SAN ANTONIO - I wannu be Manu.I wannu have his flopping, sweaty hair. I wannu have his mile-wide smile. I wannu enter a news conference after taking over an NBA Finals game and begin by answering a question in Spanish. I wannu be bilingual. I wannu be international. I wannu be large in two Americas, North and South.I wannu be Manu.
SAN ANTONIO - At one point Thursday night, Rasheed Wallace fired a shot over Tim Duncan and the ball just stopped. It literally stopped. It quit. It halted. It punched its own clock. OK, it was wedged between the rim and the backboard. Then again, it might have done that in protest. You could almost hear it say, "I'm stopping here and I'm staying here until you guys play some offense. I'm sick of getting poked around all night."
OK, we get it. It's Detroit against the world. It wasn't enough that in the Heat series, it was Detroit against South Beach. Or in the Lakers series last year, it was Detroit against Hollywood. No, now the stakes are higher. Now it's the 2005 NBA Finals. So the basketball gods sent the good people of Detroit the entire planet as an opponent, wrapped in the black-and-white uniforms of the San Antonio Spurs.
Monday afternoon in Miami, a few hours before Game 7, a story began circulating about several Pistons players and, of all things, their late-night partying. According to the Miami Herald, a TV reporter and a cameraman were tipped off that Chauncey Billups, Tayshaun Prince and Antonio McDyess had arrived at a South Beach nightclub at 2 a.m. Two a.m.! Before Game 7! Can you imagine!
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.
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.
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.
