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Wednesday, May 17, 2006 at The Palace of Auburn Hills, Auburn Hills, MI

Round Two, Game Five: Detroit Pistons 84, Cleveland Cavaliers 86

Boxscore | Recap | More Photos | Video
Detroit came back from a 10-point second-half deficit but couldn't tie the game in the final seconds of an 86-84 home loss to the Cavs. Tayshaun Prince led the way with 21 points and eight rebounds for the Pistons, who will try to stay alive on Friday in Cleveland. Watch Game 6 on FSN Detroit.
Game Five Leaders
Points:(DET) Tayshaun Prince, 21
(CLE) LeBron James, 32
Rebounds:(DET) Ben Wallace, 13
(CLE) Donyell Marshall, 13
Assists:(DET) Chauncey Billups, 5
(CLE) Eric Snow, 7
Blocks:(DET) Antonio McDyess, 3
(CLE) Zydrunas Ilgauskas, 6
POSTGAME QUOTES
PISTONS.COM
PLAYER OF THE GAME
LeBron James
Points: 32
FGM-A: 13-30
Rebounds: 5
Assists: 5
Minutes: 47
Pistons Head Coach Flip Saunders

On whether or not the Pistons played frustrated:
“I think we loosened up when we fell behind by 10. At that point, we said, ‘Well, maybe we’re not going to win,’ and it might not happen. We started playing loose and we played more aggressive. I think if we would have played like that over the course of 48 minutes, we would have had success.”

On being down 3-2:
“Now we’re in a situation where we can’t feel sorry about ourselves. We know we’ve got a tough road now. Cleveland is playing extremely well. LeBron is playing unbelievable. But that doesn’t mean that the series is over. We’ve got to revert back to what we did a lot during the season and find ways to win on the road and find ways to grind it out.”

On whether or not he’s surprised that the Pistons played tight:
“They’re human beings. In different situations, you can come in and play a little bit tighter at times. Now it’s like we’re in the NCAA tournament. We can’t afford to lose. We’ve got to win to stay alive.”

Pistons Guard Chauncey Billups

On the somber mood in the locker room:
"If you see somebody happy let me know. I want to know who it is. It's disappointing. You have to go one game at a time."

On coming out and playing tight:
"Early on we probably wanted it a little too bad. It threw our stuff out of sync a little bit. We were just trying to do it. It's natural. We knew it was a big game and we threw ourselves out of rhythm early. Once we started to make our run and we'd get it back, they would make a little light run and kill it. It was a good game though."

On whether he's concerned facing elimination:
"I'm still not concerned. I'm still not concerned because I know what we're capable of. We've been there before - everybody knows that. We've got to take it one game at a time. We can't be looking for a game seven because if you're not careful, there won't be [a game seven]. I'm not concerned, I know what we're capable of and I'll be ready for Friday."

On whether LeBron James is having an effect on the team:
"We're just not really playing that great right now and that's our offense. He doesn't have any effect on that. He's been great on his offense but our offense just isn't good right now."

On starting the game slowly:
"I don't know if it was flat but we came out out of sync and when you come out out of sync then you're not making the same rhythm stuff that you're normally making. Bottom line is when you're hitting shots, there's a lot of energy in the building and when you're not, it's not."

Pistons Forward Tayshaun Prince

On playing all 48 minutes:
“I’m not tired at all. This isn’t the time to be tired. I knew it was going to be a situation where I might have to do that tonight. Obviously with LeBron playing 47-48 minutes a night, it’s a situation where that has to happen.”

On whether or not the Pistons have been playing tight the last three games:
“I don’t know. We definitely played tight tonight. I don’t think we played tight when we were in Cleveland. I think they did a good job of making runs and we weren’t able to capitalize. They made good defensive games down the stretch in both games. They made good defensive plays when they had to tonight. We weren’t communicating well, we were missing some role guys and it was a bad situation.”

“We’ve been in this situation before a couple years ago in the New Jersey series, so hopefully we can make it happen. We know we have to.”

Cavaliers Head Coach Mike Brown

On how the team has responded to the death of Larry Hughes’s brother:
“Our guys have just bunkered down and had a bunker mentality. It’s about the guys in the locker room. We love our families, we love the fans, we love the fans in Cleveland and in the state of Ohio because they have been great to us, but we also know if we have to get it done we have to rely on the guys in that locker room. We’ve got to support the guys in the locker room.”

On Damon Jones:
“Damon Jones was big. You guys will never know how big Damon Jones was down the stretch. I communicated more with Damon Jones and Damon Jones gave me more suggestions and ideas in tonight’s ball game than he has all year. He was huge for me personally.”

On tonight’s game:
“It was loud in there when they (the Pistons) were making their run. We knew they were going to make a run, but our guys stayed as poised and composed as possible in a situation like this.”

Cavaliers Forward LeBron James

On not being intimidated by the Detroit Pistons:
“Its just basketball. When you think about it, its just basketball - it’s not life or death or anything like that. It’s not that they’re the big bad wolf and we’re the three little pigs.”

On playing on the road:
“When you’re on the road, that’s one thing you have to do is tunnel out the crowd noise as much as possible. Teams are going to make runs at home.”

On the game-winning shot:
“If you remember what’s been going on through all these Playoffs on game-winning shots and game-tying shots, the ball has been going to the corner for some reason… That was kind of on my mind the whole time.”

Cavaliers Forward Drew Gooden

On the game:
“We came back from 2-0 and everyone was against us and our backs were against the wall. But to be able to fight back and lead the series we accomplished something. But that is just a little bit right now because we haven’t accomplished what we really wanted to yet in the round. We’ve proved some people wrong.”

On contributions from everyone on team:
“That’s how it is, man. We know what LeBron is going to do night in and night out and it can be anyone’s night after that. We scrap and we are doing it defensively more than offensively.”

On bucket he made to put the Cavaliers up late in the fourth:
“Yeah…I took a picture of the basket. That’s what my high school coach used to always say, take a picture of the basket. I took my time and focused and I made the shot. But I have to thank my teammate for seeing me. But more than that we got the stop defensively and that is what won the game for us.”

About staying close and not letting Pistons get lead:
“We have been doing that the whole year. When it is a tight game, I don’t know how we do it but we always come out victorious. It was a low-scoring first quarter, and the rest of the game was about grinding it out. It was kind of like a football game out there, it was real physical and it was about defense and we were victorious tonight.”

Cavaliers Center Zydrunas Ilgauskas

On maintaining emotion and momentum into Game 6:
“We’ll see. You know it’s a great team we’re playing so we can’t take anything for granted. We’re going to have to go back and play the same way that we played the last three games.”

On his personal performance:
“I’ve struggled offensively throughout the series. I just haven’t been able to get going, but I just keep playing. I was able to get some block shots and crowd the lane and make them shoot the contested shots and help my team on defense. And on defense, take what comes to me and try not to force anything.”

On the team coming together right now:
“I hope so. This has been an interesting team. We’ve been down and behind a lot of times. People even doubted us in the season if we were going to make the playoffs. But for us guys, we believe in each other and we play loose and have fun out there.”