It seemed the coffin had been picked out already for the Detroit Pistons–a dark one with a heavy whine tint. But they aren’t dead yet.
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The Pistons hung on Wednesday night in the NBA Eastern Conference finals with Miami and now trail the Heat three games to two after their 91-78 victory set up Game 6 in Miami on Friday night.
For the second straight round in these playoffs, the Pistons will be trying to win a game on the road trailing 3-2, this time to get to their third consecutive NBA Finals.
“The pressure is on [the Heat] now,” said Chauncey Billups, who had 17 points and 10 assists in finally running the Pistons’ attack Wednesday night. “They don’t want to come back and play a Game 7 the way we play at home.”
Led by Tayshaun Prince’s 29 points, the Pistons were impressive at home with their third straight victory in a potential closeout game in these playoffs.
“Energy,” said Prince, whose key three-pointer midway through the fourth quarter gave the Pistons breathing room they never surrendered. “When we move, we’re a better basketball team.”
The Pistons didn’t display their stuck-in-the-mud efforts that have confused many in these playoffs. They pushed the ball for better looks, tiring Shaquille O’Neal and running him into foul trouble.
The Pistons are looking more like the team that came back from a 3-2 deficit against the Heat in last year’s conference finals instead of the miserable, bickering group that has been around the last month.
In going for their third straight NBA Finals appearance, they have been sniping at their coach about strategy and complaining to referees. They looked more like the team they surprised in 2004 for the NBA championship, the feuding Lakers who fell in five games. The Heat has seemed hungrier and happier as the Pistons seemed to collapse under the weight of expectations like those Lakers did.
The Pistons’ quick start this season and the relative lack of important games may have taken its toll on a core group that Wednesday was playing its 82nd playoff game since 2003. That full extra season’s worth of games has seemed to slow their defensive desire.
Few teams have been able to come back to the Finals three times, even some of the great ones like the 76ers of the ’80s, some of the early-’80s Lakers and Celtics teams and the great Knicks and Lakers teams of the ’70s. Such sustained runs take a physical and mental toll, and too often in these playoffs the Pistons didn’t seem to run on all cylinders.
Meanwhile, the Western Conference rivals seem to be rooting for the Heat. Mostly because whoever wins the West gets home-court advantage for the Finals over Miami.
Also, though no one on either the Phoenix Suns or the Dallas Mavericks would say it, both teams believe they can run on Miami and are too quick for the Heat, leaving O’Neal no one to guard.
But it will take awhile to determine the winner in the West after the Suns crushed the Mavericks in Game 4 to even the series at two games apiece.
It seemed the Suns were out on their feet before that game, ready to be knocked out after losses in Games 2 and 3 after a shocking comeback victory in Game 1. Dallas was dominating the series with its superior depth, and injuries seemed finally to be taking the fight out of the Suns.
But Raja Bell’s return from a torn calf muscle energized them. Though Bell had just nine points and didn’t have his usual explosiveness, his presence enabled the Suns to expand their bench and give them more small-ball options that opened the court and sped up their game.
It resulted in 54.4 percent shooting and a wide open lane that got the Suns almost 50 points inside against an overrated Mavs defense.
Though the Mavs talk about defense more, they are still an offensive team.
When the Suns finally kept Dirk Nowitzki outside, and Nowitzki’s shot went south, it meant a season-low 11 points for the Mavs’ star and Dallas’ poorest game of this playoff season.
That guaranteed the series will return to Phoenix on Saturday for Game 6.
It is at that point that Dallas, like Miami will Friday, hopes it can find its way to the first Finals appearance in franchise history.
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