The Detroit Pistons aren't officially home free yet, not facing Game 7 on the road. But the Pistons proved in Game 6 here Tuesday night, at least to themselves, that they're better than San Antonio. Yes, the Pistons are the better team. They're quicker, tougher physically and mentally and more resolute. Defiance is their primary attribute, perhaps their trademark. They did more than simply stave off elimination in Game 6; they smacked the Spurs senseless, 95-86, and trashed San Antonio's plans for a championship parade.
No team in NBA history has ever gone on the road and won Games 6 and 7. But Detroit is set to do just that. There comes a point in every series where both teams and everybody watching knows which is the better team. And that became apparent in the fourth quarter of Game 6 when the Pistons pushed their lead to seven points. Stubbornly, Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton and scruffy irritant Rasheed Wallace played the game of their lives. They went about their work here with the same sense of purpose and determination they used to dismantle the Lakers last year.
"We've got this game, every loose ball, every long rebound. Every hustle play, we make," Coach Larry Brown told his team during a timeout with 2:15 remaining. And boy, was he telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Seconds after that, Ben Wallace spiked Manu Ginobili's driving layup attempt, and the Pistons scored at the other end to increase their lead to 91-86, which was enough to force Game 7.
And nothing that happened in Game 6 suggests home-court advantage alone is going to help the Spurs over the hump in Game 7. Having lost 10 straight games in San Antonio, where the Spurs had gone 63-6 in the last 69 games, the Pistons came in and took what they needed. They blocked shots, grabbed balls off the floor. They played with the confidence and arrogance we all expected to see from the Spurs playing at home with a championship on the line.
It would stun me to see the Spurs win Thursday night. They walked off their court beaten and bowed.
Tim Duncan, one of the very best players of his generation and a man who has earned two championship rings already, once again looked ordinary at best. In the second half of the game, when one would expect Duncan to exert his influence, he was invisible, just another guy. If he couldn't find it within himself to be the best player on the floor Tuesday night, what makes anybody think he can find it for Game 7 with Detroit soaring?
It's hard to shock the basketball world in back-to-back years, but Detroit is about to do just that. Lakers last year, Spurs now.
"We're just tough, man," Pistons guard Chauncey Billups said. "Our motto is 'If it ain't rough, it ain't right.' " The good folk of San Antonio were planning and plotting from the moment the Spurs won Game 5 in Detroit on Sunday night to take a 3-2 series lead. They anticipated a third championship to the point of planning parties Tuesday night and taking Wednesday off from work. Of course, it's not the first time a city has gotten carried away in advance, figuring a home game meant an automatic victory and championship.
Back in 1993 the Chicago Bulls won the first two games of the Finals in Phoenix and led 3-1 going into Game 5 at home. The city was so excited and at the same time worried about celebrations turning violent that they boarded up the stores along North Michigan Avenue, prompting Charles Barkley to urge his Suns teammates to "Save the City." The Suns ruined that party and sent the series back to Arizona, only to lose Game 6.
In 1997, the Bulls couldn't close out the Utah Jazz, which pooped that party and sent the series back to Salt Lake City. So, Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich had plenty of relatively recent material to draw on to use right up until tip-off Tuesday night. And he might have needed it because the Spurs, as talented and as resourceful as they are, go through stretches where they appear not to be paying attention. For a great team they have too many loose possessions, which the Popovich knows as well as the Pistons do.
They miss free throws. They don't go hard enough after loose balls. They throw ill-advised passes. Every time the Spurs got a lead Tuesday night, they appeared to go to sleep on the next possession or two by making dumb plays. Detroit, on the other hand, appeared to play as precisely and resolutely as possible. Since Rasheed Wallace and Tayshaun Prince were only so-so offensively, the Pistons worked hard to find Billups and Hamilton as frequently as possible. And those kept coming back at any and all the Spurs. Because they played Ginobili and Tony Parker to a standoff those first 24 minutes, as the Spurs led, 47-46.
But Hamilton scored eight in the third quarter, Billups scored 11 and Detroit took control of the game in the tensest moments. Even though the Pistons lead was only four points, 71-67, going into the fourth quarter, it was clear the Pistons weren't bothered by playing Game 6 on the road. They certainly weren't bothered by facing elimination. They'd just won Game 7 at Miami. In the last two years they'd been down to Orlando, Indiana twice, Miami, and now San Antonio. None of it seems to phase them. They almost relish being in these spots.
