Utterly expressionless, Larry Brown walked down the sideline until he met a smiling Phil Jackson at midcourt.
One hearty handshake and a pat on the back later, Brown allowed himself a grin. After 21 years as an NBA coach, the championship that had eluded him had been earned -- decisively.
PHOTO: AFP
Without a superstar and without being given much of a chance, the Detroit Pistons humiliated the mighty Los Angeles Lakers 100-87 Tuesday night in Game 5 of the NBA Finals for their first title in 14 years.
Motown can now be called Titletown, the descendants of the Bad Boys making sure of it with a stunning upset that was really no contest at all.
"Since this is toward the end of it for me, and the way we did it against such a quality coach and a quality team, it's a pretty incredible feeling," the 63-year-old Brown said.
With finals Most Valuable Player Chauncey Billups and Ben Wallace leading the way, Detroit was at its very best in the clincher, defeating Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and the rest of the Lakers in every facet of the game. It was methodical -- and shocking -- the way the Pistons shut down the Lakers with their patented defense and pulled ahead and away for one of the biggest surprises in NBA finals history.
"We're on top of the world, man," Billups said.
As the final buzzer sounded and confetti began falling, Ben Wallace almost lifted 81-year-old team owner Bill Davidson -- whose Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup last week -- off the ground with a hug.
O'Neal gave a few high-fives to Detroit fans on his way up the tunnel, while the sidelined Karl Malone never gazed up as he left. Bryant waited near midcourt and also gave Brown a hug.
Wallace walked off palming the Larry O'Brien championship trophy, and Brown had to navigate through dozens of handshakes to make his way back to the locker room.
For Jackson, the defeat marked perhaps his last game with the Lakers.
"It didn't come out quite as well as it did in the past," he said. "It was a Cinderella story actually that this team had, but Detroit proved to be a little better than we were in this series."
Wallace took a big step toward becoming a superstar with an 18-point, 22-rebound effort that helped Detroit become the first Eastern Conference team to win the title since the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls in 1998.
Equally important was 14 points from Billups, the best guard on the floor throughout the series, 21 from Richard Hamilton and 17 from Tayshaun Prince.
"We just took it to 'em," Prince said. "We knew we could play with anybody in this league and I think we showed it."
Bryant scored 24 points to lead the Lakers, and O'Neal added 20 points and eight rebounds for a team that was built to win a fourth championship in five years with the additions of Malone and Gary Payton. In the end, they simply couldn't defeat a better team.
"Congratulations to those guys," O'Neal said. "They deserved it. They flat-out beat us."
Game 5 was so lopsided that Lakers owner Jerry Buss, carrying his jacket and accompanied by his entourage, headed for the exit before the third quarter was over. By the time the last timeout rolled around, fans were already being urged to keep their celebrations under control.
Many fans at The Palace stood through the final several minutes of the game, savoring every moment they had waited for since the Pistons' Bad Boys of 1989 and 1990 won back-to-back titles.
The game steadily got away from the Lakers from the second quarter on, unraveling completely over the latter part of the third quarter when it became clear they weren't going to make a game of it.
On one especially telling sequence, Bryant missed a 3-pointer, got his own rebound but missed on a drive, and Wallace soared high above everyone to snare his 14th rebound. Bryant was then called for a blocking foul as Billups brought the ball upcourt, and an "M-V-P" chant greeted the point guard as he went to the line and made it 80-59.
For good measure, Bryant missed a layup just moments later, and the quarter ended with Detroit ahead by 23 and the Lakers shuffling off the court a thoroughly defeated team.
Lindsey Hunter began the fourth quarter by stealing the ball from Bryant, who could manage only a grimace and didn't even give chase as Hunter took it in for a breakaway. It was a Pistons party the rest of the way, the culmination of one of the greatest and unexpected success stories in NBA annals.
What the Pistons lacked in star power they made up for in cohesiveness and determination -- two factors that Detroit displayed in abundance throughout the finals while executing their coach's mantra to "play the right way."
For Billups, a castoff in five NBA cities before he landed in Detroit, that meant taking advantage of his mismatch against Payton and making the key baskets that demoralized the Lakers through all five games.
For Rasheed Wallace, it meant keeping relatively quiet when the officials whistled him for fouls and his coach sat him on the bench for extended periods because of foul trouble.
For Prince, it meant keeping one of his long arms in Bryant's face whenever possible and justifying the faith team architect Joe Dumars showed in him a year ago when he passed on Carmelo Anthony with the second pick in the draft.
For Ben Wallace, it was about pounding the boards relentlessly and showing a level of effort O'Neal could only envy. For Hamilton, it was proving how big of a mistake Jordan made two years ago when he dealt him from Washington in exchange for Jerry Stackhouse.
And collectively for the Pistons, it was about not being afraid as previous Eastern Conference opponents had been when taking on the big, bad Lakers.
After O'Neal went to the bench early in the first quarter with two fouls, the Pistons scored the next eight points to force Jackson to quickly reinsert O'Neal. Detroit ended the period ahead 25-24, then steadily built its lead in the second quarter by running the fast break more than usual and capitalizing on mismatches in their offensive sets.
O'Neal picked up his third foul with 3:36 left before halftime, and Detroit held a 55-45 lead at intermission on 61 percent shooting, including 5-for-5 by Ben Wallace. The Pistons grabbed five offensive rebounds in the first six minutes of the third quarter to maintain a double-digit lead. Bryant had a couple of spectacular drives for dunks, but they were negated by the Pistons patiently working the ball on offense to whichever player had the matchup advantage.
A high-leaping, follow-up dunk by Ben Wallace was followed by a steal, layup and three-point play by Billups for a 72-55 lead, and the Pistons were on their way to denying Jackson his 10th title as a coach, leaving him tied with Red Auerbach for the most in league history.
Brown won't have much time to savor the title. He's also coach of the US Olympic team, and soon he will be getting ready for the Athens Games in August.
Chauncey Billups was right. Before Detroit started playing the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals, the sturdy point guard was cocky about the Pistons' chances.
"We're ready to shock the world," Billups told AP on June 5.
Just 10 days later, Billups was chosen as the finals MVP after averaging 21 points and 5.2 assists in the series to lead Detroit over the Lakers for its third championship and first since 1990.
"Yeah baby!" Billups screamed after raising the MVP trophy over his head.
Billups had 14 points and six assists as part of the Pistons' balanced attack in a 100-87 win over Los Angeles in Game 5 on Tuesday night.
Billups, who hasn't been an All-Star during his seven-year career, is the lowest-profile player to be MVP of the finals since Boston's Cedric Maxwell in 1981.
The only other winner since then that wasn't an NBA superstar was Joe Dumars, who led Detroit over the Lakers in the 1989 finals.
Dumars, now the Pistons president of basketball operations, also is the man who gave Billups a place to call home two years ago.
Billups bounced around the league like a basketball after Boston took the former Colorado star third overall in the 1997 draft.
After being on four teams in his first three seasons, Billups became a solid player in Minnesota for two seasons. Then he signed a six-year, US$35 million contract with the Pistons before the 2002-2003 season.
Billups has turned out to be everything Detroit needed, and more. That proved true during the regular season and especially against the Lakers in the finals.
The 6-foot-3, 202-pounder found himself open countless times on pick-and-roll plays, and one-on-one moves against Gary Payton and Derek Fisher over the first four games.
All season, the Lakers seemed to bring out the best in Billups.
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