MaNuMaNiAc
06-11-2005, 02:50 PM
http://www.freep.com/sports/pistons/rosey11e_20050611.htm
June 11, 2005
BY MICHAEL ROSENBERG
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
SAN ANTONIO -- Be honest. Sometimes you get so wrapped up in matchups and talent comparisons and strategy, you accost random strangers on the streets to talk about the Pistons, and they look at you funny, because amid all the excitement and research and constant game-watching, you forgot to put on pants.
Basketball can mess with your head. And not just yours. Just check out what's happening to the participants.
For example: To win this series, the Pistons must solve the Rasheed Conundrum. Some players shoot their teams right out of a game. Rasheed Wallace is the only guy who non-shoots his team out of the game.
Check out the numbers for the playoffs this season.
When Rasheed takes at least 13 shots, the Pistons are 9-1.
When he takes 12 or fewer, the Pistons are 3-6.
"I told Rasheed he can't take seven or eight shots for us to have a chance," said Tayshaun Prince, and it's safe to assume Prince wasn't alone.
Rasheed is an enigma wrapped in a riddle tucked in a puzzle backed by some violently loud hip-hop. His worst fear is that the Pistons lose because he shoots too much. Yet that very approach -- admirable on the surface -- causes the Pistons to lose because they need him to score.
Meanwhile, Rasheed's teammates try to get him to be more selfish. But sometimes they fail because they shoot too much themselves, rather than pass to Rasheed.
Fascinating, isn't it? A shrink could have a field day with all this, once he got through with Larry Brown.
Despite their concerns over Rasheed, and their 1-0 Finals deficit, the Pistons happily skip along with Undefeated Syndrome. They sound like nobody ever beats them -- they just didn't play as well as they could.
Yeah, the Spurs just whipped 'em by 15, but as the Beatles sang, "The sun is out, the sky is blue, it's beautiful, we just have to execute."
Rip Hamilton said after Game 1 that he got the shots he wanted. The man guarding him, Bruce Bowen, said, "I tried to do the best I could."
Now, a little Trivia Fun. Hamilton ...
A) Scored 60 points by nailing wide-open three-pointers and dunking with all four limbs.
B) Went 7-for-21, scored 14 points, and looked like he would need three shots to throw away a used tissue.
Amazingly, the answer is B. But that's Hamilton. Those are the Pistons. Until they see somebody else hoist the trophy, their confidence will not waver.
And that also says something about the Spurs, who have The World's Most Wonderful Inferiority Complex. Oh, they know they're good. They just never think they're good enough. Look at how they handled this 15-point NBA Finals victory over the defending champs.
"We react almost as if we lost sometimes," Spurs center Nazr Mohammed said. "We feel we didn't play that well in the first quarter. We definitely want to improve that."
This attitude comes from Tim Duncan, whose idea of bragging is to say, "Thanks to my teammates finding me and my coaches teaching me and some incredible luck, I played pretty OK." Spurs coach Gregg Popovich almost never has to pull his team's head out of the clouds.
"It's a pretty rare thing if I do," Popovich said. "Maybe once a year, twice a year."
Speaking of pretty rare things: Have you ever had a date that was so bad, you wanted to go back home, sit alone on your bed and watch it all over again, just to see what you could learn?
Me neither. But we are not Chauncey Billups.
After losing Game 1 and answering questions about it, Billups went to his room and stewed. Finally, he flipped on the TV.
"I couldn't get to sleep anyway," Billups said. "I watched the whole game."
As Billups discovered, the bad news is that the Pistons really lost by 15 points. The good news is that they played lousy. Hey, if they lost by 15 points and played great, and then had to beat the same team on the road to avoid going down 2-0 ... well, wouldn't that kind of stink?
Speaking of going down 2-0: Right now, Antonio McDyess is probably worried about that. He is the King Worrier. Earlier this season, when the Pistons played lousy and they told the world not to fret, they were really talking to McDyess.
He is new to this team. He doesn't have the swagger yet.
"I worry," McDyess said, "because they got a ring and I don't."
By Sunday night, McDyess will try to calm down, the Pistons will try to regain their intensity, and the Spurs will try to improve on a virtuoso performance. Welcome to the mind games of basketball, Finals-style.
