Did you swear off reading any NBA Finals previews? That’s fine … but what about listening to previews? Tas Melas, J.E. Skeets and SI.com’s Kelly Dwyer break down the Cavs-Spurs matchup on (the always outstanding) The Basketball Jones podcast.
Archive for the '2007 Playoffs' Category
Like many fans, one of the players I feel for the most right now is Antonio McDyess, especially after reading his comments from after Game 6:
“I feel like I’m at the end of my career and it just ain’t gonna happen,” said McDyess, 32, who has a contract option to return. “Tonight, I accepted that I’m never gonna win. I felt this team was the one to get us there. We had all the chances in the world and we blew it. It seems like it’s over for me now.”
McDyess’ option is worth roughly $6.3 million, and there’s also the chance that Joe Dumars will try to extend him. That said, if he does decide to leave for another contender he deems closer to a title, I wouldn’t fault him — I don’t think anyone else on the team takes losing quite as hard as he does.
After losing Game 7 of the NBA Finals in 2005, McDyess didn’t talk about it for months. Following a loss in Game 5 of last year’s second-round series to the Cavs, he was so distraught that he stayed on the bench long after his teammates went to the locker room and eventually left the arena without even taking off his uniform. After getting ejected in Game 5 this year, he was so stressed out watching the game from the locker room that he left the arena in the third quarter and went home:
He went to his house. He couldn’t turn on the TV. He paced up and down his street, with his fiancée and friends sending him updates on his cell phone.
“Me sitting there pulling my hair, I’m walking up and down the street,” he said. “I didn’t want to see it, so I told them don’t give me any kind of updates on what’s going on until after the game.”
In this day and age, there are few players who give you the feeling they’d rather win than get paid, but McDyess is certainly one of them.
Coming into Game 6, the Pistons were determined not to let LeBron James single-handedly destroy their NBA Finals hopes by allowing him to waltz through the paint all night long completely unscathed. Well, mission accomplished, I guess, albeit in a U.S.S. Lincoln kind of way. LeBron was held to a modest 20 points, mostly earned the hard way by going 14-19 from the stripe.
But while the Pistons succeeded in not allowing LeBron to do it alone, they still lost the game by letting a mere rookie bury them. Daniel Gibson, a baby-faced killer from long range, scored 19 of his career-high 31 points in the fourth quarter. He was the game’s leading scorer, finishing a perfect 5-5 from beyond the arc and 12-15 from the free throw line.
When Gibson broke out with a 21-point performance in Game 4, we shook our heads and said, “well, that won’t happen again.” Not only did it happen, he almost matched Game 4’s performance in the final quarter alone. The Pistons are allegedly built for defense, but they couldn’t stop a rookie (and a former second-round pick, at that) from torching everything they worked for in the past 12 months.
But this is old news — the game ended over 24 hours ago as I write this. Loyal readers of the site have already digested the loss, moving on to intelligent conversation about the team’s future within minutes of the final buzzer.
Me? I spent most of today reeling in a hangover-like stupor, avoiding the keyboard to delay the inevitable: writing my last game recap of the season. And while I’m embarrassed to admit it, I should reveal something: I didn’t get to watch most of the game. I attended a friend’s wedding, and in my haste to get out the door I forgot to set the DVR. In a panic, I called a friend in time for him to record it for me, but knowing what I know now, I’m not excited to head over and watch my favorite team figuratively (and literally — poor C-Webb) get kicked in the nuts.
I did receive a couple of encouraging text messages from Natalie during the game, but by the time I was able to sneak away and find a TV to watch the final seven minutes of the fourth, the game was all but officially over. Maybe I’ll watch it in it’s entirety at some point, but at the moment, I can’t think of anything I’d like to see less right about now — well, aside from House of Payne, that is.
Before I tackle some of the big picture “what the hell do we do now?” questions banging around my head, I’m going to close with some final thoughts about the series and the game:
- Do the Cavs officially have the worst arena maintenance staff in the league or what? From crap falling from the ceiling earlier in the series to a 21-minute delay trying (and failing) to fix faulty 24-second clocks, heads should roll at the Q.
