I know I'm a Heat homer, but the refs were doing their hardest to keep Detroit in the game. That first half should've been a blowout.
The Pistons just shot themselves out the of the game. Still believe that Dallas is gonna win the title this year.
I think Miami has the tools to beat dallas. Dallas hasn't seen a very powerful guard like wade in the playoffs. Duncan showed how weak the interior of Dallas is and Wade will be able to overpower the dallas guards unlike manu and parker could. Manu and parker tried to beat them with speed but josh howard and stackhouse are going to know what it feels like to be overpowered the way they usually overpower and speed past their defenders. Dallas though can hurt miami in transition which Miami does a poor job of defending. Terry will be the key again and I expect jason williams may not be playing as much as some of the other guards in that series as he may too much of a liability against terry. Payton isn't much faster though but is a stronger defender. Not what he used to be but still capable. It will be interesting to see what they do with dirk though. Walker is a decent defender but he may matchup better than bowen or even manu which they used a lot in the SA series and that killed them. If not walker then you'll see Posey on there. Miami will be able to force Dallas to play their style whereas SA was forced to play Dallas smallball game primarily because of Dirk's prescence at the 4 position. But after all of that we still got the current series at hand. Detroit isn't out of it yet. If they get their discipline back they will make this a long series with Miami.
I don't think they are a great team, but Wade is a great player and shell of a Shaq is still one of the major forces in the league. If it comes down to which team has the best two guys to make plays in the half court, Miami beats anyone. Detroit has shown major vulnearability to the quick + long or strong penetrating swingmen of the league (Lebron, Wade and Manu's) the last 2 years in the playoffs.
One down 3 to go, Shaqs trip to the finals is almost here. Its a good thing too its been almost 2 years. But will I ever get to see Shaq vs Duncan in Finals.
Wade was in foul trouble, Shaq was ineffective, the rest of the Heat were able to defend the Pistons and extend their lead, but yeah, Wade killed them off in the fourth quarter. Pistons really stink on offense, and only Ben Wallace is playing like he believes it, the rest of them are in denial.
wow, this final 30 seconds has been pretty bad. bavetta is involved so it's hardly suprising, but wow. billups gets knocked down by posey, no call, prince calls a timeout since there is no one to pass to, at which point bavetta pretends to not hear him and just calls a 5 seconds. then payton tackles billups on the next in bounds and nothing is called. i mean holy crap. it helped that wade hit a ridiculous 3 right after that to make it close. they had already given miami a few questionable ft's coming down the stretch (sheed's clean block on walker). ooh, and apparently bavetta said something to prince that prince won't say to us. solid.
Yep, Ben Wallace is the only one with a killer instinct, but he can't score. Prince is ok, Chauncey is Mr. Big Shot, but sometimes he's Mr. Bad Shot, Rip is horrible one on one. Rasheed could be so much better for them, but he prefers to chill and help everyone else out. They could still beat Miami, because Shaq is ****ty now-a-days, dunno if they will though...
Are you serious?? You really think the calls against the Heat were BS calls? They aren't even close to the horrific calls in the end of Game 2.
this one is not over by a long shot the pistons may of just played their poorest half of the whole damn season, and they're only down 11. my halftime prediction - second half will feature Tayshaun Prince and Billups bring Detroit back. Pistons by 3. As long as they can at least draw a couple of early second half fouls on the currently foul-less Shaq.
God I love the unintentional comedy NBA halftime shows provide. Did anybody just see the exchange between Greg Anthony and Bill Walton? On a related note, am I the only one who has continued to notice the ongoing tiff between Ernie Johnson and Steve Kerr? In case that storyline isn't appreciated, Kerr had made an off-camera comment to Marv Albert about the worthiness of the Emmy Ernie and co. recieved, indicating that it was the technical team that deserved the award. When Marv, in a complete ******* move, brought it up on air, Kerr was forced into a laughable, obviously insincere attempt to backtrack on the comments. That led to Ernie, throwing it back to them after the next timeout- in a thinly veiled tone- to say, "And now back to Marv, and well....that's good enough." Now that Kerr has a sponsor for his horrible "Steve wonders," he's been getting digs in at Ernie since the latter lost a sponsor for one of his uninteresting bits. Maybe I'm the only one who finds these things interesting. Just given the job these people have, and the tautologies we're forced to endure ("Bob, this game 7 is the most important of the Pistons' season"), whenever these petty squabbles arise, I love it. As far as the series go, I'll just say this: 1. Anybody who's going to claim the Pistons don't whine MORE than any team left in the playoffs is blind. 2. Rasheed's ankle is clearly still bothering him, but I'm not sure if it would make a difference if he was 100%; his impact is overrated. 3. As much criticism as Jason Williams has directed at him, Gary Payton gets burned just as badly by Chauncy Billups, but provides less offense. 4. I've always been a believer in the idea of "the less coaching, the better"; but it's gotten out of control with the Pistons. When Rasheed literally swiped Flip's arm away when the latter was trying to slap hands on his way out of the game when he picked up his 2nd in the first quarter, followed by an unneccesary sneer, that told me all I needed to know. 5. Antoine Walker's finally matured to the point where his presence doesn't lose you games...it may not win you games, but at least it's not losing them. 6. Tayshaun Prince looks like a cat.
Could be one of those fake BS tension bits that TNT does sometimes. Like when they made it seem like JVG and Fratello didn't like each other. Biggest whiners in the league were in the finals last year. That'll show kids.
I liked the aggressiveness of the Heat tonight. They also worked hard on defense and deserved to win. I'm cheering for them now instead of the Pistons. I like both of these teams when they play well but the Heat are more fun to watch when Shaq and Wade get help from guys like Walker who didn't settle for outside shots but took the ball off the dribble and got to the line.
I dunno about that. Right now, the Heat are giving me flashbacks to the Lakers of '00. They seem like they're cruising through the playoffs.
