The reason you want to move the ball around in basketball - what the Pistons desperately wanted to do Thursday - is that most of the time, it ends up in the right hands. Even if it's not the hands you think.Ben Wallace has been chided for his hands in the past - too small, they say, for a guy his size - but his hands were hot for most of Game 2. And we're not just talking blocks and rebounds, his normal specialties.We're talking lay-ups. We're talking finger rolls. We're talking bounce passes.Bounce passes?
MIAMI -- Oh, so that's Dwyane Wade. That's the guy we've been hearing about up north the way we hear about tropical storms or hurricane damage. And just like those things, you really can't appreciate the power until you're in the middle of it.Suffice it to say, the Pistons are now wet. And a few of their windows have been blown out as well.
And after all that, after the crazy second quarter, the crazy third quarter, the emergence of a bench star, the circus shot by Rasheed Wallace for the lead, after all that, here we were again, LeBron James out top, with a decision to make, the game in his hands.And here he came, down the lane.In Game 1 at the Palace, he dished the ball to Donyell Marshall, who missed a three-pointer, and a rainstorm of criticism came down on LeBron's head. Why'd you pass? You're the best in the league - shoot it!
The Miami Heat without Shaq and Wade is like an Italian restaurant without pasta and meat. Which is how you knew the Pistons were in trouble Tuesday night. Several times, with those big threats off the menu, the Pistons fell behind to the bread and veggies of Miami's roster.And you're not going to win that way.One down. Down one."Everybody contributed," said Heat coach Pat Riley, after a 91-86 Game 1 victory in the Eastern Conference finals.And that, for the Pistons, was the problem
BOSTON - It might not be the old Garden, with the rats and the bad air and the leprechauns, but this new Garden has been magical to the Boston Celtics. Now that magic is gone. Whatever role the parquet floor played in the 2008 playoffs - allowing the Celtics to go a perfect 9-0 - was smashed Thursday night by the only team these days that seems unaffected by geography, or anything else for that matter.Beat the House. The Pistons had to do it at some point if they wanted to win these Eastern Conference finals, and they did it in Game 2 the old-fashioned way: They tried harder.
BOSTON - It may not be the old Garden, with the rats and the bad air and the stifling summer heat, but this new Garden has been magical to this year's Boston Celtics. And now that magic is done. Whatever role the parquet floor played in the 2008 playoffs - allowing the Celtics to go a perfect 9-0 - was smashed Thursday night by the only team these days that seems unaffected by geography, or anything else for that matter.Beat the House.The Pistons had to do it at some point if they wanted to win the series, and they did it in Game 2 the old fashioned way: They tried harder.
ANAHEIM, Calif. - The Ducks were down a man and still scored. They had a power play coming and scored without needing it. Dominik Hasek came out unusually high; the puck dribbled through him. Hasek sprawled flat; three pucks went behind him. Like dripping ice, like descending smog, there was karma all over the building Tuesday night - and still the Red Wings almost shook it off, they fought to the choking finish. But in the end, it was covered in feathers and it spoke with a beak. And by the time the sun set here in the West, it had already gone down on Detroit.
BOSTON - Twenty years ago, I took a walk with Joe Dumars through the streets of Boson's North End, an Italian neighborhood not far from the highway overpasses, small restaurants, row houses, residents sitting outside on chairs or leaning from their windows. The Pistons still were trying to win their first title, and we did an interview while walking the streets."DUUUMAHS!" some guy yelled out the window, "YAH GONNA LOSE!" and Joe shyly smiled. He was a young shooting guard, I was a young sportswriter. It was a warm day, and everything felt fresh and ahead of us.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