- Not only did the Cavs seem to want this more, I think the Cavs’ fans did, too. No offense to you, of course — you’re reading an NBA blog, you’re clearly among the hardest of the hard-core in Pistons fandom — but check out the scene outside the arena after the win:
Can you imaging that happening anywhere in metro Detroit had the Pistons advanced to the Finals? Maybe once upon a time, but not now. We’ve been spoiled by success, for sure. I want to crack a “way to act like you’ve been there” joke about Cleveland’s fans, but it wouldn’t make sense: this will be the first Finals appearance ever by the Cavs.
- Not only did Rasheed Wallace get himself tossed (video) from the most important game of the season, he would have been unavailable for the next most important game of the season had the Pistons pulled off an improbable comeback and forced a Game 7 — his two techs gave him seven for the postseason, enough to earn a one-game suspension. Jon Paul Morosi writes in the Detroit Free Press:
In case you’re wondering, Wallace won’t have to serve a one-game suspension for next year’s playoffs — that is, if the Pistons make the postseason.
Did anyone actually think Rasheed would be suspended for the first game of the 2008 playoffs? Of course not. Just like no one actually doubts if the Pistons will be back in the postseason next year. The real question is whether he will be suspended for the first game of the regular season. Too bad Morosi didn’t investigate that instead of simply working to set up a snide remark.
In any case, shame on Rasheed for bailing on his team. Yes, the whistles were frustrating, but his reaction was over the top, though sadly, a microcosm for his entire career.
- Nazr Mohammed in the first quarter? Really? If Flip Saunders is going to wait until an elimination game to get crazy with his rotation, why not do something really drastic and dress Amir Johnson? What did he really think Nazr would do?
- Jason Maxiell played one minute? Really? Either this guy has extremely poor practice sessions or Saunders can’t trust anyone younger than 29.
- Chauncey Billups: nine points, one assist. He was 3-7 from the field and 2-3 from the line. Five guys wearing Blue attempted more shots than he did. This couldn’t have been the way he wanted to end his season … and quite possibly, his tenure as a Piston.
- LeBron’s 19 free-throw attempts matched the output by Detroit’s entire starting lineup. As a team, the Cavs shot 46 free throws; Detroit, 27. This was the first time in the series the disparity was that bad, and perhaps not surprisingly, this was the first blowout in the series. Conspiracy theorists, rage on.
- Tayshaun Prince was 1-10 from the field, and 16-66 for the series. No need to bust out the abacus: that comes out to 24.2% for the series. Although … his worst games coincided with LeBron’s lowest scoring games. And despite his atrocious night from the field, he was “just” -3 on the night in the plus/minus column. You’d like him to contribute on both ends of the court, but unlike some guys, at least he (usually) did one or the other.
For a lot of you, I’m sure this might be the last time you think to visit this site until November. I hope that’s not the case, though, as this summer should be very interesting. Guys like Chauncey Billups, Chris Webber, Antonio McDyess, Dale Davis and Flip Murray are either free agents or have the option to become one. Who comes back? Will Flip Saunders be fired? Will another team make restricted free agent Amir Johnson an offer too rich for the Pistons to match?
Last year, the Pistons didn’t have a single first-round pick. This year, they have two in what is widely-regarded as the deepest NBA draft in years. They have a legitimate chance to pick up at least one immediate contributor to the rotation, if not two. Plus in July there’s the Vegas Summer League, where we’ll get a sneak peek at the draft picks as well as (hopefully) guys like Amir Johnson and Chieck Samb.
In many respects, losing on Saturday marked an end of an era for the Pistons, and this summer will determine whether they can re-build on the fly and remain among the league’s elite contenders or if they’ll slip a notch and play second-fiddle to the up-and-coming Cavs and Bulls for the next decade. I’ll be spouting off on all of these developments this summer, so bookmark the site now (or subscribe to the RSS feed) and check back often.
