this post has been edited on june 15, 2005 13:04

gah. time to put the broom back in the closet.

so i guess it was predictable enough that the pistons brought it in game 3. back at home, ben wallace showed a spark of life, which was nice of him. the spurs still shot 58% in the first quarter and looked like they would handle the pistons even in detroit, but the game got pretty close pretty fast and stayed close up until the last minute of the third quarter.

35 minutes of close basketball, and then hell broke out. kind of like what happened in game 2, but in reverse.

in game 2, there was one point when the pistons were trying to claw back in to the game (there were a few stretches when they tried to from mid-second to early fourth), and the spurs made a basket, and then horry stole the ball and set up a basket, and then horry stole the ball again and jacked up a three and missed it, but then stole the ball AGAIN and set up another basket. and all of a sudden a 2 point swing turned into a 6 point swing, which smacked the pistons down pretty hard.

in game 3, it was much more impressive on the pistons part. the score was 63-63, the pistons had just tied it up with a little over a minute to go in the 3rd, and the spurs were bringing it up. all of a sudden, and it happened too suddenly for me to notice until afterwards, the pistons realized they were in a must-win game, and they pulled out of their bag of tricks a swarming half-court trap that they had hidden since... well since last year, it seemed, with the intensity they played with. they created 3 quick turnovers and 3 quick baskets, stretching the lead to 70-63 before the spurs scored a basket to end the quarter only down 5. while the quarter ended, the pistons incredible intensity did not, and mcdyess and rip hamilton pushed the lead up in the early 4th quarter to a point where the spurs were not going to catch up. if you have a tight game, both teams are doing things right defensively. if all of a sudden one team is able to jump up to a 9 point lead, the game is pretty much over as long as that team maintains their quality of play on the defensive side. that is pretty much what happened, as the spurs played even to a point, and then started losing more points because they had to catch up. you know what i'm talking about, rushing shots, jacking up threes, etc.

am i worried the spurs will lose the series? nope. i'm not sold that ben wallace is all of a sudden a factor again, and i doubt rip hamilton AND chauncey billups will both be as effective as they were last night. they were both very good, and the game still was close for 35 minutes, and i imagine that chauncey will not be as good as he was last night for the rest of the series.

but the broom is back in the closet, and i'm staying up for all of game 4, but not to see the spurs hoist the trophy. stupid pistons.

i added a little math question at the bottom of the comments forms to try and prevent comment spam. just answer the question using digits (1, 2, 3 - not one, two, three) and you should be all set. hopefully i won't have to delete that damn poker/craps spam all the time, too.