Chapter 19: Goodbye, Old Brown
On May 23, 2005, the Pistons narrowly defeated the Heat 90-81 on the road, in this game, the Heat's starting small forward Eddie Jones played well, scoring 22 points and 8 rebounds on 9-of-13 shooting, O'Neal also scored 20 points, but Wade did not play well, in a sense, it was Hamilton and Wade who completed the mutual explosion, Wade only scored 16 points on 7-of-25 shooting, and Hamilton, the Pistons' first attacker, also scored 16 points on 7-of-20 shooting, but obviously, in comparison, Wade's play is crucial for the Heat, and the Pistons are more fire, Tianzun scored 20 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks on 7-of-10 shooting, Billups scored 18 points and 5 assists, Big Ben scored 13 points, 13 rebounds, 3 steals and 2 blocks, Prince scored 13 points, McDies scored 10 points and 6 rebounds on 5-of-6 shooting, and the Pistons took the lead.
Although the Pistons successfully defended Wade in the first game and won the victory, but if you think about who Wade is, 06 years are comparable to Jordan's existence, and in the second game, Wade made the Pistons suffer!
After the first three quarters of the second game, the Pistons led the Heat by 2 points at 63:62, and Wade scored 20 points on only 4 of 14 shots, but in the fourth quarter, Wade's time came, and he and O'Neal frequently entered the interior after blocking and dismantling, neither Hamilton nor Prince, who is good at defense, could keep up with Wade's pace! Wade's last quarter of this game can be described as lustful! In the end, Wade scored 20 points in a single quarter on 9-of-14 shooting! The whole game even scored 40 points! It was completely by himself that he broke the defense of the Pistons! This is also the first time in Wade's career (although Wade has not retired, it is clear that he will hardly be able to create such a miracle again) to break 20 in a single quarter 3 times!
Although the third game was held at the Pistons' home Auburn Hills Palace, it was completely brought into rhythm by the Heat, and the two sides had a tragic offensive battle, but it was clear that such a rhythm was not the normal rhythm of the Pistons, Wade and Eddie Jones broke through Bo free throws one after another, which made the Pistons unable to parry, and the Heat made 54 free throws and hit 38 times, while the Pistons only made 43 free throws and hit 28 of them. Billups left the court with 6 fouls in the last minute of the game, Big Ben, McDyes, and Tianzun lost to the big shark O'Neal, each with five fouls on his back, and he played timidly, and the three of them scored 30 points, 21 rebounds and 4 assists on 11-of-24 shooting, while O'Neal alone delivered 24 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists, and 8 shots from 13 shots, the Pistons lost the game 104-113 at home, Wade scored 36 points, and Hamilton shot down 33 points.
In the fourth game, Wade still scored 28 points on 10-of-22 shooting, but others suddenly missed the mark, Haslem scored 14 points and was the second highest score on the team, O'Neal and Eddie Jones only scored 12 and 11 points, and the Pistons' Hamilton scored 28 points, Tianzun was trapped in fouls and only played 22 minutes intermittently, but also scored 20 points, Billups and Prince scored 17 points and 15 points, and the Pistons won 106-96 on their home court, and the big score came to 2: 2 flat.
The fifth game of the battle of Tianwang Mountain is undoubtedly a very important game, and historical data proves that any team that can win the battle of Tianwang Mountain in the seven-game series will have an 80% probability of winning the entire series, but from the perspective of the Pistons, unfortunately, the Pistons lost this game.
Throughout the game, the Pistons were led by the nose by the Heat, completely caught in the rhythm of the Heat, the whole game was played, the Pistons shot only 38.5%, while the Heat was as high as 52.2%, the Pistons' poor bench state affected the team's performance, Hamilton, Billups and Prince scored 21 points, 19 points and 11 points respectively, and no one on the team scored double-doubles, and on the important bench, Lynch-Hunter, McDyce, Arroyo The three important benches only scored 13 points on 6-of-22 shooting, The Heat O'Neal scored 20 points, Damon Jones and Wade both scored 15 points, and Haslem also scored 14 points, but the person who really changed the game was the third-year rookie RaSul Butler who sat on the Heat bench, he scored 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting, and at the beginning of the most critical fourth quarter, when the bench performance, Butler scored 7 points to lay the victory for the Heat!
Before the start of the sixth game, the Pistons received a "good news", the Heat main player Dwyane Wade could not participate in the sixth game because of the aggravation of his knee injury, Butler, who performed well in the last game, started in place of Wade, in the first five games, Wade carried the * bag into the interior, and sent a lot of pressure on the Pistons defense, whether it was defending the little prince Prince, or Hamilton or Billups, they could not limit Wade, after the series, Prince sighed-
"Wade is an outlier, he doesn't have a three-point range, his mid-range shooting is unstable, he will only break through, desperate to break inside, but the scary thing is that you know that his choice after receiving the ball will only be a breakthrough, but you still can't prevent him......"
