AHEAD OF THE PACE
It was tight and tense and there was an exhausted, sweaty feeling that whoever scored the next basket would emerge with a victory.Unfortunately, this was the first quarter.After an opening stretch only their mothers could love — and I believe even some of them...
IDENTITY CRISIS ASIDE, BILLUPS MUST SCORE
Chauncey Billups pulled on his shirt, all alone, and marveled at the crowd of reporters waiting around an empty locker.”All of you waiting on Rasheed, huh?” he said, smiling. “Man, oh man.”He buttoned his buttons and headed for the door. The...
Pistons Rescue Rasheed
INDIANAPOLIS — Hey, all he said was they would win. He didn’t say he was going make it happen. Just because Rasheed Wallace missed his first shot, his second, third and fourth shots, his fifth and sixth shots, made his seventh, then missed his eighth and ninth, then threw up an air ball with his 10th, hey, that doesn’t mean he was wrong, does it?
FROOT LOOPS, PANCAKES AND CAVIAR OMELETS?
This morning, I will do something I always swear I will never do again: eat brunch in New York.What’s that? Why? Sorry. I can’t hear you. I’m in the back of a line that spills down Columbus Avenue. This is the line for people who have reservations....
An Awkward Reunion In Indy
A few weeks ago, Rick Carlisle was in the delivery room, witnessing the birth of his first child. The doctor liked to hear music while he worked, and the song playing as the baby girl emerged was “Rocket Man” by Elton John, which includes the line, “It’s lonely out in space.”
Bring On The Pacers!
Ben Wallace wore his hair in the Afro, and when a man’s hair rises, can the man do any less? So Wallace stood up Thursday night, nearly taking the game over, and Rasheed Wallace, bad foot and all, stood up, too, and Rip Hamilton stood up and Chauncey Billups stood up. They all stood up and stared into the snarling dragon of this Game 7, then they dropped baskets down its throat until it choked.
AT PICKING THIS ONE, I’M JIMMY THE GEEK
Today, I am the oddsmaker. Today, I establish the line. Today, I smoke a cigar and wear dark glasses and sit in the back room preparing to hang my magic number on the big board in Las Vegas. My assignment: Pistons-Nets, Game 7, tonight.Did I mention this was my first...
RIP EXCELS AT A JOB NOBODY ELSE WANTED
It is a story you don’t hear enough in sports. Pistons guard Richard Hamilton, who is dazzling people in these NBA playoffs, got that good by realizing, one day, that he wasn’t that good.He was a teenager, attending one of those showcase camps for high...
Not Quitting Time: Pistons Force Game 7
MITCH ALBOMEAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The final buzzer sounded, and the Pistons hugged in the eerie silence of a disappointed crowd. Or maybe it wasn’t hugging. Maybe, after what they had done — enduring those swelling and dwindling leads, snaring an exhausting victory, saving themselves from the fires of elimination — maybe they were just holding each other up.
“If there was ever a doubt about this team’s heart,” Joe Dumars, the Pistons’ president, said when this was over, “they answered it tonight. They never gave up.”
Dumars looked tired. And he didn’t even play.
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