Now, 1 for 1 in the Motor City.
"We've been a very good road team all year," said Doc Rivers. "We just lost in the playoffs. Nobody talked about it with our team. Maybe losing at home [in Game 2] and taking away our security blanket made them focus more. "But I didn't think anybody on our team ever thought of it as this gorilla that everybody else was talking about." Captain Paul Pierce did speak of a "gorilla" after the win, but said, "The whole time throughout this we didn't feel like we hadn't won a road game. Before the game I told the guys, 'Hey, during the regular season we were the best team in the league on the road, so let's go out here and try to show them.' "
"We were 0 for whatever on the road," said Rajon Rondo. "Tonight, we just came out with great intensity."
So now NBA America is halfway home to David Stern's dream Finals. The Lakers lead the Spurs, 2-0, and the Celtics lead the Pistons, 2-1, and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson are probably in a studio somewhere, posing for a magazine cover.
There's certainly great temptation to overstate Boston's decisive win last night. Going in, we figured the winner of Game 3 would be the winner of the series. Detroit coach Flip Saunders said that last night's victor would carry great confidence the rest of the way. Of course, Flip didn't know his players would compete for the Golden Milk-Bone Dog Biscuit over the next couple of hours.
"They came out aggressive and we missed some shots," said Saunders. "I thought we had a lot of energy sucked out of us when we missed some shots . . . You overreact and you look bad, giving them wide-open shots at the basket. We can't lose our focus and concentration on what we're trying to do."
