Does Detroit Really “Know What It Takes?”

By: D.K. Wilson

“We’ve been here before.”

“We know what it takes.”

Those are the words out of Detroit right now. The first part is partly true. Detroit was here in the 2005-2006 playoffs against Cleveland. They appeared beaten but willed their way to a series win in seven games.

But “we know what it takes?” Like last season about this time Detroit players were saying all the right things and because they had previously shown grit and determination, and the will to exert their will on their opposition, everyone believed them. After last year against the same Cavaliers Detroit talked the talk and walked the walk, right off the plank into a six-game Eastern Conference Finals loss.

And after Game 3 against Philadelphia - it appears that the Pistons don’t really care “what it takes,” let alone know what it takes to find their collective game, pull together, and win this first round series against a team with a losing record.

Now they’re sounding more like a team of empty promises than a team ready to explode on a lesser opponent:

“The guys’ mind-set is, we still know we can win it,” Wallace said before the Pistons practiced Saturday at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. “It’s just a matter of digging a little deeper and playing a little harder.”

Asked directly if he worried that the Pistons may have already dug to the bottom of the well, Wallace hesitated and then said, “No. I still feel strong about it. I still think we have a great ballclub. Any time we get down, I think we can win any series until we lose that fourth game. I have never doubted us, never.”

And few people believe them.

They can’t be believed because Antonio McDyess (suffered a broken nose in the third quarter), Jason Maxiell, and Rasheed Wallace allowed Samuel Dalembert, who averages 10.5 points a game, to score 22 and pull down 16 boards. They can’t be believed because Chauncey Billups, one of the NBA’s better defending point guards has allowed Andre Miller to control two out of three games this series. In Game 3 Miller, scored 21 points on 9-14 shooting, and seemed to get those points with ease. They can’t be believed because the Pistons were out-rebounded 43-34. And if that wasn’t enough to ensure a loss, Detroit cemented a 2-1 series deficit by turning the ball over a whopping 23 times, eight more than the 76ers.

Despite joking and choking away Game 1 and getting run out of the arena in Game 3, Detroit’s players seem oblivious to the fact that they are in the precarious position of having to win three out of the next four games. Plus they must accomplish this feat against a young, hungry, athletic team that now knows it can win if the game is close and, from the Game 3 performance, feels the Pistons will quit if they get more than a few buckets ahead:

“Our mind-set is still good,” Wallace said. “The Sixers played a heck of a game and you can’t take nothing away from them. We just have to come out here and correct some of the things we did wrong (Friday) and come back and get it on Sunday.”

“This doesn’t feel any different to me than any other series that we’ve been down in,” Billups said. “Nobody is happy being down 2-1, but nobody feels like it’s over. When you are down like this, it puts you in a mind-set of, ‘OK, we’re definitely taking it one game at a time. “ The next game is the most important game. That’s the focus.’

According to Billups it sounds like some of the Pistons were looking ahead. Perhaps that’s why, in a 12-minute stretch (10:02 in the 3rd to the 10:29 mark in the 4th) in the second half of the 95-75 beat down administered by the Sixers, Detroit missed 17 shots in a row.

But directly after the game Detroit reserve guard Lindsey Hunter sounded like he thought the game down to a hustle play here or there instead of a team meltdown:

“They got after it,” Pistons point guard Lindsey Hunter said. “I’m not going to sit here and say we didn’t execute — they got after it. They got after us and they made things happen. We didn’t. We laid back and tried to rely on us being a better team. That’s not going to get it done.”

Aha! Now it makes sense.

So, the Pistons did execute - by shooting just over 40% from the field, missing eight of 26 free throws, giving the ball away 23 times, getting out-rebounded by nine boards, letting a guy who can’t find the basket rim on any shot beyond five feet from the rim, and despite obviously working head coach’s Flip Saunders’ game plan to a tee, managed to score only 75 points while getting blown out by 20.

Now this might be an okay tactic if Hunter and the rest of the Pistons players are trying to get Saunders fired. And if they lose to Philadelphia, Saunders is as good as gone. This will mark consecutive seasons that his team rolled over in the playoffs against a lesser opponent. Consecutive seasons that his players said all the right stuff and played indifferent basketball when they should be pushing toward the possibility of a championship.

He escaped last season when many people were calling for his head. Joe Dumars showed that he blamed the loss on the players by ridding the team of Ben Wallace.

This season, though, there is no excuse for Detroit to accomplish anything less than a razor-thin loss to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. And that had better be because of a seventh-game miracle 3-pointer by Ray Allen rather than the hint of a coaching blunder by Saunders.

There’s no excuse - unless, of course, Dumars shares the feeling that it’s enough to know that the players have “been here before” and “know what it takes,” and execute just fine but don’t “make things happen.”

If that’s the case, Saunders and the rest of the crew will gear it up for 2008-2009 and hope “things” break their way.

Right.

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D.K. Wilson is a freelance sports writer. He is better known on the internet as "DWil," and writes for Sports On My Mind.

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1 Comment

  1. We’ve been down this road with the Pistons before, DK, the story has been written. The greatest punishment one can inflict on themselves is disinterest. They played like a team on the brink of elimination last night. Hard to say if it was desperation or determination. The window is quickly closing on this bunch. If they don’t get back to the finals this season, that window may be permanently sealed.

    Comment by Jon Kerr on April 28, 2008

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