Blue-collar champs

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Utterly expressionless, Larry Brown walked down the sideline until he met a smiling Phil Jackson at midcourt.

One hearty handshake and a pat on the back later, Brown allowed himself a grin. After 21 years as an NBA coach, the championship that had eluded him had been earned — decisively.

Without a superstar and without being given much of a chance, the Detroit Pistons humiliated the mighty Los Angeles Lakers 100-87 Tuesday night in Game 5 of the NBA Finals for their first title in 14 years.

Motown can now be called Titletown, the descendants of the Bad Boys making sure of it with a stunning upset that was really no contest at all.

“Since this is toward the end of it for me, and the way we did it against such a quality coach and a quality team, it’s a pretty incredible feeling,” the 63-year-old Brown said.

With finals MVP Chauncey Billups and Ben Wallace leading the way, Detroit was at its very best in the clincher, defeating Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant and the rest of the Lakers in every facet of the game. It was methodical — and shocking — the way the Pistons shut down the Lakers with their stingy defense and pulled ahead and away for one of the biggest surprises in NBA Finals history.

“We’re on top of the world, man,” Billups said.

As the final buzzer sounded and confetti began falling, Ben Wallace almost lifted 81-year-old team owner Bill Davidson — whose Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup last week — off the ground with a hug.

O’Neal gave a few high-fives to Detroit fans on his way up the tunnel, while the sidelined Karl Malone never gazed up as he left. Bryant waited near midcourt and also gave Brown a hug.

Wallace walked off palming the Larry O’Brien championship trophy, and Brown had to navigate through dozens of handshakes to make his way back to the locker room.

For Jackson, the defeat marked perhaps his last game with the Lakers.

“It didn’t come out quite as well as it did in the past,” he said. “It was a Cinderella story actually that this team had, but Detroit proved to be a little better than we were in this series.”

Wallace took a big step toward becoming a superstar with an 18-point, 22-rebound effort that helped Detroit become the first Eastern Conference team to win the title since the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls in 1998. Equally important was 14 points from Billups, the best guard on the floor throughout the series, 21 from Richard Hamilton and 17 from Tayshaun Prince.

“We just took it to ‘em,” Prince said. “We knew we could play with anybody in this league and I think we showed it.”

Bryant scored 24 points to lead the Lakers, and O’Neal added 20 points and eight rebounds for a team that was built to win a fourth championship in five years with the additions of Malone and Gary Payton. In the end, they simply couldn’t defeat a better team.

“Congratulations to those guys,” O’Neal said. “They deserved it. They flat-out beat us.”

Game 5 was so lopsided that Lakers owner Jerry Buss, carrying his jacket and accompanied by his entourage, headed for the exit before the third quarter was over. By the time the last timeout rolled around, fans were already being urged to keep their celebrations under control.

After the game, Jackson said the chances of him returning to coach the Lakers were “pretty slim.”

Many of the other Lakers, including Bryant, could be gone to other teams as free agents. Bryant also faces the possibility of prison time if he loses his sexual assault case in Colorado.

“Maybe losing this one is enough for me to say it’s time to give it up,” said Jackson, who has won nine titles as a coach with Los Angeles and Chicago, “but I’m not yet ready to make that statement.”

O’Neal said he was expecting “a funny summer.”

“Everyone is going to take care of their own business and everyone is going to do what’s best for them, including me,” he said.

Many fans at The Palace stood through the final several minutes of the game, savoring every moment they had waited for since the Pistons’ Bad Boys of 1989 and ‘90 won back-to-back titles.

What the Pistons lacked in star power they made up for in cohesiveness and determination — two factors that Detroit displayed in abundance throughout the finals while executing their coach’s mantra to “play the right way.”

For Billups, a castoff in five NBA cities before he landed in Detroit, that meant taking advantage of his mismatch against Payton and making the key baskets that demoralized the Lakers throughout the series.

For Rasheed Wallace, it meant keeping relatively quiet when the officials whistled him for fouls and his coach sat him on the bench for extended periods because of foul trouble.

For Prince, it meant keeping one of his long arms in Bryant’s face whenever possible and justifying the faith team architect Joe Dumars showed in him a year ago when he passed on Carmelo Anthony with the second pick in the draft.

For Ben Wallace, it was about pounding the boards relentlessly and showing a level of effort O’Neal could only envy. For Hamilton, it was proving how big of a mistake Jordan made two years ago when he dealt him from Washington in exchange for Jerry Stackhouse.

And collectively for the Pistons, it was about not being afraid as previous Eastern Conference opponents had been when taking on the big, bad Lakers.