In the 2008 playoffs, the Detroit Pistons, ranked second in the East, met the seventh-ranked Philadelphia 76ers, the 76ers at this time were no longer the Philadelphia Army led by Iverson, the team leaders were Iguodala and Andre Miller, although Iguodala was physically strong and had super defensive ability, but his sense of presence on the offensive end has not been strong, and Miller has a natural weakness that he will not shoot three-pointers, which has also led to a serious lack of offensive ability of the 76 team, six games, The 76 team did not score more than 100 points in a game, averaging 85 points per game, and the highest average score per game was only Miller's 15.3 points, while the Pistons were still able to average 92 points per game despite the fact that the main players were not very good on the offensive end due to their age, Hamilton averaged nearly 20 points per game, and Prince also scored 16.3 points.

In the second round, the Pistons met the object of last year's first-round sweep, the Orlando Magic, at this time the team's treasure is still Dwight Howard, in the fourth year, Howard really began his peak performance, averaging 20.7 points and 14.2 rebounds per game in the regular season, but the stage of the playoffs is different from the regular season, the young Warcraft was clearly conditioned by Tianzun and McDice in the playoffs, and the average data per game plummeted to 15.2 points and 13.4 rebounds, and the Pistons 4: 1 Bloodless win over the Magic, for the sixth year in a row, standing on the stage of the Eastern Conference Finals, and their opponent is the Boston Celtics, who have assembled the Big Three this season.

But although the Celtics that year made up the Big Three of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce through a series of big trades, the problems they faced were also very serious, one of which was that the Big Three occupied most of the team's salary space, and other positions could only be beaten, the main center was Kendrick Perkins who had decent defense, but basically zero offensive ability, and the point guard was Rajon Rondo, who was a sophomore. Whether it is three-point or mid-range shooting, it is all at the bottom of the league, and it is only the 21st pick in the first round, and other role players, such as sixth man James Posey, seventh man PJ Brown, other Glenn Davis, Leon Bowe, are also single-function role players, and the future defensive god Tony Allen was excluded from the rotation lineup by head coach Doug Rivers in the playoffs because of his lack of offensive ability, and the second is that the lineup is not in place. After eight consecutive wins, the team's form has been up and down, and that form has continued into the playoffs.

Compared with the Pistons' soaring progress in the playoffs, the Celtics, who ranked first in the East in the regular season, have an extremely difficult road to qualify, with seven games in the first round with the Hawks, who are ranked eighth in the East, and the seventh game is to defeat the Hawks by relying on Garnett's stable play and Leon Bowy's magic soldiers, and the Celtics in the second round relied on their strong defensive ability to lock James. Let James's shooting rate be only 35.5%, Rao is like this, and the Celtics fought with the Cavaliers for seven more games, risked advancement, and finally stood on the stage of the Eastern Conference Finals with the Pistons.

Compared with the Celtics at this time, the Pistons are slightly inferior in defensive ability, and the offensive ability is roughly the same, in the first round of the game, the Pistons lost to the Celtics with 79:88 points, the key point is Kevin Garnett, Garnett is no better than Howard, Garnett has both technology, ability and experience, completely broke the aging McDyce and Tianzun, scored 26 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks on 11-of-17 shooting in the game, while the Pistons' interior duo scored only 25 points on 8-of-228 shooting.

In the second game, Billups and Stucky became the saviors of the Pistons, in this game, the Celtics Big Three all had a good performance, the three of them shot 29 of 51, and together they scored 75 points, while the Pistons Hamilton made 7 of 16 shots and contributed 25 points, McDyess dragged his aging body, fought hard for 39 minutes, scored 15 points on 7 of 12 shots, 8 rebounds, 4 front boards, Tianzun scored 13 points and 10 rebounds on 4 of 7 shots, Starkey had a flash of inspiration and played 17 minutes off the bench, He scored 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting, 3 assists and 2 steals, completely blowing up the Green Army's bench, while Billups scored 19 points and 7 assists on 5-of-10 shooting, without a single turnover, and in the last 18 seconds of the game, it was a key layup by Billups that stretched the score to six points and completely killed the game.

In the third game, the Pistons were on their home court, and the two big players played abnormally, Billups scored 6 points on 1-of-6 shooting, Prince scored 4 points on 2-of-11 shooting, and the last excellent Staki game got 28 minutes of performance time, 4-of-12 shooting, and 17 points on 9-of-10 free throws, and the Pistons, who were not very bright on the offensive end, were completely lost under the strong defense of the Green Army, and the Green Army defeated the Pistons 94-80 with a double-double performance of six players. In the fourth game, the Pistons rebounded strongly, and after three quarters, the Pistons only led the Green Army by 7 points at 65:58, but in the fourth quarter, Hamilton and Mark Hill both played well, the former scored 10 points on 3-of-3 shooting in a single quarter, and the latter scored 8 points on 3-of-3 shooting, and the two worked together to help the Pistons score 29-17 in the final quarter*, thus taking away the victory! McDyce's performance in this game has to be written, scoring 21 points, 16 rebounds and 7 rebounds on 8-of-14 shooting in the game, and hard to beat Garnett, who scored 16 points and 10 rebounds on 6-of-16 shooting.

