finals

suffering from a little writer's block as i prepare the sermon for this weekend, so figured it wouldn't hurt to ramble a bit about the pistons.



they're finally in the finals. Dumar's team. i like that. i loved Joey D. in the late 80's and early 90's. i think i especially liked the fact that he was the most unexpected bad boy. calm, self-assured, generous, even tempered, engaging. but there was a fire in his eyes and his belly. you knew he wanted to win. you knew he wanted to win not for himself but because anything less was less than his best, less than his teammates and coaches and fans and parents deserved, less than the game deserved, less, in some strange way, than his opponents deserved.



the pistons are desperately overmatched in terms of pure talent. but they've got heart, and there is something compelling about heart vs. talent. talent wins and talent's fans get bigger heads. heart wins and heart's fans get bigger hearts. talent loses and ego scrambles for protection. heart loses and heart resolves.



here's my fantasy for how the series begins. l.a. dominates first half, Shaq and Kobe light it up. detroit makes defensive adjustments, lock down the lakers in the third quarter, holding them to 9 points. l.a. starts to get frustrated, angry, payton gets a T. Tayshaun and Rasheed start to hit from inside and outside. l.a. mounts a bit of a comback during a detroit offensive drought at the start of the 4th. Hamilton starts to go crazy, hitting everything. but no one can stop Shaq going into the stretch, so Brown calls a timeout. subs in Darko. Darko's ready. he's been holding back all season, waiting for this moment. every piston knows it; they've been keeping it quiet, but during practice Darko's been a monster. first posession out of the t.o., Darko dunks over Shaq. stares him down. swats his next 3 shots. hits a three. goes coast to coast. fans are stunned. the series has just begun.



Joey D. sits back in the shadows, smiling.