alamo50
05-30-2006, 07:14 AM
Players need to worry about themselves, not their coach
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/060529/060529_celizic_hmed10p.hmedium.jpg
The Detroit Pistons can only blame themselves for their struggles against the Heat, writes columnist Mike Celizic.
Luis Alvarez / AP
COMMENTARY
By Mike Celizic
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 12:53 a.m. ET May 30, 2006
All year long, the Pistons said Flip Saunders was the best thing since endorsement contracts. He gave them freedom, let them be creative, helped them to the best record in the team’s history.
They can’t change that tune now, not when they’re down 1-3 to the Heat and faced with a nearly impossible task of winning three straight to get back to the NBA Finals for the third straight year. The players took credit for the winning. They’ve got to accept blame for the losing.
This is on the players. Despite — or because of — their success over the past four years, the Pistons have become a team with an arrogance that isn’t merited by their individual talents.
That’s not necessarily bad. No great player or team is without a certain swagger that comes from absolute confidence in the ability to rise to the occasion, no matter how dire the situation.
The Pistons have taken it to an extreme, almost seeming to court danger. Two years ago, they went down 2-3 to the Nets before winning the final two games of the Eastern Conference Finals. This year, they played the same game against Cleveland, forcing themselves to win two straight to advance to the East Finals against the Heat.
They played hard all year to get home court all the way through the playoffs, then promptly gave it back in Game 1 of the East Finals with a performance low on energy and urgency. But, when they won with relative ease in Game 2, they convinced themselves they were in control again.
They have a switch, they like to think, and they can turn it on any time they want. That’s a nice belief to have, but it can encourage a team to coast, smug in the feeling that things will turn around whenever they choose to hit that switch.
So no one was willing to draw any conclusions from their big loss in Game 3. That’s how the Pistons have been playing — one good, one bad, one good. On, off, on, off, on, off.
But there was something different about this loss. After Game 3, instead of rolling out another victory guarantee, Piston Rasheed Wallace said nothing. Considering his lack of production, it was a wise move. Center Ben Wallace, through, started whining that coach Flip Saunders wasn’t spending enough time practicing defense, concentrating on offense, instead.
If the Pistons have spent too much time working on offense, it hasn’t showed in the three losses to the Heat. Monday night, they went long periods looking as if they didn’t know it was legal to pass the ball, and their designated assassin, Rip Hamilton, came to work without his dead eye.
Saunders said the griping didn’t mean anything. In fact, he said, the team griped all year long, but hadn’t done so publicly. Before Game 4, he said it didn’t mean anything.
After Game 4, it’s evident it means a lot. Despite their team-record 64 regular-season wins, the Pistons are playing without the intelligence, passion and cohesiveness that characterized their two consecutive trips to the finals.
The Pistons never played pretty basketball, even when they were winning a title two years ago and coming within one win of a second straight last year. But victories don’t need to be run through a spa to make them presentable. And losses, no matter how artfully they are assembled, are always ugly.
But the Pistons are redefining losing ugly. What was stunningly obvious Monday was that Detroit has no go-to guy. When the Heat had the ball, Miami’s great young guard, Dwyane Wade, took over the game in the fourth quarter, pulling off several highlight-reel plays. When the Pistons had it, Hamilton, the hero of so many big wins over the past couple of years, put up more bricks than the third little pig.
Wade finished the game 8-for-11 from the floor; Hamilton was 4-for-15. And the Pistons, the team that built its success on smothering defense, allowed the Heat to hit shots at a .549 rate while Detroit couldn’t break .400.
Not only couldn’t the Pistons play defense, they also sent the Heat to the free-throw line 47 times.
The Pistons briefly fought their way back into Game 4 after being down 14 points in the first half. But no sooner had they taken a lead than the Heat came back and crushed them, scoring 27 points in the fourth quarter, their most productive 12 minutes of the game.
That should never happen to a great basketball team, and for the past two years, it didn’t happen to the Pistons. They may have lost to the Spurs in seven last year, but it wasn’t because they stopped playing defense and stopped playing hard and smart. It was because the Spurs were the better team.
This time around, faced with a stern challenge, the Pistons are simply falling apart. They keep saying they can come back, and they’re right, they can. But not playing the way they did Monday night.
Mike Celizic is a frequent contributor to MSNBC.com and a free-lance writer based in New York.
