Ok, so the Pistons won last night, getting back to the finals for the first time since beating Portland in 1990. Was it ugly? Good lord yes. The fact that neither team reached 70 makes it very easy for pundits and others nationwide to dismiss the Pistons chances against the Lakers. While I don't think they will win the series, many people are predicting an easy sweep or a quick five game series. Frankly, I don't see it. The two teams played two relatively tight games in the regular season, both when the Lakers had the big 4 at the same time. Here's how I see the series breaking down:

The key for the Pistons to have any shot at winning the series is Chauncey Billups. In both games against the Lakers this year, he was the leading scorer, and his is the only matchup that the Pistons potentially have a big advantage. Small forward is essentially a wash between Tayshaun Prince and Devean George. The other matchups, especially if you combine the two "big" positions into a sort of mish-mash the way the Pistons do, go the Lakers way. They need to try and contain Shaq, and if necessary, either employ the Hack-a-Shaq or offer little resistance to him to score most times he gets the ball down near the basket and a shot can't be contested, disrupting the other player's offensive flow. Billups needs to take advantage of Payton's declining defense, assuming that he is being Guarded by Payton. Rip has to stay within 10-8 points of Kobe's total, hoping that Rip's style of play will tire Kobe in the 4th quarter. The Pistons should be able to limit the contributions of the Lakers role players offensively, and I am including Malone and Payton in that group. The team needs Billups to come up big, to be an offensive option that will open up the floor for Rasheed and Rip. He needs to hit his shots. Prince needs to outplay Devean George, and I think he is capable of doing so. But I still think the star power of the Lakers will be difficult to overcome.

Hopefully may problem with the Haloscan comments will be fixed soon. If you want to comment on a post just click the Comments that are already there and follow the instructions.

That's it, hopefully another good drive tomorrow. I have my second counseling session, and I will try to get more sleep after being exhausted last week.

I'll post again tomorrow, everybody be good to each other