Heat take 2-1 lead over Pistons
Pistons’ late rally is wasted in Miami
May 27, 2006
BY JON PAUL MOROSI
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER
Miami's Dwyane Wade drives to the basket against Detroit's Ben Wallace in Saturday night's Game 3 in Miami. (KIRTHMON F. DOZIER/DFP)
MIAMI -- The Pistons trail 2-1, in the Eastern Conference finals. And that is the least of their worries.
What happened here Saturday night -- the Miami Heat's 98-83 deconstruction of the once-fearsome Pistons -- was more than a loss. It was a showcase of the many reasons why this team may fall fantastically short of the championship expectations that have followed them into arenas for three years.
The Pistons are not playing their trademark defense. They are not scoring in the paint -- to the tune of a 50-16 disadvantage there Saturday.
And there may already be some signs that their model collectivism has cracked -- along the walking fault line that is the talented, hard-to-figure Rasheed Wallace.
In what may either be a telling display of discord, or a simple act of frustration, Wallace brushed past Pistons coach Flip Saunders on his way to the bench after leaving the game in the first half. Saunders extended his hand. Wallace did not shake it.
Later, after the Heat took an 11-point lead into the second half, Wallace found his stroke. He hit a three-point play to start the half. Then he nailed a 12-foot fadeaway. Then he buried a three-pointer. Suddenly, after hobbling on his ankle for over a week, he seemed himself again. And then he disappeared.
He fouled Shaquille O'Neal and missed his next three-pointer. Soon, he was on the bench. He scored only two points thereafter, finished with 11, and did not speak to reporters afterward.
"We need to let Rasheed go to work," said Antonio McDyess, who, somewhat ironically, was the one who replaced Wallace in the lineup. "He was dominating down there. Then we went away from that.
"We started calling plays that weren't working."
Asked if Wallace's reduced touches were the result of play-calling or the players' decisions, McDyess said, "It doesn’t matter if it was play calling. We should've recognized it. You don't go away from a guy who has the hot hand, like Rasheed."
"At that point, I would think you should've gotten Rasheed the ball, play-calling or not," McDyess continued. "He should've gotten the ball. Point blank. He was going. He was feeling good about himself. He missed one shot, and came to the bench frustrated because he missed the shot. Still, that’s not a reason to go away from him."
In his news conference, Saunders explained that Wallace had been removed because of foul trouble -- he had five -- but that the Pistons had made a "conscious effort to get him the ball in the third quarter when he got going a little bit."
Wallace was back on the floor, late in the fourth quarter, when Saunders initiated a tactic that would have been foreign to the title-winning 2004 team. With 4:28 left and the Pistons trailing by eight, 83-75, Saunders got Ben Wallace's attention, made a bear-hug motion, and pointed toward O'Neal. Once the ball was passed inbounds, Ben Wallace bear hugged O'Neal for a foul. O'Neal went to the line. He missed both.
Hack-a-Shaq worked. And then it didn't. O'Neal grabbed the rebound. Richard Hamilton fouled him. Naturally, O'Neal hit the next two free throws to restore a 10-point lead.
Earlier, the Pistons staged a furious comeback, led by Billups and Rasheed Wallace, who buried a jumper early in the third quarter for his 10th point of the second half. It cut the deficit to 74-67. At that point, Miami had not scored in the fourth quarter. And the next points -- the next six, in fact -- belonged to Billups. He was knocked back as he hit the last one, to pull the Pistons within one. Pat Riley called timeout.
But the Pistons never got closer than that. McDyess missed a difficult lay-up that would have given them the lead, before fouling Dwyane Wade on the other end for a three-point play. Wade glared into the crowd. He seemed sure the game was over. And it was.
"Big turnaround," McDyess said. "Foul, who knows? Dwyane Wade, Antonio McDyess --
OK, Dwyane Wade gets that call every time. Then he comes down and get a three-point play.
"I thought Shaq pulled me down, and they called it one me. They're at home. They get the calls."
Billups, the easiest name to blame after a sluggish Game 1, was not the problem on this night. He distributed the ball well. His teammates, though, did not take enough of the open shots Billups and his fellow guards had created.
They cringed through a 2-for-10 performance from the foul line by Ben Wallace. They witnessed a comedown from Tayshaun Prince, who had three points after being an offensive star two nights before.
"Ain't the Detroit Pistons I know," McDyess said. "We normally shut people down. We get stops. This is how we win.
"It's like a broken record now. We keep saying, 'Defense, defense.' But nothing changes."
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