Pistons coach Flip Saunders walked past Randy Wittman 75 minutes before game time tonight and referring to his evening’s starting lineup said, “And it’s not an April Fool’s Day joke, either.”

Really?

With his Pistons virtually locked into the Eastern Conference’s second playoff spot with 15 days still left in the season, Saunders is giving Rasheed Wallace, Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton the night off in what he called both a reward and a rest for jobs well done this season.

On Sunday, the Wolves won their seventh game in March and their fourth consecutive at home, beating a Utah team missing starters Andrei Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur. On Tuesday, the Pistons started Jarvis Hayes, Rodney Stuckey, Tayshaun Prince, Antonio McDyess and longtime Target Center favorite Theo Ratliff.

Maybe it’s Flip backhanded way at paying his former team back by possibly costing them another couple of lottery ping-pong balls as the Wolves aim for this fifth consecutive home victory.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.