No Sheed – It’s Time For Wallace To Move On

It got to the point where they called it “the black hole.” The basketball would get tossed into it, and, basically, would never come out again. The derisive nickname came from the coaches and teammates, and leaked out.

Basically, the Pistons half-court offense would go like this: Isiah Thomas, slapping the ball against the floor, boogying left and then right, and maybe a pass to Joe Dumars or Bill Laimbeer would ensue. Then, the shot clock ticking away, the ball would end up in the hands of Adrian Dantley – somewhere on the wing. The Black Hole.

Dantley would hold the ball, rocking back and forth on his heels, and the only thing that was certain was that no one was getting it back. He either would drive to the hoop or launch a set shot from 20 feet away.

It was abided, Adrian Dantley’s ball-hogging ways, for a time after the Pistons acquired him from the Utah Jazz in the summer of 1986 for another who was infatuated with touching it, Kelly Tripucka. The Pistons, behind Dantley’s post presence to complement the whirling dervish Thomas and the tough but flat-footed Laimbeer and the smooth as silk Dumars, became a force in the NBA almost overnight. They went to the conference finals in 1987, Dantley’s first season in Detroit. Then they made it to the league finals in ’88, coming a whisker from beating the Lakers.

But the Pistons brass and the others who shared the court with Dantley began to get mystified and maddened at the Black Hole the following season. The offense was coming to an absolute halt whenever Dantley touched the ball. You could practically hear the THUD in the brand-new Palace of Auburn Hills when Adrian Dantley was given the basketball.

So the day after Valentine’s Day, 1989, GM Jack McCloskey stunned the basketball world by trading the Black Hole to the Dallas Mavericks. Coming to Detroit would be another problem child, Mark Aguirre – like Dantley, a prolific scorer. And, like the multi-traded Dantley, Aguirre tended to try the patience of his coach. Dick Motta was the coach in Dallas, and over the years he’d used words like “coward” and “jackass” to describe Mark Aguirre.

And yet here came Aguirre to the Pistons – a team many thought were world title contenders, despite the Black Hole portion of their offense. McCloskey was upsetting the apple cart, purposely.

“The trade had to be made,” he told me a couple years ago when I asked him to, you know, explain himself. “There were issues. Let’s leave it at that.”

The issues were solved when Dantley’s equipment bag and sneakers were shipped out of Detroit, for with Aguirre now on the team and behaving, the Pistons cruised to the NBA championship. And they won it again next year, also with Aguirre.

Rasheed Wallace has become the current Pistons’ Black Hole.

Wallace has more in common with Dantley (above) than you think

It’s not the same kind of thing, really – in the sense that Wallace doesn’t keep the basketball all to himself. But the welcome mat beneath his flippers is wearing away.

Wallace has just authored another chapter in the Book of Rasheed, and like so many others before it, it’s gothic and grotesque and self-defeating. And it carries the rest of his team down with him.

The Pistons are done for the summer, vanquished by the new-look Boston Celtics in six frightful games in the Eastern Conference Finals. Wallace and company worked like mad to wrestle home court advantage away from the Celtics in Game 2, then regurgitated it back up in a Game 3 performance so awful that it almost defies description. But not scapegoats.

Rasheed Wallace, throughout the Boston series, made a lot of news. None of it was very good. His play was horrific, his actions perplexing. From tossing up more bricks than the masons to carelessly handling the basketball to hugging Celtic opponents after games to being on the verge, yet again, of earning a suspension due to too many technical fouls, Wallace has just shown us in one playoff series why he should be politely shown the door, never to wear the Piston uniform again.

I don’t hate the guy. I’m not blaming the Pistons’ failure in the conference finals over the past three seasons solely on him, but I am suggesting that he shoulders most of it. Wallace can no longer be a Piston because he is simply becoming too much for the team to handle and overcome. He shows up flat – or not at all – at too many inopportune times. He has been, frankly, why the Pistons have lost in big games far more than he’s been the reason why they’ve won. His cashiering would be a classic example of addition by subtraction.