Cavs 98, Pistons 82 box score [ESPN]
GameFlow [PopcornMachine.net]
(Note to Cavs fans: you’re in the Finals, congrats. Now go find a Cleveland blog to celebrate at. If you’re confused why your snide comments aren’t appearing here, read the bottom of this post and realize that I’m going to have a hair trigger for the next few days.)
Look, I won’t lie. I’m not exactly throwing in the towel, but the Pistons haven’t done much to convince me that they can go on the road tonight against an opponent in their head and come out with a scheduled game on Monday. At this point, I’d consider “dignity intact” a lofty goal.
Yeah, I know. Not exactly Matt’s aforementioned “was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor” speech. Not the “once more unto the breach, dear friends” that Jazz fans or Warriors fans probably summoned in the face of their team’s dispatching. It is just much more fun being a fan of a team on the ascent, rather than one trying to muster one last ounce of fight. But for those of you who still need the glimmer, I’ll put it to you like this.
I love that speech.
Anyways, as I mentioned, I’m not in a ra-ra mood. But there is one thought that drives my fandom tonight. It isn’t the years that this team has had together and the potential breakup that could result from an embarrassing loss to a mediocre Cavs squad. It isn’t the potential discord between certain key (and, more importantly, untradeable) members and free-agent-could-be Chauncey Billups. It isn’t the fact that Flip Saunders will once again be proven a failure as a postseason coach. (It’s an effing trap off the pick and roll… how could you lose two games because of that?)
The thought that drives me, I’ll pretend you asked? Well, just think of the consequences of a loss tonight. Think about who stands to benefit from a loss tonight. Friends, I’m worried that Detroit is slipping below Cleveland on the sports loser scale. Seriously… think about it. The Tigs have proven themselves incapable of standing for the D (0-5 thus far against the Indians this season). Our beloved Wolverines… I don’t even want to talk about it. The Lions? How hard is it to be better than the Browns? Seriously…
But the Pistons. We’ve always been able to hang our hat on the Pistons. The balance of power is shifting dear friends. There is an angry, title-starved people on the banks of the Erie sludge pond, and they are rising up against us. They want what we have… mainly our consistently-slightly-better-than-mediocrity, and they won’t rest until our Pistons are on the slag heap.
Well, I say no. I say “Edgar Rentaria” on you. I say “Earnest Byner” on you. I say “Marcus Ray“, “Craig Ehlo“, and “John Cooper” upon you.
I say, “this is what happens when you ___ a stranger in the ___!” [WARNING: NSFW]
So it isn’t the perfect speech. Hell, I don’t even know if it’s applicable. But I’m in a weird place right now, and you should be too. Let’s get this b*tch over with, one way or the other. Game on.
[As always, leave your comments here.]
Any Given Sunday [YouTube.com]
Big Lebowski [YouTube.com]
To be honest, I’m actually more optimistic about Game 6 than I was when I penned my vomit post — the stakes are high for Cleveland, very high. And with any luck, there’s a chance they’ll start to believe the hype surrounding them and ease up. But in any case, I’m still not too happy to read things like this:
There were signs all game that the Pistons were battling themselves.
Webber, after firing up a bad shot and picking up his fourth foul, in the third quarter, yelled to the bench, apparently at assistant coach Ron Harper, “Just let me play my game. Let me play my game.”
Later, Billups and Hamilton appeared to have a brief discussion over who would shoot a technical foul free throw. Hamilton had made five straight at that point, Billups had missed two. Billups kept the ball and missed the free throw. Then, to compound the problem, he fired up a rushed 3-pointer.
Wallace was angry, apparently at coach Flip Saunders, for his decision to go small for a stretch against the Cavaliers. Saunders did that because Antonio McDyess had been ejected.
Between the third and fourth quarters, Wallace and assistant Dave Cowens engaged in a fairly animated discussion. Mostly Cowens was listening to Wallace’s complaints about the strategy.
