Auburn Hills, Mich. – With Richard Hamilton leading the way, the Detroit Pistons’ players often have spoken the hip-hop lyric, “If it ain’t rough, it ain’t right.”
It must have been right for the Pistons on Thursday night, because it was surely rough.
The Pistons blew all but two points of a 14-point fourth-quarter lead and allowed 17 points in the final 1 minute, 46 seconds before holding on for a 92-88 victory in Game 2 in the Eastern Conference finals at The Palace of Auburn Hills. The series is tied at a game apiece, with the next two games at Miami.
“What happens so many times, you get near the end of the game, you start playing not to lose instead of playing to win,” Pistons coach Flip Saunders said. “So you get not aggressive, you don’t make concentrated decisions, and you wait for the clock to keep rolling for the game to end.
“So you lose some of your concepts that you want to stay with. There’s no question that we did not end the game the way we would like to end the game.”
The Pistons took a quick 18-6 lead and were up by as many as 14 points before taking a 48-37 halftime advantage. Detroit increased the lead to 18 in the third quarter and led 70-56 entering the fourth.
Detroit went up 83-71 after a midrange jumper by Chauncey Billups with two minutes left in the game. But the Heat refused to give up. Miami went on an amazing 14-7 run to get within 90-85 with 18.5 seconds left after an Antoine Walker layup.
After having a hard time getting the ball into play, the Pistons’ Tayshaun Prince was called for a five-second violation by referee Dick Bavetta.
Prince and Billups pleaded unsuccessfully to Bavetta that Prince tried to call a timeout.
“I was calling time out,” Prince said. “I think from Dick’s point of view, I mean, he didn’t tell me this, but I think he was so aware of what was going on inbounds that he wasn’t paying attention to me.”
Heat guard Dwyane Wade made a 3-pointer with 9.9 seconds left to pull Miami within 90-88, hushing the sellout crowd.
When told the Heat scored 17 points in the final 1:46, Wade said: “We did that? Desperate, very desperate. We should have played that way from the beginning of the half when we were down.”
The Pistons fouled Billups with 8.7 seconds left, and he responded by making both free throws to push the lead to 92-88.
Wade raced down the court hoping for some last-second heroics, but Pistons guard Lindsey Hunter stopped the rally by stealing the ball with 5.4 seconds left and running out the clock.
“We don’t get credit,” said Wade, who scored a game-high 32 points. “‘They was tired.’ That’s what y’all (the media) said. That’s why they won the first game. We won one, go back to Miami, come out with a lot of intensity.”
Said Billups, who scored all 18 of his points in the second half: “It’s 1-1. They came up here and did what they wanted to do and steal one game. Now it’s our turn to go down there and try to do the same.”
Staff writer Marc J. Spears can be reached at 303-820-5449 or mspears@denverpost.com.