Game 6 sealed it for me. Wallace threw the ball away several times, handling it with all the care of a child with someone else’s toy. He rattled shot after shot off the rim in ugly fashion. He played as if in a fog most of the night – matching his countenance for most of the series. The Pistons, sadly, were not only playing the Celtics in this series, but their own No. 36 as well. And Lord only knows who, or what, Rasheed Wallace was competing against. I suspect there are some basketball demons in there. The world according to Wallace is a world that I don’t think any of us have ever inhabited.

It’s time for Pistons GM Joe Dumars to pull a Trader Jack McCloskey and rid the team of Rasheed Wallace while he still has some market value. The dude was fun and all, but he’s just not worth the trouble anymore. No Sheed.

Pistons Maybe On Verge Of Change For Change’s Sake

There is no shame in not winning an NBA championship. A cynic — and I’ve been that — would tell you that the way pro sports works is this: There’s a first place winner, and all the other teams in the league are tied for last. The only thing that changes is the length of everyone’s off-season vacations. But the truth is, you can not be crowned the king and still consider yourself having had a successful season. Some of the time, anyway.

The Pistons are on the verge of being tied for last in the NBA. They’re down, 3-2, heading into tonight’s Game 6 of the Final Four. If they lose this series — and they probably will — they’ll have all summer to beat themselves up for letting the Boston Celtics off the mat in Game 3 after working so hard to wrest home court advantage away in Game 2. Game 3 was a mind-numbing, MIA performance that should haunt this team all the way until they manage to win another title. It was a disgraceful, absolutely baffling display — more befitting a cold January night in New Jersey than at home in the Final Four. Whatever.

Joe Dumars was asked by ESPN.com in an interview played on their website recently about coaches and job security.

Is it fair, Joe D was asked, to issue an edict to a coach that goes something like this: Win the whole enchilada or pack your bags?

Dumars didn’t think so. He pointed out how only one team can win, and that no coach should be working under that kind of pressure. Fine. Agreed. But the more apt question would have been, Is it fair to place a coach under such an edict — or something close to it — when he’s seemingly had the talent to pull it off yet has been toppled three straight years in the Final Four?

Read: is Flip Saunders on the hot seat? Should he be?

In 2005-06, the Pistons went 64-18, including a crazy 35-5, 1984 Tigers-like start. Yet they were extended to seven games by the inferior Cleveland Cavaliers in the Elite Eight and ran out of gas against the Miami Heat. Last season, another inferior Cavs bunch toppled them, despite the Pistons putting them in an 0-2 hole (which they did in ’06, too) in the Final Four. This season, a shaky start against the 76ers had the Pistons scrambling right out of the gate. Then, a corrected series against the Orlando Magic and a gutsy Game 2 win in Boston preceded Game 3′s nastiness, and the Pistons have been playing catch-up with the Celts ever since.

So: after reading the above paragraph, what do YOU think about Flip’s impending return to the Pistons’ sidelines?

This isn’t just about Flip, though — despite his head-scratching rotation that doesn’t seem to have any pattern or rhythm. It must be terribly frustrating to play for Saunders if you’re not on the floor when the game begins, for you may play five minutes, 25 minutes, or none. Jarvis Hayes and even Jason Maxiell, at times, have been ignored with mystifying regularity.

No, it’s not all Flip. It’s the players, stupid. Time to let go of nostalgia and take a long look at the roster — the starting five portion. The Pistons rightly let Ben Wallace walk two summers ago, and now it’s time to move others — and yes, I mean for the sake of change. Sometimes that’s the last bullet left in the chamber.

