OK, I've had time to digest what happened. I've gotten a chance to watch the "experts" break it down, so let's look a little closer.
First, not surprisingly, the experts aren't really giving the Sixers any credit for this win. The prevailing knowledge seems to be that the Pistons took the Sixers too lightly, and let the Sixers hang around when they could've put them away. I might buy that if the game was within 5 or 6 points the entire night, but the Sixers were down by 15 late in the third. The Pistons put their foot on the gas in the second half, the Sixers took their best shot and fired right back.
I was just watching TNT's wrap-up show and I saw something very telling. In front of Miller's locker Phil Jasner asked the following question of the Sixers point guard:
"Do you feel like you're playing with house money?"
Miller responded, "Say what?"
Jasner thought Miller didn't understand, so he explained further, "Do you feel like you have nothing to lose?"
Miller was not happy, here was his response, "No, we got something to lose just like they do. You know, we're here to play basketball and hopefully win. We got something to lose just like they do." What kind of question is that? He's talking to a proud man, a guy who's left it all on the court every single night, played through injuries, shouldered more responsibility than ever before in his career and Jasner is asking him if he just feels lucky to be there? Outrageous. You have to love pulling off a huge upset win, on the road, and getting a question like that from one of your own beat writers.
This goes directly to the point I made earlier today. While everyone else has written this team off, they believe they can win. Mo Cheeks has them convinced of it. The two months of exceptional basketball they played down the stretch showed them what they have to do to win, and they can fall back on that experience now. The thing that a lot of people don't get is that while some regular-season runs are meaningless, what the Sixers did was not. They didn't just blow out bad teams. They didn't cruise through games. They fought, tooth and nail, and they developed this formula we're seeing now. Play teams even for three, keep your key guys out of foul trouble, and then defend like you've never defended before in the fourth quarter. That's not only a winning formula in the regular season, that's a winning formula in the playoffs.
Here's a look at some numbers from tonight's game:
- Rip Hamilton, 5/17 from the floor. Continuing his poor shooting against the Sixers. (43% from the floor against the Sixers this season, 14% from three). No, this wasn't just a bad shooting night for Rip. This was the Sixers using their versatile lineup to switch the baseline screens Rip runs through and not giving him open looks.
- Rasheed Wallace, an absolute monster of a game, but on 6 of his game-high 24 came in the paint. If you make him a perimeter player, you don't have to double him. This means less open threes for the Pistons. This is partially bad coaching by Flip, and good coaching by Mo, who switched to fronting Wallace in the second half, and especially down the stretch.
- Antonio McDyess, 2/9 from the floor, 6 rebounds
- Jason Maxiell, 6/8 from the floor, 12 points, 11 boards. The Sixers really had no answer for Maxiell. Flip used the young forward/center for 30 minutes to McDyess's 20, but it seemed like he was absent for long stretches. It would worry me if the kid found his way into the starting lineup, but I highly doubt Flip will have the gonads to make a move like that after a loss.
- Chauncey Billups, Mr. Big Shot coasted through the game with this look on his face like, "Don't worry, I'm going to take this game over when I have to." The only problem is that when he had to he had Andre Iguodala draped all over him and Samuel Dalembert lying in wait when got to the rim. 3/9 from the floor, and 7/10 from the line with 3 key misses in money time.
- Tayshaun Prince, a solid 5/13 shooting performance, and Detroit got him what they thought was a wide-open look in the final minute for the lead. The only problem was Mo substituted Thad Young for Reggie Evans and Young recovered quickly, got to Prince and challenged the jumper. Prince's shot fell well short. Prince's defense was extremely effective on Iguodala, more on him later.
- Willie Green, a very good 28 minutes from Green whose 7/11 shooting night would've looked a lot better had he not blown a dunk and barreled into a defender for a charge instead of pulling up for a 10-footer in the lane. Again, does Willie play well against the Detroit because he's from Detroit, or does he play well against Detroit because Rip Hamilton and his horrible defense play for Detroit. I'm leaning toward the latter and I find it comical that Pistons fans think Rip's defense is under-rated. If there is a softer, more passive 6'7" player in the league, I'd love to meet him. (Adam Morrison does not count).
