NBA 2K8: The Bad Boys Return .. A Detroit Piston dynasty

[DeToxRox]

The settings will be similiar to EF27's in his excellent Sixers dynasty except the only changes are I will play 1, sim 4.

I'll be taking over my favorite team, an aging, but solid Detroit Piston squad, that has a solid potential nuculeus of young guys in Stuckey, Maxiell and Johnson who I hope to play solid minutes.

We start off with -11.04 million in cap room, something I'll look to change immediatley.

Our staff is solid and we add to it with two "good" prospect scouts for decent wages because we need to be smart in the draft and build a solid foundation to go with Maxiell and Stuckey.

Our lineup right now looks like this ..

PG: Chauncey Billups (31 minutes)
SG: Rip Hamilton (33 minutes)
SF: Tayshaun Prince (34 minutes)
PF: Antonio McDyess (28 minutes)
C: Rasheed Wallace (30 minutes)

PF/C: Jason Maxiell (24 minutes)
SG: Rodney Stuckey (20 minutes)
SF: Jarvis Hayes (8 minutes)
PG/SG: Aaron Afflalo (13 minutes)
C: Nazi Mohammed (10 minutes)
PF: Amir Johnson (6 minutes)

We trade away Flip Murray to the Bobcats for a 2nd round pick to clear room in our rotation and we save some cash. We then swap centers with the Sixers trading Nazi Mohammed for Steven Hunter.

We set up our strategy to play a slow game, and lots of defense, more like the 2004 Pistons then the 2006 version.

Finally, before our opener we send out our scouts. I have our main scout visit 7'1" C Leroy Padgett from Kansas State. A project Lottery pick, he is a big man who plays D.

Our next scout vists PG Steve Williamson from Arkansas. A projected mid 1st, he is an athlete who is very smart, though undersized at 5'10".

We scout one last mid-first in Italian big 7 footer Argento Salvaderi. He is more a finese big but he has talent and could be there when we pick (which we hope is in the 20's).

With that all done its time to open up vs the Heat.

[DeToxRox]

We start the year in Miami and obviously the main matchups for us is defending Dwayne Wade and Shaq. Obviously it's easier said then done but we're going to try our best.

We open up the first playing sloppy basketball and from the get Chauncey is in foul trouble by trying to play Wade too tight. Two quick fouls sends him to the bench and Aaeon Afflalo into the game. We move Rip onto DWade and Afflalo onto Jason Williams. It doesn't work out in our favor as the Heat rush out to a 15-4 lead. We play the rest of the first lackadasical and go to the 2nd down 30-16.

We slowed the tempo considerably in the second quarter and got strong play from Rodney Stuckey who scored six points in five minutes with DWade on the bench. We cut into the Heat lead with a pair of Billups threes before the half ends and we're down 43-32 at the break.

The third quarter shows us forcing our will defensivley on the Heat totally styming Dwayne Wade to the point he goes scoreless in the third. Wade, with three fouls coming into the quarter picks up a fourth when Rip attacks him and he was out for the rest of the quarter. Sheed hits a three and we're up 1 going into the fourth.

The fourth was more of the same, as DWade gets his 5th foul with only 9 points to his name. He'd come back and score one more bucket but a 6th foul on a charge driving the lane was all she wrote for him and he left the game with 8:23 left. From there it was elementary as we doubled up Shaq and watched Billups heat up slightly with 6 fourth quarter points and 3 dimes to lead us to an 85-78 victory.

Chauncey had 17 points, 6 asssits, 2 steals, 2 board
Tayshaun had 14 points, 2 boards, 2 assists, 1 block
Stuckey had 12 points, 2 assists, 1 board
McDyess had 11 points, 7 boards, 2 blocks
Rip finished with 10 points, 7 assists, 4 boards

For Miami ..

Shaq had 16 points and 4 boards
DWade had 11 points, 6 assists, 5 boards, 3 steals

We play the next night in Orlando against an improved Orlando game which I'll be simming.

[DeToxRox]

Our second half of the back to back is not pretty as the Heat outscore us 22-6 in the fourth quarter to come away with an incredibly ugly 87-61 victory where our offense was nowhere to be seen.

Rip Hamilton was our only bright spot scoring 27 points, while the next best performance was registered by Rasheed Wallace who had 7 points and 9 boards.

Meanwhile Dwight Howard was a stud with 24 points and 16 boards and because of the fact two games in a row our offense isn't looking good, we decide to ease up on the crashing the boards and we'll run the floor a bit more.