“Strangely though, I don’t get nervous or stressed anymore about it. I wouldn't say I don't care, but it's not like I get nervous to see what happens. I just hope its a blowout so its easier to write the game story ahead of time... strange, but true.”

When I was eight years old, this friend and I went to a T.G.I. Friday’s to get autographs from the one and only Vinnie Johnson, who happened to be at the game Thursday. When I think of those days, growing up with the Bad Boys and watching the games and the old championship videos, The Palace seemed so large, so raucous, so loud that even the fans were sweating through their replica jerseys.

Thursday was my 34th Pistons home game as a writer for Pistons.com, and before then I had never witnessed anything close to what I felt watching those videos. They say journalists become jaded when they’re around these spectacles so often, spectacles that often underwhelm us and become just another game. I guess after just 33 games, some of that jadedness had set in. I began to believe the bigger, hotter, louder Palace was an exaggeration, as childhood memories tend to be.

After watching the first half in the media seating, I left the arena to watch the rest of the game on TV in the media room. Figured I’d get a head start. Maybe I’d miss a big shot, but I had seen them before. Then I missed Chauncey’s 3-pointer that made it a 91-89 game. The roar of the crowd was a few seconds ahead of the television relay, and even from deep in The Palace tunnels, you could sense the 22,000 souls above us. Something told me to get out there – and to hurry. I passed a group of cameramen outside the Pistons’ locker room who had huddled around a tiny 9” monitor, and I rushed past them toward the growing ruckus around the corner. The tunnel was packed, you could barely slide through sideways. And as I nudged myself through, there it was – my Palace.

You know how you can feel a sauna’s heat just before you open the door, and the wave completely envelopes you? That is what it felt like to walk into The Palace in the midst of the LeBron James juggernaut. I made my way back to my seat, my palms staining my notepad in sweat. “A little hotter than when I left,” I said to the New York Times writer next to me, and he nodded, grinning. Fans had spilled out of their seats and were jumping in the stairwells, cheering deliriously. Chuck Daly sat five seats down from me. So this must be what it was like …

And as I watched this arrogantly possessed 22-year-old pour in one absurd shot after another for the next two overtimes, I found myself tapping my pen … just miss this one … and scribbling jibberish on my notepad … <>he can’t do it forever .. and trying to figure out why a league that has a rule for everything doesn’t have a rule prohibiting a player from scoring 29 of team’s final 30 points … it’s unnatural, isn’t it? So much for “it’s not like I get nervous to see what happens.”

And when everything had come to pass and LeBron’s 48 were etched the minds of millions and logged in the record books (the most points allowed by the Pistons at home, topping Elgin Baylor – Elgin Baylor!) I headed back to the media room. I couldn’t move fast enough past the Cavs fans (WDFN’s Matt Dery hit it on the head last week with his blog about Cleveland’s inferiority complex. They made “Beat Detroit” t-shirts – is there any situation that would inspire us to wear “Beat Cleveland” gear? Any at all?) and was silently fuming over what I thought to be at least two phantom calls that put LeBron at the foul line in the extra sessions. Technically speaking, eight-year-old fans are not allowed into working press areas, but here’s the catch: you can deny them credentials, but you can’t stop them from coming along for the ride.

I’m not the most prolific writer and the media room is usually fairly empty when I’m finished. But Thursday, although it was a double-overtime affair that stretched into Friday morning, no one was in a rush to leave. People huddled around televisions to watch the TNT broadcast as Ernie, Reggie, Kenny and Charles mentioned Jordan’s 63-point game and all the other incredible one-man shows I heard about as a kid and couldn’t possibly imagine watching in person. Was he that good? I saw writers older and better and wiser than me – those who had witnessed Michael and Magic and Bird wield their talents on the Pistons – shake their heads and chuckle in disbelief, like even the best of what they had seen before was not like this. How awesome was LeBron? He broke through the jadedness, of everyone. For me, it took five months and more than 30 home games – maybe the last home game of my first season with Pistons.com.

Now, the series isn’t over, but somewhere in the middle of the first overtime, Game 5 took on the feeling of a triple-overtime NHL playoff game. The psychological toll was so much greater than one win or loss. So much had been invested in this moment, this game that was so ripe for the taking, you began to believe the loser could never recover. But perhaps I’m wrong. As you can see, it happens from time to time.

But if this is the end, it has been an extraordinary beginning.