- Andre Miller, I lost count of how many big shots Miller hit in the second half. In the first half he was 2/6 and having a ton of trouble with Billups, Hunter and Stuckey. In the second half, he hit big shot after big shot and took advantage of a tired Billups and an inept Hamilton time and time again. The only problem with Miller down the stretch was that Mo didn't call his number enough. His highlight of the game was his putback of a Lou Williams airball.
- Andre Iguodala, another rough shooting night for #9, but he made a huge adjustment after the first quarter that may have saved this game. Once he realized his jumper wasn't falling, he stopped taking them. He was 0 for 4 from outside the paint in the first quarter. From that point on he only took three more jumpers. Instead he drove to the hoop and got himself to the line where he finished 8/10. He also added 9 boards, including the rebound which pretty much sealed the game, and 8 dishes, including a big feed to Lou Williams for a baseline jumper to stretch the Sixers lead to 4 with 3:28 to go. If his jumper is falling in game 2, the Pistons are going to have major problems defending him. His move of the night was a post-up on Prince out near the three point line, Miller got him the ball on the baseline side, he immediately spun, went to the hole and dunked. Prince never had a chance. Quick moves like that will negate Prince's huge wingspan.
- Mo Cheeks, a couple of things to note about Mo. First, he went with the hot hand. Usually, he would've pulled Reggie Evans mid-way through the fourth, at the latest, and put Thad in there. He left Reggie in the game because Reggie was playing like a man possessed. He also realized that he's got a team full of young legs and plenty of days off in between games. He pushed his starters and trimmed the rotation down to 7. This is a luxury Flip Saunders does not have, although I do expect him to extend his starters. Detroit's core is old, and even the youngest of the group, Tayshaun Prince, can't handle 40 minutes at this pace because he's been babied all year. Is it ironic that Flip Saunders' season-long crusade to make sure his starters are well-rested for the playoffs has led to a bunch of players who can't go 40 minutes in a game now that they need to? I think so.
All told, it was an excellent night to be a Sixers fan. While obviously I'd love to go back to Philly up 2-0, I'm not expecting a win in game 2. The funny thing is, I kinda think the Sixers players and coaches are. More on the game two match-up over the next couple of days.
If anyone can let me see that clip of Jasner/Miller, I want to see it so badly. I have heard about it from like 5 people already.
It really is unbelievable. Don't know how to find it.
Hi Brian,
Great writeup as always. Where's Thad? He was keeping them in the game at the start.
Here is a comment / question uniquely suited to your expertise. :-) I've tried to figure out who Thad most resembles (game wise). I think he is less like any b-ball player I know and has more in common with Derek Jeter. Why? He always seems to make the right play at the right time OR makes a play when the team needs it to stay afloat. I'm not sure who in basketball has a game like that (maybe Bird?). I won't put Thad with Bird yet.
Outstanding effort by the Sixers to claw back after going down big.
I really have a hard time figuring out who Thad resembles. I've given up recently and just accepted the fact that he's the Sixers most-reliable weapon in the half-court offense. Funny, but true.
Read your article through a link from Need4sheed. You're very fair, and I appreciate that. Much as I think Natalie is there. While I'm not happy with the turn of events tonight, I do agree with you and no longer have myself convinced the Pistons will even make it out of this series (much less the east.) But I don't agree with your "young legs theory." Technically it makes sense, but Detroit's undoing (it appears) will again be their own. It's not that they're old. They've proved the last several seasons that they are an elite team that can consistently beat anybody in the league. They did this season and came out with the 2nd best record in the league. But that all goes out the window in the playoffs. Hell, they had the BEST record 2 years ago and where did that get them? The problem is their attitude (and a really poor coached game 5 last year.) They expect things in the playoffs and haven't proved they can earn them the last few runs. It's depressing (rim shot.) Congrats, though. You guys definitely deserved the game. Keep up the hustle and you might pull off a below .500 upset of the second best team in the NBA. I'd say it's probable.
Thanks for the comment. If I was a Pistons fan, last night's game would've sucked, obviously, but I'd be more worried that so many people are still looking past the Sixers. Magic Johnson actually had something really good to say on the post-game last night, basically he said Detroit needs to realize that to win this series they need to play 48 minutes of basketball every night, because you know the Sixers will.
Great point, there's no quit in this Sixers team. They may lose the series, but they will make the Pistons earn it.
