The Sound of the Suburbs

At last, the NBA Playoffs are here!

Unfortunately for me, a Piston fan who was rooting for the lottery, my boys choked their way into a quick brooming from the Cavs, who are on fire and will show no mercy.

The great LBJ, who broke Detroit's will two years ago with his Game 5 ballroom blitz, driving the lane at will while Rasheed Wallace et.al. stood by and watched him own the paint like a man among boys (where was Rick "Clothesline" Mahorn when I needed him?!), will decimate Detroit in four, five max. (Will The Thrill Bynum just MIGHT go wild one night. This is what it has come to for Piston faithful, counting on a guy who didn't even PLAY the first half of the season thanks to Curry's Alice in Wonderland rotation and the AI debacle).

Like their hometown, the Pistons need a bailout more than GM. Yes, Joe Dumars has cleared lotsa cap space so he can get ... who??? Carlos Boozer? Well, at least he has a post game.

It remains one of the great mysteries in sport why Dumars, Flip Saunders, Michael Curry (certainly one of the worst rookie coaches in history), Dave Cowens and even Mike Abdenour have allowed Wallace to devolve into a three-point line bystander. A guy who used to be a dominant low-post animal is now heaving up half his shots a game (I read the box every night) from 25 or more.

Can't anybody tell this multi-millionaire to GET IN THE GD PAINT and operate?! Apparently not. And Piston Nation (sic) was hardly surprised by the predictably sour finish to Monday's pivotal showdown with the Bulls, a date with peaking Cleveland or banged-up Boston at stake. At the Palace nonetheless.

Wallace, like Karl Malone, neither of whom made an end-of-game playoff bucket in his career, gets the ball with five on the clock, down by two, and heaves an airball three when he had ten feet open in front of him to launch an easier shot to tie and send it to OT. Antonio McDyess, easily the team's MVP this year who needs to have his head examined for not signing with Boston after clearing Denver waivers, got stuck with the loose ball and missed a tough angle corner shot while Sheed was probably conjuring up a new routine for his tiresome and now just plain offensive pre-game dance-circle jive ritual.

While I can't argue with Dumars' dumping Mr. Big Shot Billups in the spirit of Branch Rickey's "better to trade him a year early than a year late" philosophy, the Pistons are a gutless embarrassment. This was illustrated shortly after the passing of benevolent owner Bill Davidson, whose money PAID these clowns. The Motor City Badmen responded to Mr. D's death with an inexplicable loss at home to ... Memphis. Maybe dumbass Curry should have screened the tape of Bobby Murcer knocking it out of the park to beat the Orioles after Thurman Munson's funeral. But he was probably too busy buying another heinous checkered suit while Darrell Walker was drawing up offensive schemes. Love ya, Darrell but don't recall you as a scoring machine.

God, I miss Flip Saunders, let alone Larry Brown, one of the greatest coaches in history (Bobcats over Lakers TWICE this year ... I rest my case).

With LB the Pistons would have beaten Cleveland and San Antonio in 2006 a year after their gutwrenching seven-game war with the Spurs. Sadly, for basketball purists everywhere, they became the last superstar-less team to win a title, reminiscent to me --- not to mention Phil Jackson --- of the selfless Willis Reed Knicks, before a slow descent into the maelstrom featuring regular-season domination and playoff abomination.

As for the rest of the playoffs, I'll break that down next time but, barring a KG resurrection, we're looking at a David Stern wet dream: Kobe v. LeBron, and I see the Lakers in six.

And living in LA as a Lakerhater, I should probably make plans to leave town in mid-June to avoid the nauseating spectacle of another parade down Figueroa.

But hey! You gotta love pros like Bryant, Gasol, Fisher. Not only do they not get dumbass Ts, they NEVER quit. Listening, Sheed?