Pistons’ Saunders To Alter Lineups

Every winning team in the NBA - including the Detroit Pistons - have probably used the past 5 months to prepare for the playoffs; despite that, and the fact that the team had recently acquired Theo Ratliff and Juan Dixon, coach Flip Saunders has, according to Chris Silva of the Detroit Free Press, said that the last 5 weeks of the season is about playing different lineups according to the opponent at hand.

One idea that Saunders has is playing starting center/forward Rasheed Wallace some at small forward; assuming Saunders tries this, then according to the Pistons coach, he could try either Amir Johnson or Ratliff in the post. Saunders added, “We’re going to play Rasheed at the three (small-forward position) probably. You’ll see that at some point. We’ll tinker with a little bit of everything. He’s out on the three-point line a lot, so he thinks he’s a small forward. He’s one of those guys — he’s a 7-footer who likes to shoot threes. If he was a 6-3 guard, all he’d want to do is post up all the time. He wouldn’t want to play on the perimeter. That’s ‘Sheed.”