Wallace later got peeved with Billups for a couple of his decisions.
Team harmony, this was not.
That was from Chris McCosky in the Detroit News, someone who has often tried to downplay any signs of locker room discord in the past. Incidentally, this report comes one game after this blog post by Cavs beat writer Brian Windhorst of the Akron Beacon-Journal:
Before I write this I’m telling you I don’t know if it is true, it is complete hearsay. That’s why it’s in a blog and not a story. But some PWK (people with knowledge) whispered to me tonight the Pistons are having some chemistry problems in the locker room right now. Again, I don’t know the team and I don’t know the locker room. I am just passing it on because it’s from a reliable source. It is interesting, though, that Wallace got a technical foul for yelling at his own teammate tonight.
Windhorst wrote that following Game 4, and although I saw it, I ignored it since it was completely unsubstantiated. Now, in the face of McCosky’s suggestions, it seems relevant.
HOWEVA, wanting to win is a common ground that everyone wearing a Pistons jersey stands on. As much as I hate how they’ve tortured their fans the last several years, these Pistons tend to find a way to bounce back when their backs are against the wall.
I refuse to believe that LeBron will torch Detroit for another 40-plus points, because I refuse to believe we’ll see a combination of Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Jason Maxiell — basically, anyone and everyone except Tayshaun Prince, guarding LBJ when the game is on the line. Even if you think Flip Saunders is an idiot, you have to figure even he can watch the tape and figure that out.
We can breath a (mini) sigh of relief:
The Pistons got some good news Friday when they learned that forward Antonio McDyess will not be suspended for his flagrant-2 foul on Anderson Varejao in Game 5.
As I pointed out on the FanHouse, McDyess will likely play a huge role in Game 6 given his fresh legs. He played just four minutes last night, while four of Detroit’s five starters played at least 46. (Spotted on Need4Sheed)
After losing Game 5 in double overtime 109-107, the Pistons are losers of three straight and five of their last eight. After accumulating 53 wins in the regular season and 10 so far in the postseason, they now sit on the brink of elimination. As fans, we spend so much time celebrating this team’s alleged greatness during the first six months of the season that we tend to forget how often they take us down this same path.
When I was a kid, I remember a trip to the zoo where I went to go see the apes. Most of the apes were fat and lazy and spent their time sunning themselves in the back of their cage far away from the gawking idiots with their flashing cameras and fanny packs and stupid little grins on their faces. But there was one ape sitting right up close in the corner hunched over with his head pressed up to the glass.
I walked up to the glass and stood less than 12 inches away from him, and I was mesmerized as he slowly and methodically vomited on the ground in front of him. When he was done, he proceeded to eat the vomit, only to heave it back up a few minutes later. He did this over and over and over again. Why I stood there and watched him for 20 minutes I’ll never know for sure, but I imagine it was part of God’s plan for me an analogy for how I feel right now.
Pistons fans, this team has been making us vomit for the entirety of their five-year run in the Eastern Conference Finals. Hell, it was barely a year ago that we were in the exact same situation as now: down 3-2 to the Cavs after winning the first two games. Back then, I penned this inspirational post, which I must admit is still one of my favorite posts I’ve ever put together in the history of this site. But while I want to triumphantly raise my first and proclaim, “We did it last year! We’ll do it again! If it ain’t rough, it ain’t right!” … I’m kind of getting sick of eating what I just threw up. (It’s an imperfect analogy, I admit — I’m not sure if we’re eating when they lose or when they dodge the bullet and close out the series — the point is that it’s a cruel cycle that makes me feel like hell and never seems to end.)
And besides, this is not last year. This is not last year! Last year, Detroit blew out the Cavs in the first two games, dominating them in a way reminiscent of how this year’s crew initially handled the Bulls last round. Detroit escaped Cleveland last year, but something happened to them … much like something happened to this year’s team after Chicago came back to win two and a half games. If you want to compare this year’s run to last year, then realize that we are no longer playing the Cavs, we are playing the Heat — and the Heat beat us in six games!