Saunders cannot be judged an innocent, but neither can the players — some of whom should be gone if the Pistons bow to the Celtics, as expected (starters included)

Keeping a quintet together is great if you’re the San Antonio Spurs of today (yes, I know they lost to the Lakers but they’re still the closest thing to a dynasty the NBA has had since the Chicago Jordannaires), or the Celtics or Lakers of the 1960s or 1980s — because those teams consistently won championships. The Pistons are almost certainly on the verge of dropping to 2-4 in the Final Four, and where’s the fun in that? Where’s the warm-and-fuzzy appeal there?

Trades.

Dumars has built his reputation as one of the NBA’s best GMs because of his almost spooky and uncanny ability to properly blend aggressiveness with restlessness and intuition. He’s done it with his coaching firings and hirings, and with trades. He has, more than once, upset the apple cart and fixed what none of us saw as being broken in the first place. Then, six months later, we see that there needed to be repair, after all. And that’s why Dumars is one of the best in the business.

It’s time now for that to show through again.

No one — no one — should be an untouchable this summer. Everyone should be in play. A wire should be sent throughout the NBA from Auburn Hills that reads something like, “If there’s any interest in anyone on our roster — anyone — give us a shout. Let’s talk.”

What is there to lose, at this point? To have this burdensome streak of six consecutive Final Four appearances end? Is that what we’re striving for now? To play through Memorial Day and then break for the summer?

I’m telling you, I’d be a whole lot happier with Dumars if the Pistons made a blockbuster trade and be eliminated earlier in the playoffs next season, if there was greater payoff down the line. Better that than to stand pat and lose in another Final Four. But that’s just me.

Only one team can win it all. But that doesn’t mean that the others should ever stop trying — even if it means breaking up the gang in order to do it.

The best starting five in the NBA? And where exactly has that gotten the Pistons lately?

Tied for last, that’s where.

Cool As A Cucumber Stuckey Playing Like A Playoff Veteran

I’m beginning to think that if you slice Rodney Stuckey open, you could use the contents that spills out as a refreshing drink. Ice water.

Stuckey was fearless yesterday in the Pistons’ series-squaring 103-97 win over the Celtics in Boston in the NBA’s Final Four. Never was it more apparent than in the fourth quarter.

The Pistons’ Ice Cube: Rodney Stuckey

Stuckey stuck jumpers — tossing well-aimed daggers into the belly of the playoff beast — with the calm and confidence of a ten-year veteran. And they were big jumpers — the kind that muzzle crowds and keep that 400-pound gorilla, aka momentum, from shifting into the other direction. Tape over the jersey number and you’d have thought No. 1, Chauncey Billups, was draining those shots. You know, Mr. Big Shot himself.

But it was Stuckey, and the axiom that says a rookie isn’t really a rookie by this point of the season has never been more true when it comes to the, ahem, rookie guard from someplace called Eastern Washington. In fact, I’d say Stuckey has not only shed the traditional rookie label, he’s somewhere in the middle of his third season, the way he’s been playing in this year’s playoffs. Never before — not even during the title run of 2004 — have the Pistons had the luxury of entrusting crucial playoff minutes at point guard in the hands of anyone other than Billups, Lindsey Hunter excepted. Yet Stuckey has thrived this post-season, competently running the team and deftly seeking his shot when it’s appropriate. Oh, and sticking those 18-to-20 foot jumpers when it’s needed, too.

Rodney Stuckey is not why the Pistons beat the Celtics last night, stealing home court into the Boston night. But his on-court presence has yet to be why they’ve lost — which is just as good.

Pistons’ Goal: Make Celtics Play Their 1st Series Of ’08 Playoffs

The Boston Celtics are the first team to reach the conference finals without having played even one series on the way there. Pretty slick, huh?

Oh, I know the record books will show otherwise. There it is, forever captured for posterity: Celtics 4, Hawks 3. Celtics 4, Cavaliers 3. But neither of these were series.

