job of contesting them.”
On the start of the game:
“I think anxious is a great word for that. We missed some easy baskets and some free throws, turnovers and the fast break, things we don’t normally do. I think just being anxious but once we settled down, we were fine.”
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Bucks Head Coach Terry Stotts
On the game:
“It seemed like when they wanted to turn up their defensive pressure, they did. They challenged a lot of our shots, but during that stretch on the offensive end we had two, three or four opportunities that didn’t go and they ran the other way with it, so (the Pistons’ lead) went from four to 12 pretty quickly. One thing we did poorly all game - or they did well - was they ran the ball very well off of our misses. We did a nice job of taking care of the ball. We didn’t have a lot of turnovers, which was one of our concerns going into it, but they were running off of out misses, so I think that’s what happened during that stretch.”
On Detroit’s versatile offense:
“The one strength of that Detroit team is it’s hard to focus on one guy. You’ve got Rip (Hamilton) who does his thing, Chauncey (Billups) who does his thing. Rasheed (Wallace) got off to a good start, but it was mainly spotting up at the three-point line when we were trying to take care of other people. He had some open looks due to some other actions they were running. Not necessarily from him being aggressive - he was looking to take the shots when he was open. When he’s making threes and able to space the court, it makes him that much more effective.”
On taking positives from this game:
“I thought we played well in stretches. The first quarter, we got off to a good start. … I thought we competed well. We came back on them and we’ve played this team well before, so the one thing we have to do is execute better.”
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Bucks Guard Michael Redd
On the Pistons defenders double-teaming him:
“I knew it was going to happen. They did a great job having two or three guys around me all night. It was very difficult to get a shot off. They really were just concentrating on shutting me down tonight. We have to make adjustments; it’s totally different from the regular season.”
On if the Pistons will change their approach:
“No, I expect them to come even harder but we’ve got to adjust, figure out how they were able to stop and defend me. We have to make adjustments to get everyone involved even more. We’ll make adjustments and be ready for [Wednesday].”
On Rasheed’s play:
“Huge. He shot the ball extremely well. He was wide open most of the time because we were helping somebody out with Rip, Chauncey and Tayshaun so he was wide open a lot. He just buried us with his three-point shooting.”
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