Pistons fall apart against rested Heat
Charley Rosen / Special to FOXSports.com
Posted: 4 hours ago
In Detroit, this one goes down as the Disgrace in the Palace. Even great teams lose playoff games at home, but the Pistons' 91-86 loss to Miami in Game 1 was downright embarrassing.
The Pistons' handiest excuse is that rust overcame rest. They'd played umpteen games in umpteen days, and were simply too tired to put up much resistance.
Too tired to do what? Rotate on defense? Set sturdy screens? Make decisive cuts? Hustle in transition? Knock down a reasonable percentage of wide-open gimme jumpers?
Bah!
This was the opener of the third-round of the money tournament, and there's plenty of time to catch up on missed zzzzs in July and August.
The Pistons were nearly awakened from their slumbers late in the third quarter when Alonzo Mourning fouled Tayshaun Prince a mite too hard and seemed to rouse the home team. But no. The Pistons barked a while, then continued their somnambulant play. Later on, a flagrant foul by James Posey also produced more woofing, but little else.
Rasheed Wallace was one of the worst offenders, sashaying through the action with total nonchalance, and not scoring a point until 8:23 of the third quarter. He finished with a not-so grand total of 7 points (on 3-10 shooting), and 3 measly rebounds.
Chancey Billups, like the rest of his mates, missed numerous short- and mid-range jumpers. His totals — 6-19, 7 assists, and 19 points — were padded by some late game isos and postups he ran against the non-existent defense of Jason Williams.
The Pistons only ran a handful of Rip Hamilton's trademark curls and pops, and he finished 9-22 from the floor and 22 points. Hamilton also missed a puzzling number of easy shots.
Prince played hard, and had a decent game — 5-13, 6 rebounds, and 16 points. But Prince has limited offensive skills and is supposed to be only an auxilliary point-maker.
Ben Wallace worked for everything he produced — 3-3, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, 6 points. But he, too, is strictly a complimentary player. And with all of the pregame yapping about how Ben can (or cannot) contain Shaq with one-on-one defense, here's what happened when Wallace did exactly that: Shaq made 5-of-8 shots, was fouled three times (only one resulted in free throws, and he made 1-2), and had the ball poked away twice by Wallace. That's 11 points in 13 possessions — certainly a winning total for the Pistons.
When Shaq was doubled (mostly when Antonio McDyess was guarding him), he was 1-1, was fouled once (1-2), committed a turnover, and his out-passes resulted in his teammates shooting 0-4. That's 3 points in 6 possessions.
So, Ben did his job admirably, and Shaq wasn't much of a force.
McDyess was active off the bench, but couldn't drop the ball through the ring with sufficient regularity — 3-7, 10 points. Lindsey Hunter was pesky on defense — snatching a pair of steals and even drawing a charge on Dwyane Wade. But Hunter also tossed up three horrific shots that helped prevent the Pistons from generating any kind of continuity on offense.
If Detroit's offense was moribund (37.8 percent from the field), their defense was DOA (Dead On Arrival). Gary Payton (6-8, 14 points), Antoine Walker (6-12, 17 points), and Jason Williams (5-7, 10 points) had free passes to penetrate the lane and waltz to the basket. And so did Wade — 9-11 for 25 points in only 27 foul-ridden minutes. (He also loosened three jumpers from beyond the foul line and hit only one. Is this a clue as to how Wade should be defended?)
And here we all thought that the Pistons took pride in their interior defense. More the fools, us.
Sure, the Heat were revved up and raring to go as soon as the lights were switched on. They led 9-0 before the Pistons could break a sweat. And the Pistons did rouse themselves sufficiently to get back into the game, but didn't turn on the after-burners until there were two minutes left and the game was already lost.
On offense, Miami simply took the ball to the hole. On defense, they showed hard on screen/rolls, and tried to pressure Detroit's perimeter shooters. Even so, the Pistons had open shots galore.
What worked for Detroit? A couple of S/Rs involving McDyess. A screen/fade for McDyess. Some one-on-one heroics by Prince. And that's about it.
Plenty of teams have lost opening games at home and come back to win a playoff series. It's not the fact of the Pistons' loss that's so disturbing, it's the hows and whys of the loss.
Tired, guys? Hey, little Stevie Nash gets tired, not big bad Rasheed, big shot Billups, and the Ripper.
Well, here's a bulletin: All the games in the remainder of the series will be played on alternate days. Leaving hardly any time to sleep late.
Game 2 will, therefore, be a supreme test of the Pistons' pride and resiliency. Yet come what may (and with apologies to T.S. Eliot), Game 1 will be remembered as an occasion when the Pistons went down "not with a bang, but with a whimper."
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