Pistons Brush Off The Heat
Last year’s Eastern Conference winners did a complete turn around from their last time’s performance against the Miami heat and managed to level the best of 7 series at 1-1 with a 92-88 win over the Heat on Thursday night. The Pistons managed to hold on to their home advantage this time and also managed to hold off the heat’s frantic attempt towards the end to turn the result in their favor. The eastern Conference series is now tied at one a piece. The next game is slated for Saturday in Miami, which will be home turf for the Heat.
The match started in a different way today, unlike last time when the Heat were right on the gas pedal from the word go, that time the Heat took an 11-0 advantage. This time around things went the other way round with the Pistons going up and by the end of the first quarter the scoreboard read 25-12. A pleasing sight for the Piston fans.
Even though the Heat made desperate attempts to score enough points towards the end, but well that was not enough for them. The Heat managed to sink in 17 points in the final 1:46 and that got them to as close as 90-88. things did not go the way the Heat wanted today, unlike the other day when everything seemed to be just falling in place for them.
Things seemed better for the Pistons today, who had seemed quite rusty and tired in their previous game. The Piston’s can thank Tayshaun Prince and Rasheed Wallace for their wonderful performance in game 2. Prince scored 24 points and 11 rebounds, while Wallace managed to rake up 16 points and 7 rebounds. Richard Hamilton had 22 points against his name, 20 of which came in the first half and was an important factor that did not allow the Heat to close in the gap. The Piston’s led 48-37 at the half time. Billups also contributed to Detroit’s win. He scored 7-7 off the foul line and then pumped in two more from the same place with 8.7 remaining. The most pleasing thing for the Piston’s must be the return to form by Wallace who had been not quite up to the mark in the recent games. Today he did not just score enough points for his team but was also impressive with his passing. A sigh of relief for the coach.
For the Heat as usual the man was Dwayne Wade and was also the top scorer of the match with 32 points, seven rebounds and five assists but he had his hand in nine of the 19 turnovers for the Heat, and hence ended with a bad report card for the day. O’Neal scored 21 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks. Unlike last time the Heat had no one else contributing heavily that could have turned the tables on the Detroit team.
The match had some anxious moments towards the end though when Wade sunk in a great three pointer and brought the Heat within two points of Detroit, with 9.8 seconds to go. After that Chauncey Billups reworked his magic from the foul line with two straight throws which right through the hoop, much to their delight and finally Lindsay Hunter managed to get the ball off from Wade’s hand to seal the match in the home team’s favor.
The teams now move to Miami for games three and four slated for Saturday and Monday. Lets hope that the Heat manage to take full advantage of their home support.