It’s been said that a best-of-seven series doesn’t really get going until a road team captures a game. Not a bad notion, really. The games definitely seem to ratchet up in pressure when a favorite has to scramble to win home court back. The Celtics have yet to have to do that; then again, they’ve yet to win on the road. But that’s why you go out and win more games than anyone else in the league — to afford to go winless on the road. As long as you TCB at home. History says, though, that sooner or later the Celtics will have to actually play a playoff series before they entertain thoughts of hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

The Pistons are just the team to force the Celtics into a series.

They didn’t do it last night — didn’t really come close, actually — falling to Boston, 88-79 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. But, with all due disrespect to the Atlanta Hawks and none to the Cleveland LeBrons, the Celtics aren’t playing a tune-up any longer. The Pistons, despite last night’s hiccup, aren’t likely to go 0-for-4 in Boston. Which means the Celtics have to figure out a way to win a road game in the post-season (they’re 0-6 so far), and you could pick some easier places to do that than in Detroit.

The Pistons lost at home to Boston way back in the wintertime, but that was mainly due to the out-of-the-blue contribution from rookie Glenn Davis, who has been relegated to spot duty in the playoffs. And, as far as that goes, the Pistons snatched a game in Boston in January.

But the Pistons won’t make it a real series with Rasheed Wallace continuing his confounding tendency to go into hiding at the most inopportune moments. Sheed was sheet in Game 1, and it’s anybody’s guess why. Sometimes I think the world of Rasheed Wallace is a world that none of us have ever inhabited. Which is fine, except that in that world, something obviously grabs his attention more than the task at hand on the basketball court — you know, in our little place called the real world. I won’t regurgitate Wallace’s numbers here because I’m sure you’d rather not sneer at your computer, but let’s just say that it’s also just as likely that Game 2′s Wallace numbers will dwarf Game 1′s. Because Sheed’s World Order rarely allows two sub-par performances in a row. So that’s good.

Oh, and Boston’s Ray Allen still isn’t off the dime yet. He went 3-for-9 last night, his shooting woes continuing. Chasing Rip Hamilton around isn’t exactly the tonic to fix that, either — despite Rip’s rather quiet presence last night.

This Eastern final isn’t a series yet. Chances are that it may not become one until Game 7. But the Pistons will take 1-for-4 in Beantown, because they’re a good bet to go 3-for-3 in Detroit. Even I know that adds up to four.

Pistons Roll Dice, And Magic Craps Out

Didn’t I just write about Antonio McDyess? Didn’t I just praise him for his monstrous offensive rebound late in Game 4 against the Orlando Magic — a board that kept a Pistons possession alive long enough for Tayshaun Prince to pull a baby hook out of his sleeve and beat the ‘Gic? Didn’t I just drone on about how his on-court personality is just about 180 degrees opposite of his off-court demeanor, which earns him the nickname McNice?

Guess I’ll have to write about him — and Prince — again.

Last night, in the Pistons’ clinching Game 5 win over The O, McDyess came up huge in the same way that Lassie used to when Timmy was stuck in a well. Again I have to chuckle at Orlando’s Dwight Howard and his nickname, Superman — for it was Dice who (again) donned the cape and swooped in to save the day. He jump-started the Pistons’ offense early in the fourth quarter when the Magic had opened up a fragile five-point lead by hitting two 18-foot jumpers in succession. Then he swarmed the offensive glass — either grabbing a board or inducing undersized defenders like Rashard Lewis into taking loose ball fouls. Dice was a big reason the Magic was in the penalty situation with 6:30 left in the fourth quarter.

I watched the game not knowing about the death of McDyess’s grandmother — a sad revelation that he received hours before the game. It was only in reading accounts that I found out about the heavy heart with which McDyess played. I missed the first half, so maybe it had been mentioned at the top of the broadcast. I don’t know. Regardless, it was hard not to think of McDyess’s boss — and the man who brought him to Detroit — Joe Dumars, who played an NBA Finals game in Portland in 1990 as the only Piston who didn’t know that Joe D’s father had passed away earlier in the day. McDyess knew his bad news, and Dumars didn’t, but the sobriety of the situation is almost the same, for Dumars was taken into a private room after the Pistons walked off the court as winners in ’90 and was given the news by coach Chuck Daly and GM Jack McCloskey.

