Pistons vs. Magic

As luck would have it, I picked the coldest week of the year to venture up to Auburn Hills for the Pistons games against the Orlando Magic.  While it may have appeared from the outside and inside that this was just another night of misery for the Detroit Pistons organization, but it was so much more tonight.  We had the combination of J.J. Redick (my prior purpose for forcing Scottie to accompany me), 3 other former Dukies on the rosters, and a half-time show that featured Busta Rhymes. Oh yes, we did.

Despite missing the first year we moved up here, we have been on a nice streak of catching at least one Pistons game (and even two games the 2009-2010 season as we caught Scottie's Lakers in town) a year (except last year's 2011-2012 season) notably the match-up between the Pistons and Magic as an excuse to get out of the townhouse, support local sports teams, and of course, see one of my favorite basketball player, J.J. Redick.  We have had some good and bad luck with these games as the first year, Redick only scored 9 points, but played a season-high minutes, the second year, he scored a career-high 15 points; however, two years ago, he caught the flu and didn't play.  And our streak ended.

This year, Scottie told me not to pre-purchase tickets and to check the press reports for any Redick injury or illness, but much to his chagrin, neither appeared, so instead of purchasing tickets at the door (in the brutal cold!), Scottie found really cheap tickets on stubhub.com.  It was actually a little ridiculous how cheap seats were as we paid $9 plus fees for $30 seats in the front row balcony at center court. Done and done.  Scottie even paid up as opposed to a few rows back for $7.  But then again, as you can see in the photos, there were not a whole lot of people showing up (and I like how the jumbotron says "Make Some Noise", right).  I am not certain that you can even blame the cold weather on this lack of enthusiasm though as the Pistons are in second to last place struggling to find any sort of consistency this year.

The nice thing about Pistons games though is they are relatively close to work for me, so Scottie picked me up and we grabbed a quick bite at Clubhouse BFD (second trip this month!) and sampled some new stouts and porters!  While I was a little worried we would miss the player announcements (let's face it, probably the most exciting part of the game for Pistons fans except for the free giveaways), we actually were surprised to find no traffic and a pretty empty parking lot.  It was actually a little eerie.  And we both agreed, you couldn't pay us enough money to be the parking lot attendants tonight with the temperatures hovering in the single digits with wind chills far below that.  No way!

As the player announcements were made, I was fired up to see another first for Redick, his first start of the season!  Of course, I was equally excited to see Kyle Singler start for the Pistons as he has been getting some favorable press lately.  We also remembered that Josh McRoberts and Corey Maggette warmed the benches for the Magic and Pistons respectively.  Go Duke!

While the game started off well for the Magic and especially Redick who couldn't miss, they let the Pistons creep back in it by the half.  Then the second half just got out of control especially when we watched how many times the Magic gave the ball to Big Baby Davis, who was atrocious.  The Pistons  actually looked decent in the second half or the Magic made them appear good.  Either way, it was some rough basketball all-around.

On a bright note, Redick scored 26, and here's how John Denton summarized his performance:

Vaughn inserted Redick into the starting lineup and the move paid massive dividends right away. Redick made his first four shots, including two 3-pointers, as the Magic raced to a 22-11 lead in the opening minutes of the game. Redick made all six of his shots in the first half, including four 3-pointers, for 17 first-half points. He had a four-point play late in the half and added three assists to account for 23 of Orlando’s 52 points in the first half.

I should also mention there was a hilarious half-time show with Busta Rhymes taking the stage.  His first concert in x years?  This certainly entertained Scottie and I (and the dudes next to us) and made our $9 plus fees so worth it.  Busta still had it thought with his fast rapping-style that I'm not sure I understood a single word!

More photos from the game and show here.