Can Detroit flip the script? I don’t have a clue anymore. When the Pistons lost Game 4, we said, “Daniel Gibson won’t score another 21 points in Game 5,” and “Drew Gooden won’t keep hitting so many clutch shots.” We said things like, “Eff this, let’s not lose because the supporting cast beat us. Let’s quit double-teaming LeBron and leaving everyone else open, let’s see what some ol’ fashion man-to-man defense can do.”
You know what it does? It lets a guy score 48 points, including every single point for the Cavs in two overtimes! Midway through the final quarter, LeBron took over the game, scoring 29 of his team’s final 30 points. On his winning bucket in double-OT, he beat Chauncey off the dribble and slid past every single player that dared pretend they’d slow him down. I firmly believe if the Pistons had their entire roster in the paint, Rick Mahorn and Bill Laimbeer on the blocks and Chieck Samb standing under the basket with both of his hands poking up through the bottom of the rim that LeBron James still would have scored that bucket!
Double-teaming him doesn’t work, man-to-man doesn’t work. There is no fair way to stop this man. After watching the play, my immediate reaction (after picking my jaw up off the floor holding back some tears) was that I wish someone had put him on the floor and made him earn it from the line. Not just a hard foul which might have resulted in a three-point play; no, I wanted somebody to hurt the guy. Yes, physically hurt him, go beyond the rules of the game and give him a bruise in two different places: on his face from where someone would shove the ball into his huge nose and on his ass from when he would fall out of orbit and back to earth. Needless to say, my head was in a bad place.
Upon further reflection, I admit that wouldn’t have been a smart play — and I came to that conclusion before even considering the notion of sportsmanship. Had someone done what I initially wanted him to do, it would have undoubtedly resulted in a Flagrant-2 ejection and suspension for Game 6. And considering there’s actually a chance that Antonio McDyess might be suspended for doing what every other person on the face of the earth wants to do to Anderson Varejao, I decided it wouldn’t be in Detroit’s best interest.
But I digress. There are some positives from this game, namely, LeBron didn’t score 60 and make the Pistons lose by 14. I mean, seriously. Cleveland had three guys foul out, recorded just 13 assists in 58 minutes of play and still came out ahead. Given the minutes everyone played, I’m not all that impressed by any of the numbers in Detroit’s box score. It was nice to see a balanced attack for much of the game, but I can’t get excited about Chauncey Billups scoring 21 points when it took him 53 minutes to do so. Chris Webber was a bit of a revelation, going 20 and 7 in 30 minutes, but it’s an awfully sad moral victory when you’re just happy about the fact your starting center proved he still has a pulse. If you want a good play-by-play, just read my live blog of the game over at the FanHouse — I’ve already written about every excruciating detail (including the occasional moments of joy when it looked like Chauncey had his mojo back) and I refuse to do it again.
Can the Pistons bounce back? Of course they can, I just don’t know if they will. At this point, I’m going say it’s a 50-50 shot that the Cavs win in six or the Pistons win in 7. If Detroit can go down to Cleveland and prove they can play their hearts out, I don’t see them losing another heartbreaker at the Palace in Game 7. But I honestly don’t know if this team has that extra gear anymore. Everyone likes to pin their failings on a lack of focus, but if you watched, you can see they were trying. And consider this: four of Detroit’s starters played at least 46 minutes, whereas only one of Cleveland’s players played more than 42 minutes. Oh how I wish there were three days between games now instead of earlier in the series.
Besides, it’s not just a matter of Detroit suddenly regaining their focus and playing their hearts out, it’s a combination of game-planning, making adjustments on the fly (for instance, when a guy scores 20 straight, do something not to let him score 25 straight …), execution and poise. Right now, the Pistons are 0-4 in that regard for the series, and they’re just damn lucky they eeked out a couple of wins in the first two games to give them the margin of error they’re now decided to test the limits of.
