Greetings From ...

	Rasheed Wallace's 17 points and 12 rebounds helped deliver on his guarantee that the Pistons would win Game 4. Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images

Indianapolis, where all the stereotypes about rabid Indiana basketball fans are true. This town is obsessed with the sport and wants very little to do with the fluff and fabricated nonsense that usually surrounds an NBA game. The kids root for the scoreboard races and t-shirt giveaways, but by and large the focus is on the game, far more than you'll see in most other NBA cities. Hoosier know-it-alls won't cheer for made baskets that obviously came well after a shot clock violation, unlike most cities, and the anticipation behind a 3-point bomb will die with the ball in mid-air if they spy a poor follow-through or wobbly rotation. Not only do Pacers fans boo a bad call, they'll boo the referees when they take too long to make the correct call. And west of the Hudson River, no city pulls off the Bronx cheer better than the fans of Indianapolis.

In talking with Pacers fans before Game 4, you got the feeling that, for the first time since David Stern handed down the brawl-related suspensions on Nov. 21, Indy had a chance to reach their preseason potential. Since that fateful night, most fans were cheering in spite of the enormity of the task that lay ahead of the undermanned Pacers, believing that even without their best player -- and with every member of the team's rotation having sustained a major injury in 2004-05 -- that this group was still capable of great things. But as the Pistons crafted a 13-point victory, the Pacers faithful fell back to Earth a little bit. But for one weekend, Indy's fans felt back in the driver's seat, and that was enough to reward their patience in the wake of the incidents of last November.

You Won't Believe What I Saw ...

A championship team having to rely on a verbal guarantee in order to raise the level of its intensity. Let's face it; the Pistons probably would have won Sunday's game even without Rasheed Wallace's confident prediction in the wake of a frustrating loss in Game 3, but a little chutzpah never hurts. What was strange was that it was coming from the team with the heavyweight championship belts in their lockers. Postseason guarantees are usually reserved for the more insecure of playoff contenders (Patrick Ewing, anyone?). Detroit harbors no such frailty, and yet they needed Wallace's words to inspire them.

And though Chauncey Billups led the team in points and quick scores, this was Rasheed Wallace's game. Whenever the Pistons needed a defensive rebound, a stop around the rim or execution out of a timeout, Rasheed was the man -- especially with Ben Wallace in foul trouble most of the game. It was the latest step in a curious public transformation for the former Jail Blazer. Barely two years removed from the embarrassment of his "both teams played hard" press conference, there Rasheed was in the wake of the Game 4 triumph, the first man to willingly saunter out to the press conference, amiable and articulate, answering questions and making us wonder just why he's been hiding this side of himself for so damn long.

Wish You Were Here ...

Speaking of character turns, you should have seen Pacers president Larry Bird in the wake of Games 3 and 4, exhorting his team publicly while leaning on them to take advantage of their standing in the series of their lives. This is strange for a couple of reasons. You rarely see personnel heads take as active a role as Bird has during the postseason, because while most GMs are melting on the inside, they're usually occupied with addressing the teams they put together.

Second, Bird is hardly the rah-rah type, even when he was coaching these Pacers from '97 to '00. Still, the taciturn NBA legend could be seen after Game 3 asking his players to treat Game 4 as a Game 7.

"I've been around a while," Bird said then. "I kinda know these things."

We know, and the Pacers knew, but that didn't stop them from being outclassed by the Pistons on Sunday.