Detroit 79, Cleveland 61 (Pistons win series, 4-3)
Somewhere in Michigan, Flip Saunders is breathing a sigh of relief. Brought in to replace Larry Brown, Saunders would have certainly been on the hot seat had Detroit failed to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals after making the NBA Finals the last two years. Saunders had to be nervous, heading to Cleveland down 3-2, but his team rallied in the final two games and finally dispatched the Cavs in Game 7. The problem for Cleveland is obvious – 61 points scored. LeBron James scored 27 on 11 of 24 (46%) shooting, but the rest of the team went a brutal 9 of 41 (22%) from the field. The Cavs’ top offseason priority should be to find a consistent shooter who can play point guard – Sam Cassell springs to mind. Adding insult to injury, ABC ran a feature in the fourth quarter that showed all the worst moments of the Cleveland sports teams, ranging from John Elway’s “Drive” to beat the Browns in the 1986 AFC Championship Game to Michael Jordan’s “Shot” that beat the Cavs in the first round of the 1989 NBA Playoffs. I’m sure that miserable montage sent a few fans in Cleveland off the nearest bridge.
Meanwhile, the Pistons surive a scare and still look like the top team in the East. Tayshaun Prince led a balanced scoring attack with 20 points, and is turning into one of the most underrated small forwards in the league. They’ll face a schizophrenic Miami squad that is tough to beat when it is firing on all cylinders. You can bet that Dwayne Wade and Shaquille O’Neal will add some drama to the Conference Finals, and I’m sure that it will be a very physical series.