As for Prince, what can you say? He’s racking up big-time blocks the way Michael Jordan did with big-time shots. You can add Hedo Turkoglu to Prince’s list of victims. But I gotta ask: didn’t Turkoglu realize who was guarding him? Didn’t he know that he had the equivalent of a velcroed octopus as a defender? Yet Turkoglu drove the hoop anyway, Prince matching him stride for stride, then tried a half-dunk, half-God knows what that Tayshaun EASILY disposed of. As far as importance, the rejection ranks among Prince’s finest, but as far as ease, it surely must be in the lower percentile. That’s two awful shots by Turkoglu in the clutch in that series. Thanks, Hedo!

So now it’s on to Boston, or home against Cleveland in Game 1 of the NBA’s Final Four. The Celtics, as one writer astutely pointed out, are apparently trying to become the first team in NBA history to win a title by going 16-12: 16-0 at home, 0-12 on the road. Don’t laugh. The Celts are 6-0 at home, 0-5 on the road in the ’08 playoffs. And as TNT’s Mike “The Czar” Fratello pointed out last night, they’d better figure out a way to win on the road, because sooner or later some team is going to steal a game in Boston. And if it’s Cleveland, then the Pistons may not have to worry about the Celtics after all.

No complaints here.

McNice’s Rebound Was Simply Nasty

They call Antonio McDyess, McNice — for his pleasant, courteous off-the-court demeanor and his overall reputation as a hard worker who doesn’t grate on the officials. He’s the anti-Sheed in that respect.

But there was absolutely nothing nice or pleasant about the manner in which McDyess snared a crucial offensive rebound late in the Pistons’ 90-89 win in Game 4 of their series with the Orlando Magic. McDyess’s grabbing of the carom — a result of yet another missed shot by Rasheed Wallace, who missed plenty of them down the stretch — enabled the Pistons to get one more chance with the clock having less than 20 ticks left in its arsenal. The Pistons were down, 89-88, and staring a 2-2 series tie square in the face. Their court general, Chauncey Billups, was styling in a beige suit, but of no use to the team, out with a hamstring injury. Sheed had gone cold.

Enter McDyess. They call Dwight Howard Superman in Orlando, but it was McDyess who earned that moniker, swooping in from nowhere like a super hero to grab Wallace’s miss and keep the possession alive. It was one of the most impressive, clutch offensive rebounds I’ve seen in recent years. McDyess simply wanted it more, and he got it. Tayshaun Prince made the rebound count with his running baby hook, and now Detroit has a 3-1 stranglehold on the series.

McDyess’s rebound, to me, is on par with Prince’s block of Reggie Miller in the 2004 Eastern Finals. Both plays changed games, and McDyess’s board just might have sealed the series for the Pistons. Certainly Prince’s maniacal effort on Miller changed the tone of that series with the Pacers.

There’s a time for nice; the playoffs aren’t it

Yet McDyess’s play hasn’t gotten the notoriety it deserves. Prince’s hook shot rightly was heralded, as was the team’s overall play minus Billups. Even Howard’s disappearing act (hey, he plays for a team called the Magic, after all) has gotten more ink than The Rebound by McNice. But no board there, and the Pistons probably don’t win that game. Simple as that.

All of which would make it criminal and injust poetically if the Pistons can’t somehow find a way to get McDyess his championship. He was brought here after the ’04 title, and came within minutes of winning it all in 2005. Who can forget the image of McDyess sitting on the Pistons bench, in disbelief, after the team blew Game 5 of the conference semi-final to Cleveland in 2006? That was the famous drive-home-in-my-uniform experience that McDyess confessed to. The Pistons recovered to win that series, but that display was merely one example of how badly McDyess wants that ring. This was a guy who wasn’t even supposed to be playing as much as five years ago, due to numerous knee injuries and surgeries. Yet here he is. And let’s not forget his comeback from a broken nose after Game 3 in the Philadelphia series a couple weeks ago.

