Courtesy of Andres Nocioni, we have our first bulletin board material of the series:

"We are going to win. We are going to win, of course," Nocioni said flatly Tuesday at the Berto Center. "I believe we can win. We are going to play seven games, and we are going to win (Game 7) in Detroit. It will be nice. Nice."

Nocioni is an easy guy to dislike: he does his best to annoy the opposition, and he's just good enough to do it on both sides of the floor. If he grew four inches, he might be a modern-day Bill Laimbeer, complete with a deadly three-point shot, dangerous elbows and a penchant for flopping. Update: Antonio McDyess on Nocioni:

"He flops a lot. He just annoys you. He gets in front of you in the post and puts his body on you all the time. He does all kinds of things to annoy you. You just have to be patient and stay in the game."

Even so, I'm having a hard time taking offense here -- it's relatively tame as trash talk goes. And besides, does anyone really care what the Most Posterized Player in the NBA has to say?

Nocioni's swagger intact [Daily Southtown, via Empty the Bench]