By CHRIS SHERIDAN, AP Basketball Writer
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...s133548D30.DTL
(06-07) 13:35 PDT SAN ANTONIO, (AP) --
The NBA Finals will be more about substance than style, more about matchups than minutiae. Neither the Detroit Pistons nor the San Antonio Spurs are all that sexy on the surface, but both are a sight to behold for basketball purists. And if one looks deep enough and factors in a few special subplots, there might just be that little extra something that draws in the masses.
One team is the defending champion. The other was the reigning list a year ago.
The only superstar in the series, Tim Duncan, seems dull but is quietly charismatic. The coaches, Detroit's Larry Brown and San Antonio's Gregg Popovich, are such good friends that "Pop" was the best man at the wedding of "L.B." They speak on the phone nearly every day.
Both teams have made defense and team play their calling cards. Neither has a player who will make your jaw drop.
But for those who need a little va-voom to get interested, at least there's Eva Longoria, the attractive star of the television show "Desperate Housewives" and the current flame of San Antonio point guard Tony Parker. Her show is on ABC, and the finals are on ABC, so we should see more than a little of her.
And then there are the cities, San Antonio and Auburn Hills, home to the Alamo and The Palace, scenes of two of the most epic fights in American history.
You've got Detroit's Rasheed Wallace with his foul mouth and his championship belt, and San Antonio's Manu Ginobili with his South American flair and his Olympic gold medal.
There are backup point guards from Slovenia and San Juan, wizened veterans in the far corners of each locker room, public address announcers with unique and distinct styles.
See? It won't just be about X's and O's.
"I think you're going to see another great series," Detroit's Chauncey Billups said after the Pistons defeated the Miami Heat in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals to earn the right to face the well-rested Spurs. "It's going to be a tough challenge. You know, I just can't wait, man, I can't wait."
Game 1 is Thursday night, and Game 2 is Sunday. The series then shifts northward for Games 3, 4 and 5.
All subplots aside, it shapes up as a fair match — maybe even the kind of series that will last seven games, something that hasn't happened in the NBA Finals since 1994.
San Antonio has been waiting around since finishing off the Phoenix Suns last Wednesday night, and the Spurs finally got to go through a practice Tuesday knowing exactly who stands in the way of them winning their third championship in seven years.
That team, Detroit, is a formidable obstacle.
Start with Ben Wallace, because with the Pistons you can really start with anyone. They are a team built around the concept of being a team.
Big Ben stands 6-foot-9, or 6-11 to the top of his hair on nights when he blows out his 'fro. He's just coming off a series in which he had to defend Shaquille O'Neal all by himself because he plays for a coach who double teams about as often as he makes lifelong commitments.
Wallace was the NBA's defensive player of the year, and now he'll be asked to stop a two-time MVP in Duncan whose low-post offensive game is much more refined and multifaceted than O'Neal's.
"Duncan is a great player. He'll eventually be a Hall of Famer. You know, Shaq is Shaq, man. That's a tall task," Wallace said.
Then there's Richard Hamilton, the Pistons' leading scorer. Never has there been a faster player on a slow-paced team, a guy who sprints 2 to 3 miles when he feels like having a good offseason workout. The man in the mask has scored at least 20 points in all but one of the Pistons' 18 postseason games, and he gets his points the old-fashioned way by coming off screens and knocking down mid-range jump shots.
But Hamilton has a formidable obstacle trying to stop him, too, in Bruce Bowen, the Spurs' defensive specialist who will try to stick to Hamilton like a sweat-drenched T-shirt.
It's one of many matchups that will make this series so interesting from a tactical standpoint. Centers will be guarding forwards, forwards will be defending guards, and the adjustments that will be made by the two wise old coaches will go a long way toward determining which team emerges on top.
Oddsmakers installed San Antonio as a slight favorite to win the series, a factor that the Pistons will undoubtedly seize upon as the latest sign that people still question their legitimacy.
"You know, we won the championship last year and people still didn't give us that much of a chance in this series (against Miami)," Billups said. "I think our balance is what inevitably hurt them and beat them."
Indeed, the Pistons have five starters who play well together, each of whom can hurt an opponent in different ways on any given night. Aside from Ben Wallace and Hamilton, there's the floor leadership and steadiness of Billups, the inside-outside game of Rasheed Wallace, and the long-armed menace of small forward Tayshaun Prince.
The Spurs are built along the more traditional lines of what cons utes a championship team, their fortunes more often than not riding on the talents of Duncan rather than the contributions of their secondary scorers, Ginobili and Parker.
The Spurs proved in the Western Conference finals against Phoenix that they can adapt to the style of their opponent and still succeed, but now they're about to go against an opponent that plays defense with the same abandon as the Suns did on offense.
"It'll be a tremendous challenge for us. They're the champs, and they're the champs for a reason, so we've got our work cut out for us, that's for sure," Popovich said.
What beat Miami, was their inexperience in big games, Shag's conditioning, and Wade's injury in that order. Miami still had a chance until Damom Jones threw it away with a play that although was well intendend led to disaster. If the Spurs can avoid falling prey to the pressure of the finals I like their chances, I still say that the Spurs in these playoffs are the best executing offensive team.
The only superstar in the series, Tim Duncan,....
Locker room fodder anyone?
The one guy that creates a mismatch is Tayshaun Prince when the Pistons run side screen/roll with Billups and when Parker switches to Prince, Tayshaun taking TP down on the right block. He's deadly down there with the option to turn, face up and rise up for the short baseline jumper, back TP down, or work his up and under move with those long arms for the scoop shot.
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