AUBURN HILLS -- Fragility, the worst affliction a playoff team can suffer, was on full display Wednesday night at The Palace.
And it wasn't the designated loser of this first-round playoff series that demonstrated the forbidden trait. Not the team humilated three days earlier, and apparently headed for bountiful early-May tee times. Not the team from which we expected such baby-faced softness. Not the Milwaukee Bucks.
The fractured team in Game 2, the Detroit Pistons, one of the anointed Eastern Conference favorites, one of three or four teams hot enough and talented enough to march out of this bracket to the NBA Finals, needed only two games of postseason to demonstrate the tenuousness of their championship bid.
Big game coming up Saturday, bigger than it had to be, until the Pistons decided to engage the Bucks in Milwaukee's style. Too many jump shots, and too many missed layups when they did attack, did in the Pistons long before a frantic late rally.
The Bucks are the smaller, weaker team. They're the jump-shooters in this series. But there were two jump-shooting teams Wednesday.
Physical fragility, as evidencedby pre-existing injuries and most of 48 game minutes stuck in mid-gear.
Mentally fragility, as evidenced by the first sign of a Rasheed Wallace playoff freak-out -- even though his fourth-quarter faceoff with Desmond Mason was really just to protect Rip Hamilton -- and then, moments later, by Hamilton, who fouled out on a questionable charging call, slung his face mask, and drew a technical foul on his way to a profanity-riddled exit.
Hamilton will be a few dollars lighter for his stunt.
The Pistons' effort should be the fineable offense.
They're in a series now. It didn't have to be that way. A moderately Pistons-like effort in Game 2 could have avoided it. But after a 26-point rout in Game 1, when even Bucks media were hinting this is a mail-in series, the games shift now to Milwaukee after the Pistons became the first team to lose a playoff home game.
The formula is clearer now than at this time yesterday, but not prettier. The Pistons have to do the same thing the Bucks did. They have to get a road split to get home-court advantage back.
Otherwise, by the time the series shifts back here for Game 5 one week from tonight, the Pistons will be looking at the first of what could be three consecutive elimination games.
How did it happen?
Simple. Detroit played like Milwaukee, and when that happens, the Bucks are just good enough -- 92-88, it turned out this time -- to survive and win.
Forget the final five minutes, when the Pistons surged from a double-digit deficit and had a late possession with a chance to tie or lead. Everything they were in Game 1 -- pressure-minded defensively, interior-minded offensively -- they abandoned in Game 2, part by choice, part by stubbornness.
"That defensive pressure we had at the end of the game wasn't there the whole game," Tayshaun Prince said. "We can't allow playoff games to come down to that."
Head coach Larry Brown sensed the lack of direction even before the game, when he stressed to the Pistons the importance of interior offense, getting to the free-throw line, getting easy scores, and giving themselves a chance to set up their pressure. He addressed those topics again at halftime and during timeouts.
Even then, Brown detected some players taking his sermon "as a personal challenge." He wasn't specific, but look at the boxscore and use some imagination. Lindsey Hunter and Rasheed Wallace each were 1-of-5 on 3-pointers. Chauncey Billups was 3-of-9.
Detroit took 25 shots from beyond the 3-point line.
Incredible.
Ridiculous.
"We played like strangers," Brown said. "Our guards played like we didn't have big people."
A soft team playing fragile is one thing.
But for a team with the interior size and depth of Detroit, it's inexcusable.
Suddenly, the Bucks were the ones saying the same things after Game 2 that Detroit did after Game 1 -- that the Pistons will come back stronger next time, that this series is just getting under way, that there's a lot of basketball left before the winner presumably runs into New Jersey.
There was one notable difference. The Bucks meant it.
The Pistons remain the clearly dominant team, but only when they take advantage of their dominant characteristics.
There isn't a team in the East capable of walking through the conference without consistently focused effort. Detroit proved Wednesday that it is no exception.
Milwaukee could have been subdued here. Instead, the Bucks left empowered.
"This wasn't a sense of relief, it was a sense of justification of the kind of team we are," the Bucks' Keith Van Horn said. "We know what people were saying after Game 1. But we're playing for ourselves, we're playing for pride, we're playing for our fans. The people back home believe in us and we believe in ourselves."
