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Not much new on the Chauncey Billups front. Billups reported that he felt a little better Friday than he did Thursday, when he felt no worse than he did Wednesday after his left leg went along for the ride on Jameer Nelson’s foot and caused his firmly planted right leg’s hamstring to stretch unnaturally.
And that type of feedback is why Arnie Kander remains almost glowingly optimistic that the injury will not be a lingering one.
That’s important not only because he’s always right, but because the Pistons believe wholeheartedly and unfailingly not only in Kander’s diagnostic acumen but in his mystical healing powers.
So if Arnie Kander tells Chauncey Billups his injury isn’t as bad as it feels, that by itself will carry psychological healing power. Arnie says it’s OK? Well, must be OK then. If some other fully qualified man of medicine told Billups the injury wasn’t that serious but his hamstring told Billups something else, he’d be more wary of playing over the twinges he’s going to feel whenever he gets back out there and really tests his leg.
The Pistons are going to err on the side of caution where this injury is concerned, not because they take Orlando lightly and think they’re likely to win without him and not because they think they can afford to spot the Magic a game and take their chances in a best of three.
They’re going to err on the side of caution because it’s the prudent thing to do. Rodney Stuckey and unusual backcourt depth give them more than a puncher’s chance to win Game 4. The worst-case scenario is coming home even with home-court advantage still theirs.
None of that means you hold Billups out at any cost. It just means that you don’t have to take a chance on a Billups at 80 percent capacity as more dire circumstances would dictate.
By all accounts, the Pistons won’t know until late tomorrow afternoon, after Billups has tested the leg and gotten a few final rounds of Kander’s assorted treatments. That in itself is pretty good news, considering the way it looked when his legs went in opposite directions the other night.
When Cleveland lost Game 1 in Boston, it reminded me so very much of games 1 and 2 of last spring’s Eastern Conference finals at The Palace when both games came down to last-shot Cleveland possessions that failed. The first half of Game 2 was much like that one before Boston gradually stretched the lead and made the second half non-competitive.
But I’d be careful about writing off the Cavs just yet. Boston couldn’t win in three tries at Atlanta, a lesser team with no history of a home-court advantage. And if Boston can’t win at Cleveland, that reduces the Celtics’ margin for error at home to zero. All four home wins over Atlanta came in blowouts. Cleveland already has shown it can stay close in Boston. And if they can stay close two more times in Boston, LeBron James is certainly due to approximate his 48-point Game 5 explosion at The Palace.
A word about that. All the aspersions cast on last year’s Pistons for their complacency – a word even their president, Joe Dumars, hung on them … would we have been having that debate if James hadn’t gone completely out-of-body and started dropping those 3-point bombs and other high-degree-of-difficulty shots on the Pistons in a fourth quarter like no one could ever recall?
If the Pistons win Game 5 – as they would have if even one among that endless stream of James baskets had bounced out – chances are they win one of the final two games and take the series, right? And get to the NBA Finals, where they would have put up a far better fight against San Antonio.
James went 2 for 18 in Game 1 at Boston and came back with a 6 for 24 outing in Game 2. (Hey, at least he’s trending in the right direction – 1 out of 9 to 1 out of 4. At this rate he’ll shoot better than 50 percent in the next game and be closing in on 100 percent by Game 7 in Boston.) That puts him at a historically wretched 19 percent for the series. If he had made one of the three layups he took in the last minute or so in Game 1, at worst the Cavs would have found themselves in overtime.
It ain’t over yet is all I’m saying.
Did anybody really think San Antonio was going out meekly?
If there’s a team out there that beats the Pistons in the ol’ resiliency department, it’s the Spurs. You can’t bury ’em until you first drive a stake through their heart.
That said, these Spurs look more vulnerable than at any time since the ascendancy of the Duncan-Ginobili-Parker triumvirate. And not because of any softening of the D-G-P triumvirate’s mettle. It has everything to do with the supporting cast around them. So many resources go in to limiting Duncan’s touches and cutting off Parker’s penetration and steering Ginobili to traffic that whoever’s out there with them is going to get gaping opportunities to make an impact. And guys like Robert Horry and Bruce Bowen and Brent Barry would always tear your heart out by knocking down critical open shots.
They’re not tearing your heart out so much anymore.
The All-NBA teams were released Thursday and the Pistons didn’t have anyone make the top three teams. That wasn’t unexpected. I think you can make a case for Chauncey Billups over Deron Williams or Steve Nash, both of whom made the second team. I think you can make a case for Rasheed Wallace if you can get past pure numbers.
But do I think the Pistons were slighted? No. There were 42 players who received votes. That doesn’t exactly mean they’re the 42 best players in the league, but it’s close enough to that – and the Pistons were the only NBA team with four players among those 42.
Nine NBA teams didn’t have a single player receive a single vote. Six of them were Eastern Conference teams – Indiana, New Jersey, Chicago, Charlotte, New York and Miami. The three from the West were Seattle, Memphis and the Los Angeles Clippers.
Five teams had two players apiece make the top three teams – Boston (Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce), San Antonio (Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili), Phoenix (Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire), Utah (Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer) and Houston (Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady).
Six teams had three players who received votes: Boston, New Orleans, Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix and Denver.
But only the Pistons had four players among the 42 vote-getters for All-NBA. Billups received the 19th most points, Wallace 22nd, Rip Hamilton 37th and Tayshaun Prince 41st. Think about that. There are 450 players in the NBA and 150 starters. Four of the Pistons’ starters rank among the top 27 percent of NBA starters. That’s pretty good.
