Preview of the Pistons Western conference road trip

Beginning Sunday afternoon, the Pistons will be entering into their first game of their six day, four game Western conference road trip. None of the games will be a walk in the park for the Pistons as they will face 3 teams ranked ahead of them in the weekly power rankings (as according to Marc Stein of ESPN.com)

Here is a quick overview of each match-ups that the Pistons will have over the next four games*.

As of 7PM, on January 3^rd, Rasheed Wallace and Rip Hamilton have both been ruled out for Sundays game against the Clippers, and Antonio McDyess remains doubtful that he will play.

The Clippers have struggled as of late, and that could be quite a problem as they will be staring loss number 7 straight in the face when they face the Pistons tonight who, ironically are staring win number 7 in the face also.

It looks like Brandon Roy, points leader, of the Portland Trailblazers will be out 7-10 days due to a tendon injury. The Trailblazers will miss him greatly as they are going to have to deal with red hot guard Rodney Stuckey.

The Blazers home crowd has given opponents a lot of trouble this season as the Blazers have only dropped 4 games at home all season.

This game will be the first time that the Pistons will be playing against their former teammate in Chauncey Billups. Watch for some great action at the Point Guard spot with him and Rodney Stuckey, who Robd thinks is the best player on the Pistons team as of right now.

Denver’s defense has struggled as of late, they are still winning, but a team cannot rely on offense alone especially when the Pistons defense has really started to improve over the last couple of games.

Don’t be looking for Utah’s PF Carlos Boozer to be back anytime soon. He is sidelined for at least a month, as of December 30^th. He is also the Utah Jazz’s leading scorer.

The Pistons are 0-1 against the Jazz this season. The last time they faced each other the game went into double overtime and the Jazz came out victorious by the tune of 120-116. Look for the Pistons to come out firing in this game.

*Records as of 12:54AM on Jan. 4, 2009