Another fragile effort by the Pistons could make believers of many others too -- as unbelievable as it seems.
http://www.mlive.com
And it wasn't the designated loser of this first-round playoff series that demonstrated the forbidden trait. Not the team humilated three days earlier, and apparently headed for bountiful early-May tee times. Not the team from which we expected such baby-faced softness. Not the Milwaukee Bucks.
The fractured team in Game 2, the Detroit Pistons, one of the anointed Eastern Conference favorites, one of three or four teams hot enough and talented enough to march out of this bracket to the NBA Finals, needed only two games of postseason to demonstrate the tenuousness of their championship bid.
Big game coming up Saturday, bigger than it had to be, until the Pistons decided to engage the Bucks in Milwaukee's style. Too many jump shots, and too many missed layups when they did attack, did in the Pistons long before a frantic late rally.
The Bucks are the smaller, weaker team. They're the jump-shooters in this series. But there were two jump-shooting teams Wednesday.
Physical fragility, as evidencedby pre-existing injuries and most of 48 game minutes stuck in mid-gear.
Mentally fragility, as evidenced by the first sign of a Rasheed Wallace playoff freak-out -- even though his fourth-quarter faceoff with Desmond Mason was really just to protect Rip Hamilton -- and then, moments later, by Hamilton, who fouled out on a questionable charging call, slung his face mask, and drew a technical foul on his way to a profanity-riddled exit.
Hamilton will be a few dollars lighter for his stunt.
The Pistons' effort should be the fineable offense.
They're in a series now. It didn't have to be that way. A moderately Pistons-like effort in Game 2 could have avoided it. But after a 26-point rout in Game 1, when even Bucks media were hinting this is a mail-in series, the games shift now to Milwaukee after the Pistons became the first team to lose a playoff home game.
The formula is clearer now than at this time yesterday, but not prettier. The Pistons have to do the same thing the Bucks did. They have to get a road split to get home-court advantage back.
Otherwise, by the time the series shifts back here for Game 5 one week from tonight, the Pistons will be looking at the first of what could be three consecutive elimination games.
How did it happen?
Simple. Detroit played like Milwaukee, and when that happens, the Bucks are just good enough -- 92-88, it turned out this time -- to survive and win.
Forget the final five minutes, when the Pistons surged from a double-digit deficit and had a late possession with a chance to tie or lead. Everything they were in Game 1 -- pressure-minded defensively, interior-minded offensively -- they abandoned in Game 2, part by choice, part by stubbornness.
"That defensive pressure we had at the end of the game wasn't there the whole game," Tayshaun Prince said. "We can't allow playoff games to come down to that."
Head coach Larry Brown sensed the lack of direction even before the game, when he stressed to the Pistons the importance of interior offense, getting to the free-throw line, getting easy scores, and giving themselves a chance to set up their pressure. He addressed those topics again at halftime and during timeouts.
Even then, Brown detected some players taking his sermon "as a personal challenge." He wasn't specific, but look at the boxscore and use some imagination. Lindsey Hunter and Rasheed Wallace each were 1-of-5 on 3-pointers. Chauncey Billups was 3-of-9.
Detroit took 25 shots from beyond the 3-point line.
Incredible.
Ridiculous.
"We played like strangers," Brown said. "Our guards played like we didn't have big people."
A soft team playing fragile is one thing.
But for a team with the interior size and depth of Detroit, it's inexcusable.
Suddenly, the Bucks were the ones saying the same things after Game 2 that Detroit did after Game 1 -- that the Pistons will come back stronger next time, that this series is just getting under way, that there's a lot of basketball left before the winner presumably runs into New Jersey.
There was one notable difference. The Bucks meant it.
The Pistons remain the clearly dominant team, but only when they take advantage of their dominant characteristics.
There isn't a team in the East capable of walking through the conference without consistently focused effort. Detroit proved Wednesday that it is no exception.
Milwaukee could have been subdued here. Instead, the Bucks left empowered.
"This wasn't a sense of relief, it was a sense of justification of the kind of team we are," the Bucks' Keith Van Horn said. "We know what people were saying after Game 1. But we're playing for ourselves, we're playing for pride, we're playing for our fans. The people back home believe in us and we believe in ourselves."
Another fragile effort by the Pistons could make believers of many others too -- as unbelievable as it seems.
http://www.mlive.com
