San Antonio – Look who’s smiling now. The face of the NBA that America hates.
After the country’s basketball fans wiped their feet on Detroit forward Rasheed Wallace, he picked himself up and played the hero in a gutsy 95-86 victory over San Antonio that forced a deciding Game 7 in the Finals.
Who looks stupid now? Everybody who tried to cast Wallace as the dummy who doomed the defending champions.
“I don’t feel no pressure,” Wallace said Tuesday night, redeemed by victory and protected by a gold championship belt draped over his shoulder.
Wallace had been cursed from coast to coast as the player who blew a defensive assignment, jumping a pass in the corner with a double-team, allowing San Antonio forward Robert Horry to nail an open 3-point jumper that gave the Spurs a dramatic victory in Game 5.
Wallace committed a mistake of effort. But haters of the NBA tried to hang him as Exhibit A that ‘Sheed happens. The glee with which he was criticized smacked of racism.
Maybe the people who pointed an accusatory finger at ‘Sheed should look in the mirror and ask themselves the reason for the depth of their spite.
The abuse Wallace took in his hometown and across the country went beyond the pale.
“Nobody blames ‘Sheed,” Pistons guard Chauncey Billups said. “I think a lot of y’all did.”
Wallace is not afraid to speak his mind or lose his temper. But America still has trouble dealing with an angry black man.
On a radio talk show in Detroit, some idiot barely smart enough to dial a telephone hinted maybe Wallace was shaving points.
While Pistons coach Larry Brown was given a free pass for deftly shoving ‘Sheed under the bus in comments after that devastating loss in Detroit, newspaper hacks with laptops piled on, reminding us why Wallace is the reason the NBA has alienated fans in the suburbs.
Maybe that doesn’t qualify as prejudice in your neighborhood. But all any visitor to Detroit needs to do is drive a rental car from downtown to the Pistons’ home arena far beyond the outerbelt to see how a lot of U.S. cities are layered like a caste system.
Forget the haters.
“I did a bonehead play the other night, I had to put it behind me,” Wallace said.
As he towels off after a shower, ‘Sheed makes guys holding microphones in the locker room uncomfortable. In any given sentence, Wallace is fully capable of employing a bunch of those seven dirty words made famous by that old comedy routine of George Carlin.
True, Wallace often takes a sledgehammer to his own image, making it easy for him to be demonized as everything that’s wrong with the game.
“But do your research on ‘Sheed and you’ll find his teammates love him,” Nuggets general manager Kiki Vandeweghe told me last year.
Jackie Wallace is a mother who raised ‘Sheed without a husband and between two jobs. “He was spoiled with love, and taught to show love, even if it made him a mama’s boy,” she said.
Wallace showed teammates the love even when he was not on the floor in Game 6. Although frequently banished to the bench in foul trouble, ‘Sheed could not sit down. His empathy from the sideline was loud and proud.
“When he’s not in the game, he’s into it, cheering guys on,” Brown said.
Or as Wallace declared, “I’ve got to be heard.”
Poll the Pistons, from the big chair of general manager Joe Dumars to the last seat on the Detroit bench, and it would be unanimous that without Wallace, there’s no way they would have won the championship a year ago. The Nuggets turned to pursuit of free agent Kenyon Martin only after that trade-deadline deal eliminated ‘Sheed from consideration. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich attests that Wallace is one of the league’s biggest talents.
So why should anyone be surprised Wallace scored seven of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, when the Pistons broke open a tight game, and a victory parade already scheduled for the Spurs was put on hold.
“They had their Cristal out,” Wallace told the national TV audience after the final buzzer. “But we’re going to pop it Thursday.”
Wallace speaks. America cringes.
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-820-5438 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
