 |
| |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|||||||||||
|
Missed opportunity Pistons control tempo but can't get shots to go downPosted: Sunday May 18, 2003 6:05 PMAUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) -- The New Jersey Nets beat the Detroit Pistons at their own game. Jason Kidd's 20-foot fadeaway with 1.4 seconds left gave the Nets a 76-74 win over Detroit on Sunday in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. The Pistons earned the top seed in the conference by using a half-court game, allowing their league-leading defense to stymie opponents. The Nets had the second-best record in the East because their Kidd-led offense ran past most plodding opponents. "This was the kind of game we wanted to play, relatively low scoring," Detroit coach Rick Carlisle said. "It's a missed opportunity for us. We understand that. We have to bounce back." Game 2 in the best-of-seven series is Tuesday at The Palace. New Jersey dictated the pace early in what appeared to be a blowout in the making. The Nets took an 18-6 lead exclusively on fast-break points. But those easy baskets ended quickly -- they scored just two points on the break over the next two quarters. "They got back, but we stopped attacking in the second and third quarters," Nets coach Byron Scott said. "In the fourth, I told our guys to get back into an aggressive mode." New Jersey scored eight of its 21 fourth-quarter points in transition, while the Pistons missed 17 of 19 shots. The slew of bricks allowed Detroit's Ben Wallace to grab 13 of his 22 rebounds in the final quarter -- setting a team playoff record -- but his teammates couldn't take advantage of the extra opportunities to score. Overall, Detroit made just 35.2 percent of its shots. The Nets were not much more accurate with a 39.7 shooting percentage, but Scott credited his defense for making up for it. "It was big because we went on some droughts ourselves," Scott said. "We weren't knocking the bottom out of the basket." In the middle of the first quarter, Detroit went nearly seven minutes with only one field goal. The Pistons had another drought later in the game. After taking a 63-53 lead with 26.1 seconds left in the third quarter, the Pistons didn't score again until Rip Hamilton tied the game at 65 with 7:45 left. "We just had a cold spell coming out of the quarter break," Carlisle said. "We hit a drought. It's a disappointment, without question." Chucky Atkins said the Pistons can only blame themselves for their awful shooting night. "When you aren't aggressive, you run a good chance of going cold," Atkins said. "By not attacking, we end up shooting the shots they want us to take instead of the ones that we want. "We had everything. We had the lead and we had the tempo we wanted. We just stopped being aggressive." |
|
|||||||||
| |||||||||||