In the sixth game, without Wade, it was at home at home again, and the Pistons only spent three quarters to spend the opponent, 91:66 in the game, Hamilton still contributed 24 points steadily, Prince scored a second-high 16 points and 9 rebounds, the Heat's O'Neal scored 24 points and 13 rebounds, Rassell Butler, who started in place of Wade, played a team-high 41 minutes, scoring the team's second-highest 13 points on 5-of-11 shooting, and Durin scored 10 points off the bench.
In the final tie-break, Wade dragged his injured knee and forced a comeback, but the effect was not good, Larry Brown is such a vicious person, he took a fancy to Wade's shortcomings of slow movement, mainly Hamilton, the latter will not do anything else, that is, he can run, drag Wade around, and shoot to solve the problem as soon as there is space, in the first half, Hamilton scored 16 points on 8-of-10 shooting, leading the Pistons to a 2-point lead over the Heat, in the third quarter, Wade played well, scoring 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting, but this is also the end of Wade's strong crossbow after injury, In the fourth quarter, Wade, who was already exhausted, shot 0 of 6 and did not score a point, and in the last 4.7 seconds of the game, the Pistons led the Heat by 4 points, but the ball was in the Heat, and if he scored, he could narrow the score or even equalize the score, but unfortunately, Wade failed to become the savior of the Heat, and the last three-point shot was missed, and Wade, who was substituted off the court, regretfully watched the Pistons players celebrate wildly and entered the NBA Finals for two consecutive years.
Throughout the controversy series, Wade's performance was impeccable, averaging 25.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game, shooting 44.0%, in fact, if you exclude the last game of the game that forced him to come back after an injury, (20 points on 7-of-20 shooting, 1 rebound, 4 assists and 5 turnovers) his report card will look even better, this year Wade has completed the initial version of the Flash, and the final version is on the stage of the 2006 Finals, which amazed everyone!
On the other hand, the Pistons are still performing their duties, Hamilton is still the most stable and sharpest scoring point for the Pistons, averaging 23.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 1.1 steals per game, shooting 47.4%, Billups is still a solid backcourt commander, averaging 16.9 points and 5.9 assists per game, Prince is still omnipotent on both offensive and defensive ends, 14.7 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.9 assists, inside Tianzun offense, averaging 14.4 points per game and shooting 49.3%, Three-point shooting is 45.0%, big defense, averaging 10.3 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.6 blocks per game, McDyce is still the team's most solid sixth man, averaging 6.3 points and 5.4 rebounds per game, shooting 46.7% from the field.
No matter what kind of team they faced, everyone had their own role, and this was probably the scariest thing about this Pistons team back then!
In this year's finals, the Pistons faced the San Antonio Spurs, who have a GDP combination, and finally the Pistons lost to the Spurs 3:4 and missed the defending championship (the specific game details are described in Chapter 16 of the Spurs Oriental Artifact, and will not be repeated here),
Just a brief description of these wonderful seven battles.
Hamilton, who has always been steady on the offensive end, was wiped out by Uncle Bao, averaging only 16.7 points per game, and the shooting rate was a dismal 38.6%, Billups became the biggest bright spot for the Pistons, averaging 20.4 points, 5.0 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game, Parker's small body can't stand Billups' big ass at all, Big Ben is more successful in defending Duncan, Duncan averages 20.6 points and 14.1 rebounds per game, and the shooting percentage is only 41.9% of the average performance, The Pistons lost to Ginobili, averaging 18.7 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game in seven games, no one in the Pistons team can match Ginobili, it is precisely because of Duncan and Ginobili's positive and negative play, so some people will sigh that this year's Finals MVP does not belong to Duncan, but to Ginobili.
Piston: This TM has something to do with me, and it's not mine anyway.
At the end of the season, the Pistons made an earth-shattering move, which was to turn down the contract of meritorious head coach Brown Sr. and sign head coach Philip Saunders, who was fired by the Timberwolves.
As soon as this incident came out, it immediately shocked the Pistons, including everyone in the NBA, you must know that the current lineup is strong, and the stable Pistons army is built by the old Brown and Dumas, Dumas is responsible for the introduction, the old Brown is responsible for the transformation, look at what the Pistons were doing before they came to the Pistons, after reading it, you will feel how unreasonable the Pistons refused to renew the old Brown.
Billups, a guard who was once detained as a parallel trader, moved to four teams in the first three years of his career, and once gave up the basketball profession because he didn't have the confidence to give up, Hamilton, a guard who was looked down upon by the basketball god Michael Jordan, Rashid Wallace, the troublemaker in the league, except for T every day, is scolding, scolding the president, scolding the referee, bans, and fines are commonplace, Big Ben, a player who is less than two meters tall but insists on playing center, There was no player whose name was pronounced in the draft......
It was these players who were all "leftovers" in the eyes of others that were pinched together by the old Brown, and finally defeated the Los Angeles Lakers with the four kings on the stage of the finals in 2003 and won the championship trophy that year!
Old Brown's dismissal was opposed by the group of all players, however, the opposition was invalid, the money was from the owner Davidson, and the final decision to stay was with him, only a few hours after announcing that the old Brown would not renew the contract, the Pistons announced that they would renew the contract with head coach Philip Saunders, who was fired by the Timberwolves, so, what made Davidson must, must drive the old Brown away?