June 11, 2005
BY MICHAEL ROSENBERG
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
SAN ANTONIO -- Be honest. Sometimes you get so wrapped up in matchups and talent comparisons and strategy, you accost random strangers on the streets to talk about the Pistons, and they look at you funny, because amid all the excitement and research and constant game-watching, you forgot to put on pants.
Basketball can mess with your head. And not just yours. Just check out what's happening to the participants.
For example: To win this series, the Pistons must solve the Rasheed Conundrum. Some players shoot their teams right out of a game. Rasheed Wallace is the only guy who non-shoots his team out of the game.
Check out the numbers for the playoffs this season.
When Rasheed takes at least 13 shots, the Pistons are 9-1.
When he takes 12 or fewer, the Pistons are 3-6.
"I told Rasheed he can't take seven or eight shots for us to have a chance," said Tayshaun Prince, and it's safe to assume Prince wasn't alone.
Rasheed is an enigma wrapped in a riddle tucked in a puzzle backed by some violently loud hip-hop. His worst fear is that the Pistons lose because he shoots too much. Yet that very approach -- admirable on the surface -- causes the Pistons to lose because they need him to score.
Meanwhile, Rasheed's teammates try to get him to be more selfish. But sometimes they fail because they shoot too much themselves, rather than pass to Rasheed.
Fascinating, isn't it? A shrink could have a field day with all this, once he got through with Larry Brown.
Despite their concerns over Rasheed, and their 1-0 Finals deficit, the Pistons happily skip along with Undefeated Syndrome. They sound like nobody ever beats them -- they just didn't play as well as they could.
Yeah, the Spurs just whipped 'em by 15, but as the Beatles sang, "The sun is out, the sky is blue, it's beautiful, we just have to execute."
Rip Hamilton said after Game 1 that he got the shots he wanted. The man guarding him, Bruce Bowen, said, "I tried to do the best I could."
Now, a little Trivia Fun. Hamilton ...
A) Scored 60 points by nailing wide-open three-pointers and dunking with all four limbs.
B) Went 7-for-21, scored 14 points, and looked like he would need three shots to throw away a used tissue.
Amazingly, the answer is B. But that's Hamilton. Those are the Pistons. Until they see somebody else hoist the trophy, their confidence will not waver.
And that also says something about the Spurs, who have The World's Most Wonderful Inferiority Complex. Oh, they know they're good. They just never think they're good enough. Look at how they handled this 15-point NBA Finals victory over the defending champs.
"We react almost as if we lost sometimes," Spurs center Nazr Mohammed said. "We feel we didn't play that well in the first quarter. We definitely want to improve that."
This attitude comes from Tim Duncan, whose idea of bragging is to say, "Thanks to my teammates finding me and my coaches teaching me and some incredible luck, I played pretty OK." Spurs coach Gregg Popovich almost never has to pull his team's head out of the clouds.
"It's a pretty rare thing if I do," Popovich said. "Maybe once a year, twice a year."
Speaking of pretty rare things: Have you ever had a date that was so bad, you wanted to go back home, sit alone on your bed and watch it all over again, just to see what you could learn?
Me neither. But we are not Chauncey Billups.
After losing Game 1 and answering questions about it, Billups went to his room and stewed. Finally, he flipped on the TV.
"I couldn't get to sleep anyway," Billups said. "I watched the whole game."
As Billups discovered, the bad news is that the Pistons really lost by 15 points. The good news is that they played lousy. Hey, if they lost by 15 points and played great, and then had to beat the same team on the road to avoid going down 2-0 ... well, wouldn't that kind of stink?
Speaking of going down 2-0: Right now, Antonio McDyess is probably worried about that. He is the King Worrier. Earlier this season, when the Pistons played lousy and they told the world not to fret, they were really talking to McDyess.
He is new to this team. He doesn't have the swagger yet.
"I worry," McDyess said, "because they got a ring and I don't."
By Sunday night, McDyess will try to calm down, the Pistons will try to regain their intensity, and the Spurs will try to improve on a virtuoso performance. Welcome to the mind games of basketball, Finals-style.