While Detroit has the NFL on its mind today, I’m daydreaming of the NBA and what I’d like to see happen in the Eastern Conference between now and May.
Since the Pistons have lost two of their last four games, I’m feeling much better about the Spurs chances of beating them, should they face each other in the 2006 NBA Finals.
Last Tuesday the Pistons lost to the New Jersey Nets, who played a lot more like the team that lost to the Spurs in the 2003 NBA Finals than they have of late.
And yesterday the Pistons lost to the Indiana Pacers, despite a poor performance by recent acquisition Peja Stojakovic and the fact that Jermaine O’Neal, Jamaal Tinsley and Austin Croshere didn’t play due to injuries.
Suddenly the Pistons look vulnerable instead of a shoo-in to win 70 games. Their path to the NBA Finals should be anything but a cakewalk.
If the playoffs started today, and top seeds advanced, the Pistons would first face the Washington Wizards, then the Cleveland Cavaliers, followed by the Miami Heat or, even better, the New Jersey Nets, and finally the San Antonio Spurs.
My daydream is that the standings will basically remain unchanged over the next three months and that the Pistons end up facing the teams that match up best against them: the Wizards, Cavaliers, Nets and Spurs.
The Pistons will be tough under any circumstances. They’ve had a tremendous season except for this swoon in the last few games, and they’ll be fired up to exact revenge on the Spurs. But if we’re healthy, if TD’s plantar fasciitis doesn’t cause too much of a problem, if TP’s hitting his outside shot in the playoffs, and if we can avoid being doubled up (for fuck’s sake) on the boards, we have a chance. It’s that last thing that worries me the most – the fact that the Spurs rank highly in defensive rebounding is misleading, because we continue to give up too many easy offensive rebounds. That absolutely killed us against the Pistons in our two games this season.