0410767470 DETROIT FREE PRESS 040525 Tuesday, May 25, 2004 METRO FINAL CHASER

NWS

1A Photo JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/Detroit Free Press Rasheed Wallace, who guaranteed a Pistons victory in Game 2, jumps off the bench and demands a technical foul on the Pacers. Rasheed Wallace rejects this shot by Indiana point guard Jamaal Tinsley in the fourth quarter of Game 2. Wallace had five of the Pistons' team-record 19 blocks. Wallace, though, missed 15 of his 19 shots and finished with 10 points. For the series, he has missed 21 of 26 shots. MITCH ALBOM FREE PRESS COLUMNIST SEE ALSO METRO FINAL ONE DOT EDITION, PAGE 1A. Copyright (c) 2004, Detroit Free Press PISTONS RESCUE RASHEED INDIANAPOLIS -- Hey, all he said was they would win. He didn't say it would be pretty. Just because Rasheed Wallace missed his first shot, his second third and fourth shots, his fifth and sixth shots, made his seventh, then missed his eighth and ninth, then threw up an air ball with his 10th, hey, that doesn't mean he was wrong about guaranteeing a victory, does it? What counts is the score, not the score settled. And if all you're interested in is results, you might want to check with Wallace for stock tips. Because on a night of forgettable shooting, the best plays were blocks, and the best block of all came with 17 seconds left with Indiana's Reggie Miller, the star of Game 1, heading to the hoop with a stolen ball for the tying lay-up in Game 2. It was all over, it seemed. And then it was all over. Here came Tayshaun Prince, flying higher than he ever has before as a Piston, and he slapped that ball away and landed into the photographers. And suddenly, Wallace was right. And he owes Prince a thank-you. "One of the greatest hustle plays I've ever seen," coach Larry Brown would call it. "When I saw Tayshaun chasing Reggie," Rip Hamilton would add, "I said to myself, 'Reggie better dunk it, or Tay's gonna get it.' " He got it. Pistons win, 72-67. And let's leave it at that, shall we? Unless you're some sort of sumo wrestling nut, or a perpetual half-full versus half-empty person, or you somehow bet the over on blocked shots, this was not a notable game Monday night. It was terrible shooting by the Pistons and even worse shooting by the Pacers. It was rejection after rejection. It was banging elbows, pounding chests, offensive fouls called as blocking and air balls doubling as shots. The honorary team captain named for the Pacers before the game was a hairy behemoth from "Survivor." And now I know why. Only a man stranded on a deserted island would find this entertaining. But what counts is the end, and the end -- after the Pistons almost blew another fourth-quarter lead -- was Prince running with his head down like an Olympic sprinter, then rising at just the right angle, catching the ball but not Miller, and stuffing a sock in the Indiana crowd. A few free throws later, the series was tied. Home-court advantage shifted to the Pistons. They should take it and run. "Guarantee win or no guarantee win," Prince said to a mob of reporters afterward, "it's just good to come in here and get a win." Playing to the crowd Rasheed Wallace took his time coming out of the trainer's room after this was over. A crowd of reporters waited. Wallace laughed but did not emerge, a somewhat strange sense of entitlement for a guy who went 4-for-19. "So y'all want to get up in my face now," he said, finally. "Do you have any other guarantees?" he was asked. "Yeah. I guarantee Games 3 and 4 will be in Detroit." Well. Can you blame him for turning shy? This was not exactly a sure thing until those final moments. And had Detroit lost, everyone would be asking about Rasheed's miserable offense. He took more shots than any other Piston on Monday night and he missed more shots than any other Piston. He is 5-for-26 in these Eastern Conference finals. But because Detroit won, reporters hovered as if he were a soothsayer. This is how it is with guarantees in sports, like the one Wallace made, without provocation, after the Game 1 loss Saturday night. "I'm guaranteeing Game 2," he said. "They will not win Game 2. Put it on the front page, back page, middle of the page. They will not win Game 2." You can't blame the media for hyping this up. What else are we going to focus on in this series -- the great shooting? But these things are always more noise than numbers, more air than action. If Wallace's words were such inspiring material, how come the Pistons came out like the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight? If the words were such bulletin board material for the Pacers, how come they acted as if they'd break out in hives if they hit two straight baskets? Guarantees, even for Game 7's, are now too common to be anything more than a trading card, maybe worth something one day if history is kind. But to make a guarantee for Game 2? It basically should be forgotten as soon as the ball is tipped up. And it would have been, were the first quarter not such a joke. A guarantee that anybody would win this game seemed only a 50-50 bet. How bad was it? With one minute left in the period, the Pistons had two baskets and four turnovers. High school teams laugh at stats like that. Ben Wallace had played only five minutes before disappearing for the rest of the half with two fouls. A playoff basketball game? It was more like diving for pearls in a big, gray ocean: hold your breath, let things go dark for a long time, and hope somebody rises to the surface with something in his hands. The Pacers had 24 points in the entire second half. The Pistons had an amazing 19 blocks and an embarrassing 23 baskets. If trying to pass a kidney stone could ever be like a basketball game, this would be that game. And Rasheed Wallace had about as bad a first quarter as a prognosticator could have. Imagine Joe Namath in that Super Bowl throwing six straight incompletions. Imagine Cassius Clay getting knocked down six times by Sonny Liston. But Wallace didn't seem bothered. When he went to the bench, the fans hooted and hollered, and he encouraged them to be louder. He raised his hands as if to say, "More, more." They obliged. If Rasheed wanted extra attention to motivate himself, he got it. Then again, he got the victory, too. No time to ease up So the Pistons take it. They win because Prince has been doing a great defensive job on Ron Artest -- who was again abysmal (5-for-21). And because Rasheed at least partly made up for his shooting with his defense on Jermaine O'Neal, who didn't score in the second half. They win because Richard Hamilton continues to be their only reliable offense, and they win because of those 19 blocks (a franchise playoff record). And, yes, they win because Indiana shot terribly -- 28 percent, after shooting 34 percent in Game 1. Still, Detroit should not rest easy. The Pistons are hardly playing their best basketball. If they don't find more offense, if Chauncey Billups doesn't realize he's not playing Jason Kidd anymore, if they don't concentrate harder, eliminate mental mistakes, and move that ball around rather than their eyes, I wouldn't bet on anything here. Even if Rasheed guaranteed it. "I don't think either team is going to see 100 points in this series," Billups said as he headed for the team plane. "I don't care, man. I don't care if the score is 28-27. As long as we have the 28." Careful, Chauncey. In this series, that might be a prediction. Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com" THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE. basketball; pistons; game; playoff;spt