Antonio McDyess is a nice guy. But when that ring is there for the taking, like Wallace’s missed shot in Game 4, don’t be fooled: Dice knows that Nice doesn’t cut it.

Magic is This Year’s Hapless Fourth Seed In East Semi-Finals

I suppose you have a conference semi-final because the mathematics say half of eight is four and half of four is two.

We’re down to the FInal Four in the NBA’s Eastern Conference, but only three teams are semi-finals worthy. The fourth, the Orlando Magic — whom the Pistons will spend the next week or so toying with — is only there because league rules say four teams must participate.

The Boston Celtics, winners of 66 games in the regular season, didn’t exactly get their bye thru the first round, but their total domination of the 37-win Atlanta Hawks in the games played in Boston shows that, even though the series went seven games, it really wasn’t a series, because the neophyte Hawks never came close to stealing a game in Beantown. The Celtics, with their Big Three of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce, are certainly Final Four material.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are always Final Four-ish as long as King James, LeBron version, suits up for them. It’ll be interesting to see how the Celtics handle James, seeing as how they struggled to contain Hawks guard Joe Johnson at times. The Cavs are worthy of being a conference semi-finalist.

The Pistons show up to these conference semi-finals every year, usually just waiting to get their ticket punched to the REAL Final Four, NBA-wide. Five straight trips to the conference finals, including two wins and a championship, cements their place in these second round matches.

The Orlando Magic are the fourth team, and it’s only because the East has such slim pickings that the Magic are allowed to the party. Last year the Chicago Bulls were here. Once, the New Jersey Nets were frequent visitors. Same with the Indiana Pacers. The Magic are this year’s fourth entry, and it’s anyone’s guess whether they’ll be back next year or the year after that.

Oh, the Magic are a nice little team, but this is their first trip to the second round in quite some time, and already they seem unsure of what to do now that they’re here. They made it here by playing an up-tempo, frantic game built around the three-point shot, but in Game 1 on Saturday, the Magic tried to ugly it up and get all Bad Boys-ish on the Pistons. It backfired. Badly.

It’s not smart money to wager on this series lasting more than five games. Maybe next year, the Magic could give the Pistons a little go-round. Not this spring. The Magic won more games than James’s Cavaliers, but it would be hard to argue that Orlando is a better team than Cleveland. There’s no question, in my mind, who I’d fear more right now, if given the choice between Dwight Howard and the Magic, and James and the Cavaliers. We all still have ghoulish memories of what James did to the Pistons in Game 5 of last year’s conference final.

They must allow four teams into the conference semi-finals — if only because it would be unfair to give one team a free pass while two others engage in battle. This year, it’s the Orlando Magic playing the role of the fourth seed. Next year, might be somebody else. Either way, no. 4 is going home soon.

Slam Dunk And Buried: Pistons, Red Wings Move On In Laughers

Whatever Barry Melrose was on, I’d like to partake.

Melrose, the venerable hockey yakster for ESPN, last week predicted the Colorado Avalanche would bury the Red Wings in six games. His more sane partner, ESPN.com writer EJ Hradek, picked Detroit in six. Melrose forecasted a “nasty” series that he felt the Avs would win because … well, I can’t really remember why; I tuned him out after he made his selection. Hradek, for his part, looked at the Red Wings’ experience and determination and the way they closed out the Nashville Predators and made a cooler-headed pick.

Was this ever a series? Aside from the Avs making Game 1 interesting after falling into a 4-1 hole, this was NFL Champs vs. College All-Stars; the Packers at home vs. the Lions; Israel vs. the 1967 Arabs. Magic Johnson’s late night talk show run looks like that of 60 Minutes compared to how long the Avs-Red Wings series was competitive.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt sorry for the Avalanche or their fans, but last night’s 8-2 pasting the Red Wings put on Colorado made me come close. By hockey standards, this was a driven, well-oiled machine led by a forward as hot as a firecracker against a depleted, hurt, overmatched opponent. By history standards, this might be the series that pretty much ends the era of the Avs-Red Wings rivalry. It had a good run; time to move on.

