Posted on Tue, Feb. 28, 2006
Cavs push, but Pistons shove back
Detroit displays its mettle by taking game away in rough fourth quarter
By Brian Windhorst
Beacon Journal sportswriter
<!-- begin body-content -->In an effort to incite the home crowd, and maybe the home team, the theme from Rocky was blared from the speakers at Quicken Loans Arena just before the opening tip Monday.
Considering the Cavaliers were hosting the quintessential blue-collar basketball team that lives for scrappy slugfests, not to mention it has two starters from Rocky Balboa's Philadelphia, perhaps it wasn't the best motivational tool.
The Detroit Pistons openly stated that they were going to treat their home-and-home with the Cavs as a mini-playoff series. It was a sweep, the latest result being an 84-72 triumph.
The Pistons (47-9) were masterfully gritty in dispatching the Cavs (32-25), again. Their defense was stiff and fiery, again. The Cavs were left searching for complex answers to easy questions, again.
Make it four losses in a row for the Cavaliers, their second such streak since Jan. 1. They went meekly after trying for 36 minutes to answer Sunday's loss in Auburn Hills, Mich. But the stretch run was all, as they like to say, Dee-troit basketball.
The Pistons smothered the Cavs in the fourth quarter, outscoring them 20-9 to stretch it into an easy win. It was the fewest total points the Cavs have scored in a game this season, and it tied their lowest output for a quarter. The Cavs went just 3-of-12 from the field and turned it over five times down the stretch as they saw a 67-64 lead vanish.
Richard Hamilton and Rasheed Wallace, two of Philly's finest, carried the load at the other end.
Wallace, seemingly feeding off the negative energy willed his way by the crowd after a hard foul on Zydrunas Ilgauskas on Sunday, scored 24 points. Hamilton tossed in 22, including three jumpers in a span of 63 seconds that broke the Cavs' already teetering will in the fourth.
Until Hamilton's hoops, the Pistons had been just 3-of-15 in the final quarter themselves. On the night, they shot just 39 percent. On the road in the NBA, that usually means curtains, but not when you own the sort of mettle Detroit does.
``We played three-fourths of a game, and that team did what they do best,'' Cavs coach Mike Brown said. ``We didn't get good looks at the rim in the fourth quarter.''
Nor the entire second half, in which they scored just 30 points, also tying a season low. Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 18 points and a season-high 15 rebounds, but during a seven-minute stretch in the second half, he couldn't get a shot off. And it wasn't the defensive player of the year, Ben Wallace, pinning him down, rather cagey old vet Dale Davis, who has played 76 minutes all season.
In the same span, Pistons sub Maurice Evans, who averages five points a game, actually got four shots.
LeBron James had 26 points, failing to meet his average for the third consecutive game. He got off just four shots in the fourth quarter, making one.
His role-playing teammates were off duty, a usual symptom in loses and losing streaks. Flip Murray was 2-of-12 from the floor in his first start with the Cavs, and reserves Donyell Marshall and Damon Jones combined to go 1-of-11 for two points in 49 minutes.
In the two losses to the Pistons, Jones and Marshall combined to go 3-of-20 for seven points. Jones now has six points in his past five games on 2-of-14 shooting.
``They did a great job of executing in the fourth quarter, and we didn't, and they closed us out,'' James said. ``We competed all night. They were able to put the ball in the basket at the end.''
