NBA

Grit of a champion

PISTONS 88, HEAT 82: A calm and poised Detroit summons its experience down the stretch to defeat Miami and return to the NBA Finals.

By TOM JONES
Published June 7, 2005

MIAMI - Exiled from Hollywood, Shaquille O'Neal brought his Hall of Fame career to South Beach and pledged to bring glory to a franchise that had never tasted the champagne.

He invited South Florida to do whatever it needed to see something special. Drive a car, bring a yacht, rent a dingy, whatever. Just get there and watch history be made.

But history will have to be written another day.

Shaq and sidekick Dwyane Wade did give the Miami Heat a special season, but it wasn't enough to overcome a special team.

The Detroit Pistons, showing all the mettle one would expect from the defending champions, beat Shaq and the Heat, 88-82, to win a deciding and thrilling Game7 of the Eastern Conference finals at American Airlines Arena.

O'Neal pounded out a game-high 27 points, but the Pistons, led by Richard Hamilton's 22 points and 20 from Rasheed Wallace, get the ticket to Thursday's opener of the NBA Finals in San Antonio.

The Pistons get that chance after overcoming a six-point deficit in the fourth and ignoring the improbable odds of winning a Game 7 on the road before a hostile crowd.

"We never panicked," Pistons coach Larry Brown said. "We had so many guys step up. We've been through a lot together and it's an unbelievable reward when you can handle situations like this and show poise and toughness. It's an honor to coach, but you're blessed when you have a group like that."

It was a group that looked dead just a few days ago. With the mood already sour in Motown because of Brown's apparent imminent departure for a front-office job in Cleveland after the season, the Pistons rallied to win the final two games of the series.

How improbable was Monday's victory? Well, O'Neal had never lost a Game7 in three previous attempts. Even more daunting, the Pistons, as the road team, faced intimidating odds. In 90 Game7s in NBA history, the home team had won 74 times. No road team had won a Game7 in the East in 23 years.

But led by unflappable point guard Chauncey Billups, the Pistons quieted Heat fans and carried a five-point lead into halftime.

However, Wade, who said he couldn't be "as athletic" as normal and felt "restricted" because of his injury, scored 12 of his 20 in the third to give the Heat a 66-64 lead going to the fourth.

"When somebody (has) to stick a needle in your chest so you can go out and play," Miami coach Stan Van Gundy said of Wade, who wore a flak jacket, getting a painkiller before the game. "I thought he was phenomenal."

The Heat took a six-point lead in the fourth, but couldn't deliver a knockout punch. Billups' clutch three-pointer tied the game with 4:57 left.

Detroit finally regained the lead for good with 1:26 left. The big bucket of the game came on Wallace's follow of a missed shot with 54.7 seconds left. The Pistons then showed their grit by making all of their eight free throws in the final 90 seconds.

That ended the Heat's season.

"I don't think ... from a basketball sense that I've ever been more disappointed," Van Gundy said. "I'm not disappointed in my players. I'm just extremely disappointed in the result."

Shaq's mission to bring a championship to South Florida will have to wait.

"If you don't win the whole thing, nobody is going to remember us," O'Neal said. "We had a lot of opportunities to win this thing, but we just made too many mistakes. I just think they had more experience, but (our) guys played well and we almost had it."

Meantime, the Pistons run at a dynasty continues.

"This is very rewarding," Hamilton said. "It's a great feeling because we all came together, we all stuck together and we all had each other's back. To be in this situation again, whew, it's a great feeling."

[Last modified June 7, 2005, 02:15:48]