It’s hard to justify any four-game sweep having a turning point, but Colorado coach Joel Quenneville will — and with good reason — have to answer some questions, notably: Why the hell was Jose Theodore the starting goalie in this series, certainly after Game 2?

By contrast, Red Wings coach Mike Babcock played a hunch before Game 5 of the Preds series and switched starting goalies. Dominik Hasek wasn’t awful in Games 3 and 4 in Nashville, but he wasn’t very good, either. A case could definitely have been made to stick with Dom at home in Game 5. But Babcock coached for the moment, believing that you can’t win the Cup if you’re eliminated in Round 1. So he chose to worry about the future in the future, and inserted Chris Osgood. Ozzie has been solid, and the Red Wings are 6-0 since the move.

Quenneville, on the other hand, started a sick goalie in Game 1 against Detroit (it wasn’t reported that Theodore was ill until after he’d been pulled), and after declaring him all better for Game 2, Theodore was again lifted in favor of Peter Budaj, who played well in both games. Yet Quenneville still had a chance to make amends when the series shifted to Denver. He could have (and SHOULD have) started Budaj in Game 3. The Avs were hurting, demoralized, and needed a spark. A goalie change would have provided that. Budaj certainly couldn’t have played much worse than Theodore. Sometimes change for change’s sake is what’s needed in a playoff series. It can shift momentum. But we’ll never know, because Quenneville stubbornly stayed with Theodore, who played OK in Game 3 but not well enough to steal a win. Then what happens? Quenneville STILL stuck with Theodore in Game 4, and Jose got pulled for the third time after giving up two goals late in the first period. Budaj didn’t fare any better, but that’s not the point. All summer, Avs fans will wonder, “What if the coach had called Budaj’s number for Game 3?”

Oh well.

The Red Wings went 8-0-0 against the Avs in 2007-08. If this is still a rivalry, it is in the way that the Coyote is rivals with the Roadrunner.

Coming Monday (or Wednesday, depending on the Stars-Sharks series): a look ahead to the conference finals.
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In the end, the 2007-08 Philadelphia 76ers will go down along with the 1987-88 Washington Bullets and the 1990-91 Atlanta Hawks as teams who put a scare into a superior Pistons team, only to still go home after Round 1. The Pistons needed the full five games to beat those Bullets and Hawks (3-of-5 back then), but each time recovered to make it to the Eastern finals. Neither year, though, did the Pistons win the championship. Whatever, right?

The Sixers, after halftime of Game 4, were like those magic trick victims pulled out of the crowd and helped on stage, only to have the magician relieve them of their wallets, undershirts, or pants while the audience laughs. The Pistons seized control of the series in the third quarter of Game 4, and never relinquished it. That infamous, mythic “switch” that everyone keeps talking about became stuck in the ON position.

Philly fans, not exactly known for their compassion, reportedly gave their team a standing ovation after Game 6′s 100-77 slaughter. They were recognizing an effort that resulted in a 22-12 season-ending run and a surprising pair of wins over the Pistons in the playoffs. Makes you wonder: did the Wachovia Center ventilation system get injected with nitrous oxide? Talk about out of character.

So now it’s on to face the Orlando Magic, who aren’t the runts the Pistons swept last year in Round 1. Dwight Howard has more confidence, and also a series win under his belt. The Magic properly took care of the inferior Toronto Raptors in five games. The anticipated matchup with the Celtics isn’t fait accompli. The Pistons will beat the Magic, but don’t be surprised if it takes all of seven games to do so.

