Detroit Free Press

The nephew asked the uncle if he would come to his high school graduation. The uncle said sure. It was far away. Another country. But the nephew and the uncle always had been close. In fact, the nephew looked so much like the uncle, it astonished people. They used to mug in front of the mirror, the two of them, making the same face, the same squint, the same grin. It was like looking at old and young versions of the same face."He's really not my son," the uncle laughingly would tell people of his sister's child. "Believe me, that's not possible."

MIAMI - It was the final minutes of the final game and he was playing without his headband and with five fouls and with the ugly roar of boos and hate raining down on anything good he did for his team. So what did Rasheed Wallace do? He did more of it. He hit two free throws to put the Pistons ahead by one. He went after a loose ball and helped knocked it off a Miami player. He followed a Tayshaun Prince miss and banked it in, giving the Pistons a three-point lead with less than a minute to go. He helped tie up Dwyane Wade to force a jump ball.

"Obviously, the Euros knew it and the Canadians had no idea what we were singing. It was something about winning and being champions."KRIS DRAPER, on the song the Wings sung in the locker room PITTSBURGH -"Hey," Kris Draper yelled, "is the Cup down there?""Yep," came the answer. "In the middle of the room."Draper, surrounded by his family, put an arm on one of his children."Let's go."

PITTSBURGH - One last bullet came flying at Chris Osgood. It had kill all over it. He stopped it with his glove, pushed it away with his stick, and as the blue light swirled to mark the end of the game, he was flat on the ice. But not for long. The Red Wings were coming home. The Stanley Cup was coming with them. As they say in fairy tales, "All's Well That Ends Red."Well, in Detroit fairy tales.

I am the voice inside your head today, Ben Wallace. Sorry for keeping you up all night. But let's be honest, you weren't getting much sleep, anyhow. It's time for Game 7, the end of this Detroit-Miami series, maybe the end of your season. And waking you up is what this is all about.Ben, it is time for you to be as proud as you should be - and to play that way. It is time for you to stop shaking your head, stop staring off in wounded pride. It is time for you to dish out some of what you've been taking from Shaquille O'Neal.

So he woke up the morning after one of the toughest, longest playoff losses in Red Wings history, and he drove his daughter to school. On the way she said her knees were bruised from the game, because she kept jumping up and down and banging her legs into the seats in front of her. When they reached the high school, "she gave me a kiss," he says, "and she said, ‘Good luck, Dad' "And off she went. And off he went.

MIAMI -- Tayshaun Prince was mopping his face with a small hand towel. He patted his forehead. He wiped around his nose. He looked like a skinny man with a cold, or at least one who couldn't stop sweating. This was in the emptying hallways of American Airlines Arena, a full hour after Game 2 had ended Wednesday night, but Prince still seemed to be wafting in the steam of his opponent, Dwyane Wade.