19 blocks against a Eastern Team automaticallly equates to 9.5 blocks against a western Team... sorry I say that..
If the Pistons can win or even make it a close series, Larry Brown will officially become the greatest coach ever. As far as the whole matchup thing is concerned, just one question, was the Philly team that made the finals better than SA or Portland on paper that year? Yet they took a game from LA and nobody knows why. Lakers will come out overconfident and hopefully Detroit can take advantage. One last thing, Lakers still gets burned by quick guards (Francis, Parker before he lost his balls, and ofcrouse Cassell when he was healthy), now they have to contain two. It wont be easy.
Yep, I still have that clip. I love it....too bad we haven't ever seen anything like that again from Yao. I wish Yao would have some attitude. I can dream I guess. And I am dreaming he will arrive with some attitude this fall.
Lakers in 4. They have the matchup advantage at 4 positions, and Shaq and Kobe are both much better than any player on the Pistons.
The Pistons don't match up physically, nor do they have the talent, nor do they have the heart. It's a total washout. Detroit needs a miracle. I would not be suprised to see Darko unveiled in the hopes of finding it.
The East might be weak but Detroit and Indiana are 2 teams that can compete with the West's elites. If my math is correct, Detroit's record against playoffs teams from the West are 10-8. Some of the games they lost: 108-111 to Dal, 94-96 to Sac., 87-88 to Minn. They whipped Houston like a puppy, remember? Detroit CAN play. I think they will win at least 2 games.
I guess it will be easier for Detroit to score on the lakers then on the pacers. Then they have the best defense to throw at the lakers. They are deeper. They are from Rock & Motor City. Finally their shots should keep falling. Larry Brown wants revenge. They have more heart. Lakers just can't always win. I guess the lakers will at least lose one mayor player due to injury (malone?). Ahhhhhhh, and in the end I just root for the Pistons.
... for the series? Not bad. The Lakers are over-stated and rated. Blech. I don't think they've looked that fantastic. They will probably win the series, but it'll go at least six games. The Shaq and Kobe match-ups go to the Lakers, certainly, but the rest of the matchups go to the Pistons. Prince, Sheed, Billups will all have significant impact. And consider one thing before you think the Pistons stink to high heaven: Carlisle is a brilliant coach, and he probably knows the Pistons even better than Brown does. Of course he could shut down his old team. Duh. There's no way the Lakers will hold the scores down like the Pacers did.
I think that everybody is underrating the defense that LA is playing in the playoffs. We saw it in our series, we saw it in the Spurs series - their defense is cranked up several notches from the regular season. That has made all of the difference.
There is no way brown will play darko a second in this series; its the finals, not learning time. Down by 20 or up by 20 (not gonna happen) darko wont play, this isnt a movie where the last guy off the bench comes in during the finals and wins it for the underdog vs the team w/ 4 HOFs
Although I see your point about Darko, in the finals, you never know, Kenny Smith was all but benched against the knicks. While Herrera came out nowhere. You play your hand. And after being down 3-0 I think they may get desperate.
If the Pistons are down 0-3, it's pretty much over and everbody knows it so what could it hurt to let Darko play? I want to see something from this kid, other than a few nervous airballs in garbage time. (BTW, the kid really really needs to bulk up, probably more than Yao ever did.)
I wanna see some ole fashion Bad Boys action from these Pistons. i wanna see Rasheed beat the **** outta Malone if he tried any dirty tricks, which Malone will cause he is a piece of ****.
