Originally posted by Davo:
Originally posted by 00SVT:
I'm not being a Pistons homer, I'm being a realist.


Hahaha...but there is a lot of that going around here.

If you take match-ups as a sole predictor of who will win, the Bulls would have gone roughly 9-73 this year. And the Pistons wouldn't have won the championship last year. Not saying the Bulls would beat the Pistons, just point out how ridiculous that idea is. They won't even play the Pistons, so I don't see why anyone is talking about it.



Both teams have great team chemistry, so individual matchups are what it will come down to. Here is an example: Chicago, like most teams in the league, have no answer to Prince, how are they going to contain him and if they do, are they going to ease up on Billups and Rip to concentrate more on Tayshawn? Or are they going to help with Rasheeds defender? The center wouldn't have a prayer of keeping up, so that won't work. I don't think either team will have their team first mentallity magically dissappear.

Actually, even last year against the Lakers, you could have made the argument the Pistons stacked up well against the Lakers.

Shaq>Ben
Bryant>Rip
Prince>George
Billups>Payton
Rasheed>Malone
Okur/Campbell/Hunter/James/Williamson >>> Walton/Fisher/Medvedenko/Fox/Rush

The only question was really how much better Shaq and Kobe would be than the guys they matched up against and it turns out, it wasn't nearly enough to overcome the team play.

I think I would agree with your point if the Pistons were a selfish team that strived on individual accomplishments, but in reality, they have set the bar for team play that every other team strives to match.

"If you are flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit" -Mitch Hedberg