Also, I give Sixers coach Maurice Cheeks high marks. He had his team ready to play at the beginning of the series, and he was loose — joking with the Palace crowd frequently. That his team fell apart isn’t so much an indictment against him as an affirmation of the Pistons’ superiority. Way to go, Mo!

Mischievous Sixers Play While Sleepy Pistons Nod Off

The comparison is tempting, but it’s slightly inaccurate.

The temptation is to call the Pistons’ 90-86 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 1 of their first round series a wake-up call. You know, because now the Pistons, it’s presumed, are up-and-at-’em, ready to dispatch the 76ers swiftly thanks to the unfriendly alarm. The image is of the 76ers standing above the Pistons’ bed, swirling a bucket of ice water, ready to pour it on the no. 2 seed.

Well, why in the heck would the Sixers want to do that?

Wouldn’t it be a better analogy, for Philly fans anyway, if you were to compare the neophyte Sixers to that kid who wakes up early on Saturday morning and eats chocolate cake for breakfast and watches R-rated movies on DVD while his parents snooze? The LAST thing a mischievous kid wants at that point is a wake-up call for his folks.

Even Sixers forward Andre Iguodala said as much.

“That’s Detroit. Sometimes they fall asleep.”

Wow. Already being dissed by the seventh-seeded opponents after just one game.

But you can’t get too mad at Iguodala’s comment, as brazen and brash as it might seem. Because he’s right. The Pistons do, indeed, fall asleep at times, and not always do they wake up in time.

Rasheed Wallace, for one, wasn’t among the snoozers. Wallace played like a man possessed, especially in the first half, combining scoring prowess with octopus-like arms, batting away Sixers shots like a camper swatting flies at a picnic. It was sadly ironic, then, that it was ‘Sheed who missed a potential game-tying “bunny” (his word) in the waning seconds, because if anyone kept his team in the game, it was Wallace.

The Pistons guards were outplayed by Philly’s tandem of Andre Miller and U-D’s own Willie Green. The shooting was frigid. The second half was almost as incomprehensibly bad as the first half was stunningly good. Give Philly credit. They were down 13 at the half, the Palace rocking. But this fuzzy-faced group (at least when it comes to playoff experience) looked at the deficit, looked around their locker room full of playoff first-timers, and must have collectively went “HA!”, because they came out in the second half with a vengeance. As the Pistons nodded off again, the playful Sixers scored eight quick points to start the third, and before many in the crowd had returned to their seats with their nachos and beer, a basketball game had broken out.

And already the Pistons are forced to trot out their “we’ve been here before, we’ll be fine” sound bites, after just 48 minutes of post-season ball.

The truth of the matter, though, is that they probably WILL be alright — BECAUSE they’ve been here before. Unfortunately. I just think that over a seven-game series in the NBA (especially in the first round), the best team wins. And the Pistons are clearly the best team. But this won’t be a cakewalk. It’s kind of like the Red Wings and the buzzsaws they’ve run into in recent playoff history — teams who’ve been in playoff mode for some time, fighting to even make the party. The Sixers fit that description, and they’ve picked up some big regular season wins in the past couple of months. This was an 18-30 team at one point. But a 22-12 closing run landed them in Auburn Hills Sunday. And the Pistons weren’t much better than 22-12 in their final 34 games; then again, the Pistons weren’t really playing for anything, either.

I agree with the trotted out sound bites. The Pistons will be fine. The pesky Sixers had their Saturday morning fun while mom and dad slept. They got away with a little. But the folks will eventually find out what mischief the kid has wrought, and will ground them — in six games.

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By the way, kudos to Danica Patrick for her first Indy win on Sunday. I’ve always been a big Danica fan (and NO, not for THAT reason!), and I was wondering when she’d finally break through into the win column. Give the lady her due.

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I’ll have my thoughts on the Red Wings on Wednesday (first round recap, second round forecast, etc). As you might have noticed, OOB takes Tuesdays off now — just like the NFL players do during the season. I stole their idea.