Detroit Free Press

They lost at home. They won on the road.They blew out the 76ers. They got blown out by the 76ers. Tonight, the ...

Break your nose. Right now. Go on. Break it. Then fly 500 miles and have it reset. Surgically, by the way. None of that cup-your-hands-and-snap-it-back stuff, OK? Now come out of anesthesia, get on a plane and fly 500 miles back.You with me so far? Good. Now comes the hard part. Put on a plastic mask, tie it around your head and go out to play an NBA playoff game.Now the really hard part.Watch your team stink up the joint.

The first hit that made any noise didn't come until five minutes in, and two of the loudest cheers came off the scoreboard: One when they ran a replay of Darren McCarty pummeling Claude Lemiuex back in 1997; the other when they showed Al Sobotka taking the octopus he'd been told not to swing on the ice and swinging it in the tunnel instead.

Don't call it college. It's not college if you don't even declare a major. It's not college if you needn't bother finishing your second semester. It's not college if you spent most of your time in the gym, or on a plane, or being interviewed. It's not college just because you wore a uniform with the school's name on it.We are hearing lately about all these freshman basketball stars - Kevin Love of UCLA, O.J. Mayo of Southern Cal, Derrick Rose of Memphis, Michael Beasley of Kansas State - leaving college to jump to the NBA. Leaving college? Please. They were never really there.

"We're gonna … get back to playing the way we're supposed to, or we'll get our butts kicked by a young, hungry team."- Lindsey Hunter, after the Pistons' 90-86 loss in their playoff openerSo here, in the final minute, was Jason Maxiell, stretched high as if on a rack. Remember, if Maxiell were a tube of toothpaste, he'd be squeezed from the bottom and all balled up near the top. Thick chested, broad shouldered, he is a mountain of a torso, and mountains are damn hard to move.