9101200400 DETROIT FREE PRESS 910518 Saturday, May 18, 1991 METRO FINAL CHASER

NWS

1A Photo Color JULIAN H. GONZALEZ Photo JOHN LUKE : Pistons fans cheer for the home team during the overtime victory Friday night at the Palace. Many spectators left when the game went into overtime. PISTONS 117 CELTICS 113 Isiah Thomas exults Friday night after the Pistons' heart- stopping 117-113 overtime victory over the Boston Celtics at the Palace in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. The Pistons move on to face the Bulls in the first game of the conference finals on Sunday in Chicago. MITCH ALBOM Copyright (c) 1991, Detroit Free Press AND THIS WAS JUST ROUND 2? INCREDIBLE So that's it, right? We win the championship! YAAAAY! -- . . . Huh? Second round? No way. That couldn't be the second round. Too much drama. Too many hearts stuck in fans' throats. You don't have Larry Bird, shaking off age and back problems to try one more gasp at lifting his team to the impossible -- not in the second round. You don't have Isiah Thomas, in overtime, shaking off every injury known to man to win the game and the series -- not in a second round. It's the Finals, right? They get rings for this? "It does seem," Joe Dumars would sigh after this heart- stopper, a 117-113 victory that ousted the Celtics and pushed the Pistons into the Eastern Conference Finals against Chicago, "that we've gone through a lot just to be where we are." A lot? A lot is too little. I swear, the Pistons are going to start showing up at games with their wrists chained together, saying, "Here we are. We make it hard on ourselves." What on earth were the Celtics doing back in this game Friday night? Overtime? In Game 6 at the Palace? Weren't they losing by 17 points in the third quarter? Weren't the Pistons doing what they were supposed to do, hitting their shots, outrebounding the enemy? Yes. Yes. And so what? Suddenly, you look up in the fourth quarter, around two minutes left, and here was Bird sinking a free throw to give the Celtics their first lead of the night, 100-99. They had come all the way back. This crazy series was up for grabs. The Boston Garden was cooing from far away, like some evil temptress. "Come back to me, Celtics. Game 7. I'll take care of you. . . . " Second round? No way. This was somebody's Final. Wasn't your skin all goose-bumpy when Dumars, after a brilliant game, missed two free throws that could have put the game away in the final regulation seconds? Didn't your heart sink when Reggie Lewis rebounded his own missed shot and lofted a jumper to tie the game? Didn't you want to scream when Isiah lost control of the ball and suddenly, the announcer was croaking "WE WILL HAVE . . . OVERTIME!" Well. If you weren't in cardiac arrest by that point, you surely were in the minutes that followed. For here was a story that could only have been thought up by some Hollywood screenwriter. Isiah, the captain, suddenly discovering his old self, ignoring the bad ankle, ignoring the bad wrist, ignoring the bad hamstring, taking over the game in overtime as if discovering intruders in his house, hitting a huge three-point shot, then a jumper, another jumper -- and then, perhaps the final turnaround play, harassing Boston's Dee Brown with hand- poking defense, until Brown, just a kid, traveled with the ball and turned it over with 43 seconds left. "Dee will remember that play the entire summer," Mark Aguirre observed, shaking his head. "And he'll never make that mistake again." Too late now. Pistons win. Second round? Did something click in?" Thomas was asked in the crowded locker room after the win. "Did you know you were gonna take over?" "I just didn't want to lose," he answered. "I just did not want to lose. Boston is a nice place. A great place. But damn. I just didn't want to go back there again this season." Not necessary. Not after that overtime -- which must rank as one of the great clutch playoff performances in recent history. After all, Thomas was little more than a relief man during the first four quarters, spelling Dumars and Vinnie Johnson. And yet, in the magic moment, there he was again, as if some light shone down on him and made all his problems go away, just for a few minutes. No bandages. No pain. Just him. The ball. The basket. "I felt like we were in a lull, like everyone was waiting for something to happen. In the regulation I wasn't even looking to shoot, I was just trying to distribute the ball. But in overtime, something happened. . . . " Something? What didn't happen? The Celtics jumped out quickly. They took a four-point lead. "I said to myself, if we don't score here, we're doomed," Dumars later admitted. But they did score, a James Edwards jump shot. And then, with the crowd on its feet, Thomas came downcourt and made a shot that will rank up there with all the red-letter baskets in the history of the Palace. The shot clock was down to five seconds. Nothing was happening. Mike Abdenour, the Pistons' trainer, was screaming "GO TO IT! GO TO IT!", the desperation cry that means shoot, we're out of time. Thomas squared up outside the three-point line and fired. He later admitted he was only trying to bank the shot off the glass, so that there would be a rebound. The ball banked in. Three points. "Sometimes God is just on your side," Thomas said, allowing a grin. "It wasn't skill in that one. It was just luck." Luck or fate. Don't the Pistons seemed destined to win this way? Or lose this way? Grabbing you by your heartstrings and yanking you all over the place? Thomas, who finished with 17 points -- eight in overtime -- wasn't the only Piston hero on this night. In fact, until that fourth quarter, Friday looked like a highlight film. Here was Johnson following a missed shot, grabbing the rebound in mid-air, lofting it back in on soft roll. Here was Dennis Rodman, not only grabbing every rebound in sight, but launching an alley-oop pass to John Salley, who slammed it home. And here was Dumars, incredible from the opening tap, taking a pass on a fast break and not even bothering with a lay-up, canning a jumper, then driving past the entire Celtic team, off the glass, lay-up, again, lay- up, again, lay-up. Outside. Inside, Outside. Make no mistake. His 32 points were what kept the Pistons far enough ahead to withstand the Boston rally. Of course, those two missed free throws were a different story. "When was the last time you did that?" he was asked. "I have never," he said, "missed two free throws in a situation like that. I've never missed one. I held my head and said 'Aw, no, Joe. What did you just do?' " Nothing the Pistons haven't been doing all year. Going to the edge, throwing one leg over, and saying "Fall? Come on. We won't fall." Second round? And that's really the most unbelievable part, isn't it? That, after a game like Friday, the Pistons board a plane today for Chicago. And a game Sunday. And if you ask me, the Bulls will be tougher than the Celtics. Shouldn't they get a break? Shouldn't they get a reward for winning this one -- a vacation, a few days on the beach? Maybe they should. But they won't. This is the way the Pistons will defend their crown this year, for better or worse: Gut- wrenching, desperate action. And even the safest of leads -- such as 17 points at home -- will not be safe at all. Ah, well. What do you expect from a Boston-Detroit series? Something about the Celtics -- even without Robert Parish, and even with Bird an aching shadow of his old self. They're like a cockroach in your kitchen. You step on it. It stops moving. You look the other way, it runs under the wall. They simply won't die easily. Just as the Pistons refuse to live easily. They advance now. The next face in the Pistons' nightmare will have his head shaved and his tongue hanging out and he'll be wearing No. 23. Michael Jordan? Chicago Bulls? Lord knows how the Pistons can make it any harder on themselves. But they will. "Wasn't tonight your kind of moment, coming in to save the day in overtime?" someone asked Thomas. "No," Isiah said, starting to laugh, "my kind of moment is when we're up by 15 points and I'm sitting on the bench clapping my hands. . . . " Don't count on too many of those. Not with this team. Not this year. Second round? Fine. I will now make a prediction for the third round: I predict it will be absolute hell on our nerves. Wanna bet me? BASKETBALL; DPISTONS;Pistons