In the fifth key battle of Tianwang Mountain, the two teams played * flavor, Posey and Hamilton clashed, and the two received technical fouls, but this did not affect Hamilton at all, the latter's ghostly move made the defenders miserable, but the fifth game was played at the home of the Green Army, the Green Army was like a rainbow, and the whole team had a good performance, Garnett swept away the haze of the fourth game, and scored 33 points on 11-of-17 shooting, and Ray Allen came out of the sheath, shooting 9 of 15 three-pointers and shooting 5 of 6 shooting to drop 29 points, Even Perkins, who didn't know what the offense was, scored 18 points, 16 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks, Pierce scored 16 points and 6 assists, Rondo scored 7 points, 13 assists, 6 rebounds and 4 steals, and the Pistons' Billups and Hamilton combined to score 51 points, Tianzun scored 18 points, Starkey scored 13 points, and no one else scored a double-double, and finally the Green Army, which played better overall, narrowly defeated the Pistons 106-102 and won the fifth game, but in fact, At that time, the Pistons still had a chance, 4.5 seconds before the end, the Pistons were only three points behind the Green Army, and the Pistons held the ball, Korondo sword went to the front, the court used a shot to save Zhao, took the initiative to foul Starkey, let the latter go to the free throw line, and finally Starkey lived up to the expectations of the Green Army, two free throws and one hit, Tianzun fouled Garnett, Garnett hit both free throws, and the Pistons were powerless to return to the sky.

In Game 6, Hamilton came into the game with an injury to his right elbow, and the Celtics led by one point at 75-74 with 5:25 left before the break. The Pistons traded for Wallace after a timeout, but he missed a turnover, a jumper, and Pierce scored four straight points to give the Celtics a 79-74 lead. After Wallace and Garnett each scored two points, Wallace drew five fouls on Garnett, but he missed a 3-pointer from the left wing and Rondo hit a jumper to give the Celtics an 83-76 lead with 2:32 left in the game. After Billups hit a successful 3-pointer, Prince made a serious mistake when he grabbed the rebound and didn't notice Posey behind him, and as a result, Posey cut the ball away and the Pistons lost the opportunity to continue closing the gap. After Hamilton fouled, Pierce hit both free throws to give the Celtics an 85-79 lead with 1:35 left in the game. After back-to-back three-point misses, the Pistons resorted to foul play, with Garnett missing two free throws and Pierce hitting one of two free throws to give the Celtics an 86-79 lead. After Hamilton missed a 3-pointer, Allen hit both free throws as the Celtics extended their lead. At the last moment, the Pistons were powerless to turn the tables, they lost 81-89, with a big score of 2:4, for three consecutive years, fell outside the door of the Eastern Conference Finals, and that year's Celtics were on the stage of the finals, defeated the Yew Army 4:2, and won the first and only championship trophy in the Big Three era.

Fell on the stage of the Eastern Conference Finals for three consecutive years, proving that the development of the team has encountered a bottleneck, the Pistons at this time are still a strong team in the league, but compared with the gradually rising Cavaliers, Celtics, Western Rockets, Lakers and Spurs, there is no obvious advantage, anyone with a discerning eye can see where the Pistons are missing at this time, the outside Billups and Hamilton are in their playing years, and Prince also has a stable output, but the team's interior Tianzun and McDyce are old, and they can no longer support the Pistons' interior offense and defense, The Pistons' road at this time should be to trade a strong center, sit on the team's interior line, ensure the team's interior defense and rebounding, or not break or stand, completely push to the rebuild, all stars are traded away, in exchange for a potential star of hope, but Dumas, who sits in the position of the team's general manager and has made many frequent Pistons meritorious figures, has chosen an ambiguous path, that is, to correct the second-year rookie, Rodney Starkey.

Although Starkey's performance in the playoffs can be called a brilliant performance, in the playoffs when Billups received injuries, he saved the team many times, but his problems are still more serious, as the starting No. 1 position, he can't pass the ball, he plays too alone, as the starting No. 2 position, there is a problem with the shooting selection, and the outside shooting rate is not high, Starkey's personality is not very gregarious, and he usually doesn't like to laugh, which also makes Dumas feel that Starkey has a leadership temperament, no matter what, Dumas has a fan-like trust in Starkey, and this trust even made him completely dismantle the well-known Pistons Five Tigers lineup, and the first one to open the knife was Chauncy Billups, who was not stable enough in the playoffs because of injuries.