Pistons Fall To The Heat

When Shaquille O’Neal first came to Miami, he said that Miami was Dwayne Wade’s team. Tonight Wade reminded us why Shaq is right.

Wade scored 31 points with 10 assists and 10 rebounds – his first career triple double – to lead the Heat to an 89-78 win over the Detroit Pistons.

The Pistons started off the game playing well. Up 20-17 after the first, Detroit went into half-time with a 47-41 lead. The shooting was good, the ball movement was good, they were transitioning well, and they were converting second chances into points. It appeared the Pistons were about to play four quarters of quality basketball.

Earlier this month, Greg Popovich spoke of remembering what kind of team you are.

So let’s think about that a bit.

If you are a defensive minded team, you must keep your defensive game in tact, and use it to create leads, and hold opponents low enough for you to win. If you’re a team fueled by fast breaks, you must run the ball as much as possible to create more scoring opportunities. If you’re a team fueled by the three point shot, you have to find a way to clear the perimeter of defenders, and get your hot hand the ball.

The Pistons must have amnesia, because when they hit the fourth quarter, they didn’t seem to know anything about their team.

The Pistons came out of the third, and into the fourth shooting poorly. There was one point where they spent five minutes with only a couple free throws. It appeared the Pistons would have to rely on their defense to get a win.

The problem with all of this is that defense can only help so much, especially when you’re facing a team that also knows how to shut down a team in the final minutes of a game.

Miami proceeded to take off on a 12-2 run. They finished the fourth quarter out-scoring the Pistons 22-9. Had the Pistons not fallen into a scoring drought (again), they might have had a better chance to win this game.

Same old story, different night for the Pistons. Even in their last win they had to come back from a 19 point deficit.

Let’s not panic, all is not lost for the Pistons. They still have McDyess coming strong off the bench. Lindsey Hunter, although not a scoring threat, came off the bench and created some plays. Hunter logged 18 minutes scoring three points – a three pointer – and three assists. Smush Parker put in five minutes of work, and hit his only shot attempt.

The plain and simple truth is that the Pistons ran out of gas. Without a deep bench, the starters were forced to play an average of 38.4 minutes per game. There is no backup for Tayshaun Prince, and there is no true PG backup for Chauncey Billups.

I believe in the coming weeks that we’ll either see a trade, or the bench players starting to contribute more. Joe Dumars will not sit idle and watch his team fall away from contending their title, and Larry Brown won’t stand for the lack of help from the bench. For now we must learn the ways of a Jedi.

Use the force? Maybe.

We learned from Jedi Master Yoda that patience is something that we all need more focus on. As fans, we often lose focus, and want results and winning to come now. We overlook the small things -- such as losing depth from a bench that just added a player such as McDyess – and are quick to point out all the bad.

We must be patient while Larry Brown tunes his offense to mix with his defense.

We must be patient with the front office to find the right mix of players to defend the championship title.

We must be patient while the players learn where they all fit in, and how they can help the team win.

So please, let’s try and get past the 15-13 record. Let’s take a step back, and try to be patient.

Oh, wait, another lesson from Yoda comes to mind.

“Not try. Do or do not, there is no try.”

ESPN.com: NBA - Recap - Heat at Pistons