SAN ANTONIO - They were taking Richard Hamilton to the interview area, and because the Pistons' locker room was on the other side of the arena, the walk was long and he had to look at everything. This is what he passed. He passed a huge open area with tables full of Spurs fans. He passed a group of Frenchmen, soaked with champagne, cheering Tony Parker. He passed Spanish-speaking journalists, emerging from the steamy San Antonio locker room, gushing over Manu Ginobili. He passed a curtained area where Spurs VIPs posed for photos with a giant golden trophy.
Novelists say when they start a new book that they often have several endings in mind. But at some point they choose one and throw out the others. No more "maybe this happens, maybe that." They find their North Star and sail toward it defiantly.Same goes for the Pistons, on this morning of the last day of the last game of the year. All other endings have been thrown out now. All other possibilities -- early exits, unexpected collapses -- are crumpled in the trash can. There is one page -- and one page only -- that completes the book of Detroit's operatic season.Win it.
SAN ANTONIO - They took every stone the devil could throw, and they caught the last one and threw it back in his face. It took history. It took belief. It took desperation in every dribble. But mostly it took hope, and with every Pistons achievement - every Rip Hamilton jumper, every Rasheed Wallace put-back, every Ben Wallace block, every Chauncey Billups three-pointer - there was hope. They were supposed to die, because that's what teams do when faced with silly odds. But here they were at the end, heading off the floor with one more game to play.Dead men walking.
You don't leave him alone. You never leave him alone. But there he was, alone, at his favorite killer spot, the three-point line, Rasheed Wallace had gotten snookered, and by the time Tayshaun Prince went charging toward the killer, like a man trying to save a dog from a speeding bus, it was too late. The killer lined it up. The killer got it in his sights. The killer fired. The killer hit.
Thursday was some night for Lindsey Hunter at the Palace. He was draining baskets from the corner, from the key, down the lane, off the glass. He was dishing assists and shaking defenders, stepping up past flying bodies and firing away. He had a team-high 17 points, and his younger teammates spurred him on, slapping each other the way kids do when they see their father take the joystick on a video game."Old man, you still got it," Richard Hamilton told him.
This was the moment that said it all: Tayshaun Prince, holding the ball, alone on the wing with Manu Ginobili, the early god of these NBA Finals. And Ginobili stuck a big, old Argentinean hand in front of Tayshaun's eyes. Block his vision? That schoolyard trick? Tayshaun shook his head, then shook his shoulders, then shook his torso and his feet - Elvis getting ready to rock - and then he shook off Ginobili as surely as a Labrador shakes off a bath. Whoosh. He blew right past him for a two-handed slam.
Behind every good man, there's a woman counting his rebounds. And Chanda Wallace didn't like the numbers. She doesn't, as a rule, give a lot of basketball advice (I guess if your husband, Ben, is the NBA's defensive player of the year, how much is needed?), but she knows her man. She knows the signs. And as any wife will tell you, one of those signs "is when he doesn't get 10 rebounds. That's when I get concerned."So Chanda sat Ben down after the first game of these NBA Finals against the Spurs, in which the Pistons were beaten soundly.
In basketball, somewhere between heaven and hell lies heart. The Pistons wore their hearts on their bare, muscled arms Tuesday night, and, as a result, they are a bit farther from the warm spot this morning. They began like a cornered animal, they ended like a runaway lion. Call it ferocity, call it focus. Or call it fate. Because when Stevie Wonder does the national anthem, does Detroit have any choice but to win?They just called to say it's not over.
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.
