Crash course continues for road-weary Pistons

Rip Hamilton and Allen Iverson got on the same page Tuesday - neither one practiced. Hamilton had an excused absence to deal with a family matter, while Iverson worked on the side with strength coach Arnie Kander to give his body a break from the pounding it took while playing heavy minutes on last week's four-game Western road swing.

So the furthering of the familiarity process between Iverson and the Pistons will continue as it has pretty much since the trade was made 16 days ago - in games, not in practices.

Partly because the absence of Antonio McDyess has thrown Michael Curry's frontcourt rotation out of whack, partly because of the unavailability of Rodney Stuckey for the first two games of the road trip and mostly because practice time has been precious little since the Iverson-Chauncey Billups trade was made, Curry has had to make the Pistons battle ready by throwing them into the teeth of the battle.

Tayshaun Prince is averaging 37.2 minutes a game and averaged 42.3 for the first three games of the West Coast trip before scaling back to 35 in the lopsided loss to Phoenix to complete the trip. Rip Hamilton, despite his shooting struggles, is averaging 35.8 minutes. Iverson averaged more than 40 a game during the West Coast swing and 12 of the 26 total minutes he sat in the four games came in the Phoenix loss. Rasheed Wallace, who at 34 was expected to average around 30 minutes a game this season, has played 35 or more minutes in seven straight games and is averaging 35.6 in the eight games since McDyess was included in the trade for Iverson.

Curry is trying to balance the desire to win games and hasten the integration of Iverson with the need to give his core veterans appropriate rest and his emerging young core necessary exposure. He'd like to moderate the minutes and he will.

"Eventually - once we get some practice time," he said Tuesday, the Pistons' first practice at home in 17 days. "Until you can practice, you're not going to be as sharp as a team. While you're still trying to win games and get guys going, it's kind of tough."

McDyess' absence hasn't only affected the frontcourt rotation, either, but has influenced the perimeter group as well because of the need to keep more scorers on the floor to make up for the lack of punch when Curry goes to frontcourt backups like Jason Maxiell or Amir Johnson.

"I always thought the biggest reason early we were able to play a lot of guys and a lot of minutes was because we had that scoring big coming off the bench," he said. " I've said it once, I've said it a hundred more times: We miss Antonio McDyess more than anything. He kind of changed the makeup of our team. If McDyess is out on the court with Rodney Stuckey, you can leave one starter (out) and have two other subs and you can play the whole quarter. We can't do that right now.

"In trying to move guys around to make sure we keep guys in a position where they can be successful, it's kind of tough. Sheed's minutes have gotten up; Tay's minutes have gotten up. But hopefully ... we can get Dice back whenever he makes his decision when he's going to do. If not, we're going to have to figure out a way within this group to get some more scoring in the frontcourt off the bench."

McDyess took a buyout from Denver four days after the trade was announced and cleared waivers last week. McDyess can't rejoin the Pistons for 30 days from the buyout settlement with Denver, which occurred on Nov. 7. Other teams have until then to woo him with promises of more money than the Pistons can offer and a significant role for a title contender. But Celtics president Danny Ainge told Boston media he didn't see much hope in swaying McDyess and most NBA insiders feel it's highly likely he'll return to the Pistons.

That day can't come soon enough for Michael Curry and the young players displaced by the rotation dislocation - and probably not for the overtaxed veterans picking up the slack, either.

• The Pistons have played seven of their first 10 games on the road, including seven of the last eight, but they're getting only the briefest opportunity to catch their breath. They took the rest of Monday off after getting home in the predawn hours from Phoenix, went back to work on Tuesday and now face a daunting back-to-back at home Wednesday against Cleveland and Thursday at Boston.

"The schedule is what it is," Curry said. "At the end of the year, we're going to play 82 games - 41 on the road, 41 at home. We've got to take care of business. Last time out (Nov. 9 against Boston), we had a poor home performance and we've got to make sure we come out and take care of home court."

• Rodney Stuckey didn't take any physics classes at Eastern Washington, so when I asked him if he appreciated Shaquille O'Neal's physics lesson in describing the violent spill Stuckey took after Shaq clobbered him in mid-air - drawing a flagrant-two foul and automatic ejection - he didn't seem especially impressed.

"It's just his explanation," he shrugged. "I'm good, though. It's over with. The refs called it how they saw it."

Stuckey wore tape around both wrists at Tuesday's practice. He got both hands down to break his fall, so the wrists bore the brunt of it.

"Look at these wrists," he said, holding his hands out. "They're taped. If it wasn't for me putting my hands on the ground, my whole grille would have been messed up. My wrists are sore. That's it.

"I haven't been hit like that, but I'm going to continue to take the ball to the basket. Shaq's a big dude. Whatever he said, it was right. I know he didn't do it on purpose, but I'm going to keep going in there."

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