Kori Ellis
06-07-2005, 12:23 AM
Past two NBA titlists set to meet in Finals
Web Posted: 06/07/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Mike Monroe
Express-News Staff Writer
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA060705.1D.BKNpistons.heat.gamer.2ec0010cf.html
MIAMI — For the first time in 18 years, the NBA Finals will be contested by teams that claimed the league's previous two championships.
The Detroit Pistons, the 2004 champions, earned the right to meet the Spurs, the 2003 champions, by defeating the Miami Heat 88-82 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals at American Airlines Arena on Monday night.
Game 1 is set for Thursday at SBC Center, tipping off at 8p.m.
Not since the 1986 champion Boston Celtics met the 1985 champion Los Angeles Lakers in the 1987 NBA Finals have the two most recent champions met in the league's title series.
The Pistons, who will be making their fifth NBA Finals appearance since 1988, became the first road team to win a Game 7 in either conference finals in three years. In 2002, the Lakers, with Shaquille O'Neal, defeated the Sacramento Kings at Arco Arena in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals 112-106 in overtime.
Detroit's victory means close friends Gregg Popovich, the Spurs' coach, and Larry Brown, the Pistons' coach who once mentored Popovich and helped him land a job in the NBA, will compete against one another. The teams mirror one another in their defense-first, share-the-ball philosophies.
The Pistons had to fight from behind in the fourth quarter after the Heat took a 74-68 lead with 7:12 remaining. They outscored the Heat 20-8 thereafter, with Chauncey Billups hitting a 3-pointer that tied the score 74-74. He also nailed four free throws the Pistons needed to keep from blowing their lead in the final seconds, when the Heat had to foul.
"He's come up big in so many games," Brown said. "It did become a foul-shooting contest in the end."
Indeed, the Pistons made 7 of 8 free throws in the final 5:46. The Heat missed two free throws in the final 1:45.
"I love being in those situations when the game is on the line and I've got a chance to ice it," said Billups, who finished with 18 points. "My teammates look to me to do those things. They want the ball in my hands.
"This was the best series I've ever played in, and that's a hell of a team we beat, on their home floor."
Richard Hamilton carried the Pistons in the first half, when he scored 16 of his team-high 22 points. Rasheed Wallace carried them in the fourth period, scoring six of his 20 points, including two on a basket that gave the Pistons an 82-79 lead with 54.7 seconds remaining.
O'Neal, whose arrival in Miami in a trade last summer gave new life to a franchise that had struggled in recent years, never had lost a Game 7 in which he had played during his 13 NBA seasons. But O'Neal, who scored 27 points, is 3-1 in Game 7s because the Pistons were able to minimize his impact. And because it was clear that Miami's All-Star guard, Dwyane Wade, was not able to play the explosive game that helped make the Heat the Eastern Conference's best team in the regular season.
Wade, who missed Game 6 because of pain in his right ribcage, the result of an injury suffered in Miami's Game 5 victory, had an injection of a painkiller before the game. He scored 20 points in 43 minutes, though he was scoreless in the fourth quarter.
"When somebody is having to stick a needle in your chest just so you can go out and play ... I thought he was phenomenal," Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said of his second-year star.
The Heat's starting point guard, Damon Jones, left the game in the first period when he rolled an ankle. He came back late in the second quarter and played 32 minutes, but he did not make a shot and scored only one point.
Brown, the basketball vagabond who has acknowledged talking to the Cleveland Cavaliers about becoming their president of basketball operations next season, seemed melancholy before the game as he talked about his emotions before what could have been his final game with Detroit. But he will have at least four more games as Pistons coach.
Web Posted: 06/07/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Mike Monroe
Express-News Staff Writer
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/basketball/nba/spurs/stories/MYSA060705.1D.BKNpistons.heat.gamer.2ec0010cf.html
MIAMI — For the first time in 18 years, the NBA Finals will be contested by teams that claimed the league's previous two championships.
The Detroit Pistons, the 2004 champions, earned the right to meet the Spurs, the 2003 champions, by defeating the Miami Heat 88-82 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals at American Airlines Arena on Monday night.
Game 1 is set for Thursday at SBC Center, tipping off at 8p.m.
Not since the 1986 champion Boston Celtics met the 1985 champion Los Angeles Lakers in the 1987 NBA Finals have the two most recent champions met in the league's title series.
The Pistons, who will be making their fifth NBA Finals appearance since 1988, became the first road team to win a Game 7 in either conference finals in three years. In 2002, the Lakers, with Shaquille O'Neal, defeated the Sacramento Kings at Arco Arena in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals 112-106 in overtime.
Detroit's victory means close friends Gregg Popovich, the Spurs' coach, and Larry Brown, the Pistons' coach who once mentored Popovich and helped him land a job in the NBA, will compete against one another. The teams mirror one another in their defense-first, share-the-ball philosophies.
The Pistons had to fight from behind in the fourth quarter after the Heat took a 74-68 lead with 7:12 remaining. They outscored the Heat 20-8 thereafter, with Chauncey Billups hitting a 3-pointer that tied the score 74-74. He also nailed four free throws the Pistons needed to keep from blowing their lead in the final seconds, when the Heat had to foul.
"He's come up big in so many games," Brown said. "It did become a foul-shooting contest in the end."
Indeed, the Pistons made 7 of 8 free throws in the final 5:46. The Heat missed two free throws in the final 1:45.
"I love being in those situations when the game is on the line and I've got a chance to ice it," said Billups, who finished with 18 points. "My teammates look to me to do those things. They want the ball in my hands.
"This was the best series I've ever played in, and that's a hell of a team we beat, on their home floor."
Richard Hamilton carried the Pistons in the first half, when he scored 16 of his team-high 22 points. Rasheed Wallace carried them in the fourth period, scoring six of his 20 points, including two on a basket that gave the Pistons an 82-79 lead with 54.7 seconds remaining.
O'Neal, whose arrival in Miami in a trade last summer gave new life to a franchise that had struggled in recent years, never had lost a Game 7 in which he had played during his 13 NBA seasons. But O'Neal, who scored 27 points, is 3-1 in Game 7s because the Pistons were able to minimize his impact. And because it was clear that Miami's All-Star guard, Dwyane Wade, was not able to play the explosive game that helped make the Heat the Eastern Conference's best team in the regular season.
Wade, who missed Game 6 because of pain in his right ribcage, the result of an injury suffered in Miami's Game 5 victory, had an injection of a painkiller before the game. He scored 20 points in 43 minutes, though he was scoreless in the fourth quarter.
"When somebody is having to stick a needle in your chest just so you can go out and play ... I thought he was phenomenal," Heat coach Stan Van Gundy said of his second-year star.
The Heat's starting point guard, Damon Jones, left the game in the first period when he rolled an ankle. He came back late in the second quarter and played 32 minutes, but he did not make a shot and scored only one point.
Brown, the basketball vagabond who has acknowledged talking to the Cleveland Cavaliers about becoming their president of basketball operations next season, seemed melancholy before the game as he talked about his emotions before what could have been his final game with Detroit. But he will have at least four more games as Pistons coach.