Um, traditionally, when a team is up by 15 and they lose, isn't that more reason to say that they took the other team too lightly? Because the assumption is that you went up by a lot and thought you had the game won and slacked off. It's not like we were playing defense on Billups's missed free throws. I just thought there was a huge lack of intensity on their part. The only people who seemed to come to play were Rasheed and Maxiell.
Usually when you underestimate a team they come out fast and keep the game close throughout. The Pistons came out fast and for all intents and purposes put the game away in the third. Then the Sixers made their comeback with the Piston starters on the floor. Not against the end of the bench.
This game was almost a carbon copy of the Sixers 83-82 win at the Palace in March. The 4th quarter D was the key, not being underestimated by Detroit.
It upset me that if Detroit won, the Pistons are back but now that they lost, Pistons are washed-up. We don't need anymore chalkboard material guys, we have plenty!
Did anyone see Rasheed in the Sixers huddle at the end of the game? That's just not cool, even for him. The TNT guys were saying that may have caused him to miss that bunny lay-up because he wasn't focused.
By the way, Aren't you glad we didn't get Orlando? They dropped 43 in the first and Dwight finished with 25 and 22.
Toronto is just a mess. But you're right, I'd hate to be dealing w/ those three point shooters and Howard right now.
What was most interesting to me about this game was that everyone's basic theory about how this series would go turned out to be wrong, at least in this instance. This was a Pistons tempo all the way: slow pace, low scoring, not many turnoveres, mostly half court. And we still won. I'd prefer we speed things up, but it's pretty remarkable that we beat this team at its own game.
Did we get Detroit's best tonight? Not even close. And at some point in this series we will. But if the story line had been reversed tonight, with the Sixers giving up a big lead and missing free throws, the headlines today would be all about the Pistons mental toughness. Our guys grew up a bit tonight.
Brian, one minor point of contention. I actually thought Carney and Smith's contributions were quite different. Carney was a total deer in the headlights, looking lost and making no contribution whatsoever. Smith came in at a crucial point in the game, stayed in position, and didn't make mistakes. No real numbers but he looked like he belonged out there. Which is good, because with his size he's a good alternative when Sam gets in foul trouble.
Did you see Jason Smith on the bench at the end of the game, that guy was cheesin so wide it was literally ear to ear. It was crackin me up.
Smith definitely had an impact, but he and Carney barely saw any action. I like the fact that Mo has trimmed the rotation, but will go to those two when they're needed. This is a luxury he has because those guys saw big minutes at times during the season. He's also got everyone buying into his system, so you aren't going to see guys bitching about PT or anything like that.
Good write-up Brian.
I put up a post over on my blog with three things the Sixers NEED to do to keep this up: (1) keep up the perimeter D, as the Pistons went only 4-12 from 3-point range; (2) continue to run as much as possible, because they surprisingly only managed a 16-12 advantage on the break; and (3) Iggy plain and simply has to take over, as conclusory as that sounds.
And to be honest, while Jasner's question may have been ill-timed, I don't think his idea is faulty: no one (not even the Sixers beat writers) is giving Philly a chance, so there's absolutely no pressure on them whatsoever. That's a good thing, as you've pointed out. Though I do love Miller's indignant response.
That's about as pissed as I've ever seen Miller. Love the attitude and love the reaction. Jasner is an asshole.
Dude, those cats over on the need4sheed blog are going to all have coronaries. Most of it centers around Detroit sleeping and not being fresh for Boston now. Still no respect for the sixers play. I don't think the sixers are going to get any respect unless they win the series outright. Here's hoping the refs don't take over and hand the pistons a game or two.
I actually don't want people to start picking the Sixers. The last time that happened the young guys started to believe the hype and they lost their edge. They'll obviously be the underdog in any game they play from here on out, that's good. Keep the edge and play 48 minutes of hoops per night.
How Depressed can you be after that performance? I am still buzzing.
Phil Jasner was asking for it. Miller is the epitome of pride and passion and he wasn't going to tolerate that question.
Well the games are won on the court. If we see this same energy, resilience and determination for the Sixers in every game we will make it hard for Detroit to beat us.
Winning one game does wonders for the players' confidence but they must react positively and not let it get to their heads. It's only one win out of the required four and if we don't play 100% our season would be over soon.