Consider this a master class.
Consider this a statement.
Consider this a vivid reminder that man cannot live on home-court advantage alone, not if the stated goal is an NBA championship.
What a wonderful night this was to be a member of, the coach of, the owner of, or just a plain old fan of the Detroit Pistons. This was a demonstration of professionalism. This was the way a good team acts.
A split in Boston was all they asked for, and now they have it. They weren't quite themselves in Tuesday's Game 1, but they saw enough good things to know they only needed to tinker a bit and raise the level of their game a degree or two. That's exactly what they did, and the result was last night's 103-97 victory over the Celtics.
"They've been playing great here at home," said Richard "Rip" Hamilton, Detroit's Man of the Match with 25 points. "We knew that coming into the series. We thought that, Game 1, we just let one slip away because we didn't play with the intensity we needed to win the basketball game. Tonight it was like, 'OK, guys, all year long we say we love each other, we say we care about each other, now when we go out there, don't leave anybody hanging.' "
So it has come to pass. The Celtics have finally lost a home game, and now they have to win in Detroit or this hoop revival in the Hub will be shut down until next fall. The Celtics have lost their little cushion, and there was nothing to whine about, either. They just got beat.
Detroit beat 'em, all right. The Pistons played a poised, methodical game of basketball. They shot a hair under 50 percent against the team that had been the league's best on defense all season. They made 28 of 32 free throws. They had six men in double figures. They kept the turnovers down (11). They came up with some killer offensive rebounds when they needed them. And, of course, they defended. If you had drawn up a checklist of things a team would need to do to defeat the Celtics at home, they would all have been accounted for by the Pistons last night.
Detroit was the aggressor from the beginning, yes, making a particularly strong statement in the second quarter. The Pistons took the lead at 23-20 on an old-fashioned 3-point play by impressive rookie guard Rodney Stuckey, and they controlled the action thereafter. At 41-37, they made a strong statement by scoring on four consecutive possessions, beginning with a line-drive, clock-beating 3-pointer by Chauncey Billups, and continuing with buckets by Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, and Hamilton again. They led, 50-43, at the break.
