Why Not Us?

Tayshaun Prince is significantly improved from '04, his first year as a starter. The rationale Dumars always uses when asked why he chose Darko Milicic instead of high-scoring Carmelo Anthony in the 2003 draft is that he already had a Prince of a small forward. Given the surrounding cast, is there any doubt that Prince, Detroit's most consistent player through the first four games of the Chicago series (he averaged 19.8 points, 8.3 rebounds), is a better fit for this team than Anthony would have been?

As for Rasheed Wallace, the Music Man, he is the fulcrum upon which the Pistons often turn. Though he too often defers to his teammates on offense, he is capable of taking over games. And he is the only 6'11'' player in the league who can post up, then go out and calmly drain three-pointers.

Defensively the Pistons without Big Ben are not as good a man-to-man team; they surrendered 1.6 points per game more this season than last. But they more than compensate with what Saunders calls his HPTFZ defense--the Hyperbolic, Paraboloid, Transitional Floating Zone. Saunders wanted to use it last year, but Ben Wallace resisted because he preferred to play man. It's a basic 3--2 matchup, but considering that the 6'9" Prince and his freakish 7'2" wingspan occupy the middle spot on the perimeter most of the time, there is nothing basic about it. "Tayshaun is my Garnett," says Saunders, who first used the defense with the Timberwolves, installing 6'11" Kevin Garnett up top. "Agile, long arms, smart and wants to play it." The zone is so intimidating--in Game 3 the Bulls got about three good looks at the basket in the second half, scoring just 30 points--that sometimes after made baskets the Pistons fake it. They wait downcourt for the offense to arrive, hands held high, bouncing on their toes, as if they're about to employ the HPTFZ. The offense frantically shifts gears to go against a zone, perhaps eschewing a high pick-and-roll, only to discover that Detroit is actually in a man-to-man.

The fact that Saunders was able to institute his HPTFZ speaks to the firmer hold he has on the team. The zone is Saunders's baby, and he was hesitant to use it last season because he was still feeling his way. The Pistons as presently constituted will never be easy to coach--execs, coaches and teammates can talk all night about what a wonderful player Rasheed Wallace is, but he still loses concentration during games, as he did in Game 4, and frequently hurts the team with his outbursts--and the players will never do backflips over Flip. But he has their attention. "After Larry Brown left, these guys wanted to show that they didn't even need a coach," says a member of the Pistons' hierarchy. "I don't think it was until March of this year that they really got on the same page with Flip. Now they're all together."

The best thing the Pistons have going for them, though, is the same hard-edged attitude they showed in '04, a legacy from the Bad Boys. They seem fueled by a collective distemper. Virtually every whistle that goes against them is met with exasperation and disbelief. Rasheed Wallace has been the league's technical-foul champ for three years running (he had 21 this season), and Hamilton, whose plastic face mask hides a persistent frown, tied Suns center Amar� Stoudemire for second this year with 15. Prince appears as if he bears the weight of the world on his narrow shoulders. Billups is all business. And if you look closely, the smile that Webber flashes from time to time is actually a smirk; although he arrived from the Philadelphia 76ers only in January, as a Michigan native weaned on the Bad Boys, he's a perfect fit.

The Pistons are not just an in-your-face team; they're an in-each-others'-faces team. It's not uncommon for Billups and Hamilton, the league's most coordinated backcourt combo, to holler and angrily gesture at each other on the court, or for Wallace to flap his arms and rail against a teammate for a missed assignment. "We get mad at each other for maybe a minute," says Billups, "then it's over." During a film session last Saturday the entire team goofed on Hamilton when a clip showed him looking for his shot despite the presence of four defenders. Saunders once preferred to be a "general criticizer" rather than single someone out; on Sunday he said that Hamilton "blew" a defensive assignment that allowed Bulls guard Ben Gordon a wide-open three with 3:19 left that salted the game away.

The calling-out of players is a legacy of Brown's. "L.B. always held the individual, not the team, accountable, and we do the same thing," says Billups. "Instead of saying, 'We gotta move the ball better,' we say, 'Chauncey, quit f---ing around with the ball,' or, 'Rasheed, you're being lazy, let's get it together.' We're veterans. We can handle it."

But can the Pistons handle the challenge as well as they did in 2004? The play of DJ Sheed will go a long way to determine whether Detroit can get back to being Title Town or will settle for being merely Funkytown.

Lucky Seven?

Was there a silver lining in the Pistons' loss at Chicago on Sunday, their first of the postseason? Of the six other teams that started 7--0, five won the title; of the four that went 8--0 or better, only two did.
[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]