Link (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13039781/)
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/060529/060529_celizic_hmed10p.hmedium.jpg
The Detroit Pistons can only blame themselves for their struggles against the Heat, writes columnist Mike Celizic.
Luis Alvarez / AP
COMMENTARY
By Mike Celizic
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 12:53 a.m. ET May 30, 2006
All year long, the Pistons said Flip Saunders was the best thing since endorsement contracts. He gave them freedom, let them be creative, helped them to the best record in the team’s history.
They can’t change that tune now, not when they’re down 1-3 to the Heat and faced with a nearly impossible task of winning three straight to get back to the NBA Finals for the third straight year. The players took credit for the winning. They’ve got to accept blame for the losing.
This is on the players. Despite — or because of — their success over the past four years, the Pistons have become a team with an arrogance that isn’t merited by their individual talents.
That’s not necessarily bad. No great player or team is without a certain swagger that comes from absolute confidence in the ability to rise to the occasion, no matter how dire the situation.
The Pistons have taken it to an extreme, almost seeming to court danger. Two years ago, they went down 2-3 to the Nets before winning the final two games of the Eastern Conference Finals. This year, they played the same game against Cleveland, forcing themselves to win two straight to advance to the East Finals against the Heat.
They played hard all year to get home court all the way through the playoffs, then promptly gave it back in Game 1 of the East Finals with a performance low on energy and urgency. But, when they won with relative ease in Game 2, they convinced themselves they were in control again.
They have a switch, they like to think, and they can turn it on any time they want. That’s a nice belief to have, but it can encourage a team to coast, smug in the feeling that things will turn around whenever they choose to hit that switch.
So no one was willing to draw any conclusions from their big loss in Game 3. That’s how the Pistons have been playing — one good, one bad, one good. On, off, on, off, on, off.
But there was something different about this loss. After Game 3, instead of rolling out another victory guarantee, Piston Rasheed Wallace said nothing. Considering his lack of production, it was a wise move. Center Ben Wallace, through, started whining that coach Flip Saunders wasn’t spending enough time practicing defense, concentrating on offense, instead.
If the Pistons have spent too much time working on offense, it hasn’t showed in the three losses to the Heat. Monday night, they went long periods looking as if they didn’t know it was legal to pass the ball, and their designated assassin, Rip Hamilton, came to work without his dead eye.
Saunders said the griping didn’t mean anything. In fact, he said, the team griped all year long, but hadn’t done so publicly. Before Game 4, he said it didn’t mean anything.
After Game 4, it’s evident it means a lot. Despite their team-record 64 regular-season wins, the Pistons are playing without the intelligence, passion and cohesiveness that characterized their two consecutive trips to the finals.
The Pistons never played pretty basketball, even when they were winning a title two years ago and coming within one win of a second straight last year. But victories don’t need to be run through a spa to make them presentable. And losses, no matter how artfully they are assembled, are always ugly.
But the Pistons are redefining losing ugly. What was stunningly obvious Monday was that Detroit has no go-to guy. When the Heat had the ball, Miami’s great young guard, Dwyane Wade, took over the game in the fourth quarter, pulling off several highlight-reel plays. When the Pistons had it, Hamilton, the hero of so many big wins over the past couple of years, put up more bricks than the third little pig.
Wade finished the game 8-for-11 from the floor; Hamilton was 4-for-15. And the Pistons, the team that built its success on smothering defense, allowed the Heat to hit shots at a .549 rate while Detroit couldn’t break .400.
Not only couldn’t the Pistons play defense, they also sent the Heat to the free-throw line 47 times.
The Pistons briefly fought their way back into Game 4 after being down 14 points in the first half. But no sooner had they taken a lead than the Heat came back and crushed them, scoring 27 points in the fourth quarter, their most productive 12 minutes of the game.
That should never happen to a great basketball team, and for the past two years, it didn’t happen to the Pistons. They may have lost to the Spurs in seven last year, but it wasn’t because they stopped playing defense and stopped playing hard and smart. It was because the Spurs were the better team.
This time around, faced with a stern challenge, the Pistons are simply falling apart. They keep saying they can come back, and they’re right, they can. But not playing the way they did Monday night.
Mike Celizic is a frequent contributor to MSNBC.com and a free-lance writer based in New York.
Link (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13039781/)