Pistons turn serious
The rambunctious spirit so often a part of the Detroit Pistons’ practices took a day off Thursday, as a more serious-minded team dealt with its suddenly serious situation.
There were no high-energy, 3-on-3 sessions. No Rasheed Wallace pelting teammates with good-natured verbal abuse. No spontaneous jokes.
Right now, there’s not much to laugh or smile about.
Tonight, the Pistons must go into Cleveland, where the Cavaliers have been hard to beat and the noise has been deafening, and win Game 6 of their Eastern Conference semifinal.
Down, 3-2, in the best-of-7 series, it’s win or go home, and the team’s quiet intensity reflected that.
“It’s almost like maybe in a fight where you don’t expect to get knocked down,” Pistons coach Flip Saunders said, “and when you get knocked down, you’re a little bit groggy when you get up.”
The players held a players-only meeting, the first one they’ve needed all season. Chauncey Billups said he and fellow captain Ben Wallace spoke their minds about what has gone wrong in the three straight losses – losses that have put them on the brink of elimination.
There must have been plenty to discuss. Suddenly, things that seemed written in stone all season now stand on shaky ground. No one expected the Pistons to lose three straight to Cleveland, especially the way they’ve lost them.
After leading the playoffs in scoring through the first six games, the Pistons have fallen to ninth. Stranger still, they’ve become a high-turnover, low-assist team after having the league’s best ratio all season.
They haven’t looked like a team hungry for a championship in most of the past three games. Saunders thought the team gave good energy in Wednesday’s fourth quarter but not in the first three.
The players don’t think a lack of hunger is their problem. They say wanting the championship so badly – and perhaps expecting things to come easier than they have – has made the loosest team in the NBA play tight and worried.
“I don’t think we’ve ever questioned our hunger,” Saunders said. “There’s no question that losses are wake-up calls. They’re always humbling to you when you expect that you’re going to accomplish something. But I think all teams that go on to win championships go through similar situations.”
Dallas guard Terry suspended
The Mavericks-Spurs series took another wild turn, with Dallas guard Jason Terry getting suspended from Game 6 for punching former teammate Michael Finley while chasing a loose ball in the closing seconds of Game 5.
Terry and Finley jostled with 3.4 seconds left in San Antonio’s 98-97 victory Wednesday night. Terry wound up on his back, grasping the ball, with Spurs forward Manu Ginobili forcing a jump ball by getting a hand on it, too.
While officials were sorting things out, Finley was visibly angry and had to be restrained by teammates.