State of the Pistons Address (May 29)
The offense is as putrid as it has looked all season long. The players look disinterested. And their opponents are white hot. Yet the most influential factor that has the Detroit Pistons down 3-1 to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals may be a decision Joe Dumars made three years ago.
Without question, the most impressive player in the series has been third-year superstar Dwyane Wade.
The Pistons had the second pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, and Dumars decided to opt for Darko Milicic, an unproven teenager from Europe. Meanwhile, the Heat drafted Wade with their pick at No. 5, and ever since, he’s been mesmerizing the basketball world.
In Monday night’s 89-78 victory over the Pistons, Wade led the heat with 31 points on just 8-of-11 shooting from the field. Twelve of those points came in the fourth quarter, when Wade became the spitting image of another phenom who wore No. 23 in Chicago for years throughout the 80s and 90s.
His first field goal of the quarter made him look like a high-flying acrobat. Wade split two Detroit defenders at the top of the zone and dribbled diagonally through the lane. Eight feet from the basket, he leapt into the air and ran into Antonio McDyess. After the collision, Wade began toppling toward the floor. Just before impact, he flipped the ball over his right shoulder and it spun off the backboard and through the net. The arena erupted, and the three-point play put the Heat up 65-61.
“He didn’t have a lot of open looks,” Pistons coach Flip Saunders said, which made Wade's performance all the more impressive. The Pistons were draped on him for 48 minutes, and he still managed to put the ball in the hole.
“You play good defense for 22 seconds, then he makes an unbelievable play,” Saunders said. “It’s demoralizing.”
Even more demoralizing is the what-could-have-been images that come to mind – thanks to the 20/20 beauty of hindsight – when one thinks about Wade in a Pistons red, white and blue uniform. Chances are, he wouldn’t be as confident a player, as sensational a player, as he is now simply because he would not have had the playing time and the green light he’s had in Miami.
Still, if Wade were on the Pistons, he wouldn’t be on the Heat, and they’d have to win with Shaquille O’Neal and little else.
But he’s not. He’s wearing No. 3 on South Beach, and unless the Pistons can find a way to stifle his hotness – or at the very least outscore him – they’ll be spectators for the NBA Finals for the first time in three years.
So how will it happen? How will the Pistons recapture the Eastern Conference crown they’ve had a stranglehold on for two seasons?
It starts with the offense. While the Heat have outplayed the Pistons on both ends of the floor this series and Wade continues to drop jaws, it’s glaringly obvious that Detroit’s low scoring output is losing the team ballgames.
Its ball movement is stagnant. Its scoring is way down from the heights it reached in the regular season. Yet its defense is basically the same.
In the postseason, the Pistons have allowed 89 points per game; in the regular season, they gave up 90.
In 82 games offensively, they averaged nearly 97 points a game. Since the Playoffs began, that number has dipped to 92 per game. Since the second game of the Cavs series, it’s been even lower.
Monday, though, they showed hints of improvement. To start the second half, Chauncey Billups hit three straight shots and Rasheed Wallace got his shot going a little bit, but foul trouble forced both players to sit for a chunk of the half, and the rhythm they had built could not sustain.
If they can harness the energy they had to start the half, they’ll give themselves a much better shot to keep the series going. So will fewer fouls.
“We gotta win one game, and then we can focus in on the next one,” Chauncey Billups said.
While it is the ultimate cliché – one game at a time – it is the focus the Pistons need to carry into Wednesday night’s Game 5. One game can rejuvenate this team. One game can get the ball moving more consistently. One game can throw off Wade.
And for the Pistons – a team so accustomed to overcoming deficits and playing well with their backs against the wall – that game must be Wednesday.
If not, it’s summertime, and Wade will take one step closer to cementing himself as the Heirness.
Without question, the most impressive player in the series has been third-year superstar Dwyane Wade.
The Pistons had the second pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, and Dumars decided to opt for Darko Milicic, an unproven teenager from Europe. Meanwhile, the Heat drafted Wade with their pick at No. 5, and ever since, he’s been mesmerizing the basketball world.
In Monday night’s 89-78 victory over the Pistons, Wade led the heat with 31 points on just 8-of-11 shooting from the field. Twelve of those points came in the fourth quarter, when Wade became the spitting image of another phenom who wore No. 23 in Chicago for years throughout the 80s and 90s.
His first field goal of the quarter made him look like a high-flying acrobat. Wade split two Detroit defenders at the top of the zone and dribbled diagonally through the lane. Eight feet from the basket, he leapt into the air and ran into Antonio McDyess. After the collision, Wade began toppling toward the floor. Just before impact, he flipped the ball over his right shoulder and it spun off the backboard and through the net. The arena erupted, and the three-point play put the Heat up 65-61.
“He didn’t have a lot of open looks,” Pistons coach Flip Saunders said, which made Wade's performance all the more impressive. The Pistons were draped on him for 48 minutes, and he still managed to put the ball in the hole.
“You play good defense for 22 seconds, then he makes an unbelievable play,” Saunders said. “It’s demoralizing.”
Even more demoralizing is the what-could-have-been images that come to mind – thanks to the 20/20 beauty of hindsight – when one thinks about Wade in a Pistons red, white and blue uniform. Chances are, he wouldn’t be as confident a player, as sensational a player, as he is now simply because he would not have had the playing time and the green light he’s had in Miami.
Still, if Wade were on the Pistons, he wouldn’t be on the Heat, and they’d have to win with Shaquille O’Neal and little else.
But he’s not. He’s wearing No. 3 on South Beach, and unless the Pistons can find a way to stifle his hotness – or at the very least outscore him – they’ll be spectators for the NBA Finals for the first time in three years.
So how will it happen? How will the Pistons recapture the Eastern Conference crown they’ve had a stranglehold on for two seasons?
It starts with the offense. While the Heat have outplayed the Pistons on both ends of the floor this series and Wade continues to drop jaws, it’s glaringly obvious that Detroit’s low scoring output is losing the team ballgames.
Its ball movement is stagnant. Its scoring is way down from the heights it reached in the regular season. Yet its defense is basically the same.
In the postseason, the Pistons have allowed 89 points per game; in the regular season, they gave up 90.
In 82 games offensively, they averaged nearly 97 points a game. Since the Playoffs began, that number has dipped to 92 per game. Since the second game of the Cavs series, it’s been even lower.
Monday, though, they showed hints of improvement. To start the second half, Chauncey Billups hit three straight shots and Rasheed Wallace got his shot going a little bit, but foul trouble forced both players to sit for a chunk of the half, and the rhythm they had built could not sustain.
If they can harness the energy they had to start the half, they’ll give themselves a much better shot to keep the series going. So will fewer fouls.
“We gotta win one game, and then we can focus in on the next one,” Chauncey Billups said.
While it is the ultimate cliché – one game at a time – it is the focus the Pistons need to carry into Wednesday night’s Game 5. One game can rejuvenate this team. One game can get the ball moving more consistently. One game can throw off Wade.
And for the Pistons – a team so accustomed to overcoming deficits and playing well with their backs against the wall – that game must be Wednesday.
If not, it’s summertime, and Wade will take one step closer to cementing himself as the Heirness.
posted by RGarfield @ 11:09 PM
1 Comments:
At 10:24 PM ,
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