So yeah, go ahead and partake in the whole “If it ain’t rough” rah rah rah yet again if you like, but I’m taking a step back. I believe in this team, but I also know this team. And for the first time since George Irvine was coach, I’m actually scared that getting out of this series is now longer solely about the Pistons “doing what they need to do.”
No, for the Pistons to get out of this series, they need Cleveland to choke. They need LeBron to realize he’s only 22 years old and that there will be plenty of other opportunities to reach the NBA Finals at some other point in the future. Or they need a big chunk of whatever was falling from the roof in Cleveland’s arena in Game 4 to land on LeBron’s foot. Or they need hoardes of Darfur-ian children who are missing multiple limbs due to machete wounds to show up and sit courtside to get into LeBron’s head.
They need … McDyess to be suspended, forcing Flip Saunders to put Amir Johnson on the active roster, setting the stage for Amir to have his “Tayshaun Prince circa 2003″ moment where he breaks out and averages 20 and 10 over the next six, yes six (!), playoff games.
It could happen, right? Right?
Cavaliers 109, Pistons 107 box score [ESPN]
GameFlow [PopcornMachine.net]
DBB: Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
DBB: Can the Pistons avoid the K.O.?
Let’s face it, if the Pistons lose tonight, the series is might as well be over. There’s not much else than can be said. I still think they can close this series out in six, but they’ll have to show a lot more than what we’ve seen the last couple of weeks.
I’m live-blogging the game over at the FanHouse, so feel free to leave your thoughts over there or right here in these comments.
Late in Game 4, the Cavs put LeBron James on Chauncey Billups. It was an odd matchup, and one I intended to discuss but forgot to mention. Fortunately, Brian from MGoBlog picked up the slack:
Freed of the presence of Larry Hughes’ stifling defense, Billups dominated the first half against a gimpy Hughes, undersized Daniel Gibson, and, well, Damon Jones. But in the second half — and this is something that went completely unremarked on by the announcers in an uncharacteristic oversight by a normally crack TNT crew (with the notable exception of horrible Doug Collins; see below) — the Cavs switched Lebron James on Billups and Billups disappeared. What’s worse, he didn’t even probe a matchup against a six-eight small forward. The one time he did he got the defense to collapse and got a teammate an open look. The rest of the game, though, he avoided making even the slightest move towards the basket. The aggression of the first half drained.
The thing that makes Cleveland a dangerous team now and in the future is that ability. As James was confusing Billups into thinking “there is a 6′8″ guy on me, there must be a mismatch somewhere on the floor,” similarly 6′8″ Sasha Pavlovic was on Prince, the posts were handling posts, and whoever the point guard was at the moment, probably Gibson, was running around with Rip Hamilton. When Hughes is healthy, the team Cleveland fields is freaking huge. They’re a defensive nightmare, as both this series and last year’s seven game adventure demonstrate ably
I couldn’t agree more. For all the talk about the Pistons just needing to regain their focus and play harder, there is absolutely something to be said about Cleveland posing a huge — and unique — matchup problem. This wasn’t an issue at all earlier in the playoffs: Chauncey Billups dominated the Smurf-ish Jameer Nelson in the first round, and neither Kirk Hinrich or Ben Gordon are taller than 6-3.
I doubt the Cavs will put LeBron on Chauncey for very long in Game 5 — I’m guessing that was just Mike Brown throwing a curveball to disrupt the Pistons’ rhythm — but if it happens Chauncey needs to figure out how to take advantage.
Update: Although they don’t address the “LeBron on Chauncey” matchup, the guys at The Ghosts of Wayne Fontes hit the nail on the head for some other keys to turning things around.
Pistons rookie Will Blalock didn’t need this kind of exposure. TNT and ESPN viewers across the country saw Blalock get hit in the face with Wallace’s sweaty jersey in the aftermath of Game 4. “That was bad, man,” Blalock said. “He’s going to give me some money for putting me on TV.”
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