Pistons Motor Past Heat in Game 1

O'Neal Held in Check As Detroit Wins on Road: Pistons 90, Heat 81

MIAMI, May 23 -- The Miami Heat had the home-court advantage, but it was the Detroit Pistons who provided the most notable welcome on Monday night, however unfriendly and inhospitable and even, at times, downright hostile it was.

The defending NBA champions introduced Miami to the real playoffs in the opening game of the Eastern Conference finals, defeating the Heat, 90-81, at American Airlines Arena with a punishing, powerful performance that was unlike anything Miami witnessed while coasting to an 8-0 record in the first two rounds.

Shaquille O'Neal, who missed Miami's previous two games with a bruised thigh, returned to the court and contributed 20 points, but Dwyane Wade, Miami's offensive magician, played as if Pistons Tayshaun Prince and Richard Hamilton were chained to him--and, at times, it seemed they were.

With Wade playing poorly for the first time in the playoffs, scoring 16 points but hitting just 7 of 25 shots, the Heat patched together a late challenge to tie the game with just over five minutes remaining, but fizzled faster than a punctured balloon.

"They did a good job coming back to tie it up, but we still had to execute, play Pistons basketball," Rasheed Wallace said. "We're still the underdogs. Many of you guys have either San Antonio or Miami winning it all. We're still going out there to play, trying to prove that last year wasn't a fluke."

For most of the second half, Miami looked like a hockey team a man down on a power play, whether running into Detroit's long-armed, harassing defenders or watching the Pistons get offense from every centimeter of the court. Rasheed Wallace, who finished with a team-high 20 points and converted 4 of 5 three-pointers, couldn't be stopped from outside. Prince loped and leaped around the basket, scoring 13 points while continually frustrating Wade.

Even Ben Wallace, who scored 13 points, looked like a master shooter as the Pistons kept the Heat off-balance. Chauncey Billups chipped in 18 and Hamilton, 16.

Despite its problems, Miami pulled off a 9-0 run late in the fourth quarter to achieve its first tie since the second quarter. A soft jumper by Udonis Haslem tied the game at 80, but the comeback came thanks to Miami's Joneses--Eddie, who made a pair of jumpers and scored a game-high 22 overall, and Damon, who made a long-range three-pointer. The Heat, however, finished with a thud, dropping in just a point over the last five minutes.

Miami Coach Stan Van Gundy took his team's offensive struggles personally.

"I think our players have to make some adjustments . . . but so do I," he said. "I didn't do my job tonight."

O'Neal looked so good in the early moments of the first half that Van Gundy's insistence just 90 minutes before tip-off that his playing status remained unclear seemed nothing short of a smoke screen. O'Neal hit four straight shots in the first five minutes. He knocked down a tough turnaround jumper, a dunk off of a rebound and a little hook inside. He swatted away a shot by Billups and finished the half with 13 points, just five below his '05 playoff average.

But Detroit sent more double teams to O'Neal in the second half and Ben Wallace kept nudging him farther up in the post, and his effectiveness was reduced. Wade, meantime, looked uncharacteristically rattled all night. Near the end of the first quarter, as he struggled to get off a final shot after stealing the ball near midcourt, he leaped, incensed, when his miss did not draw a foul call from the officials. When Van Gundy held out his arms to restrain Wade, who moved screaming toward the nearest referee, Wade protested sourly and vehemently to Van Gundy.

"It was just more my mistakes than them just totally shutting me down," Wade said about his ineffectiveness. "They did a good job sometimes, but sometimes I just missed shots."

Detroit rolled over the Heat in the third quarter, expanding a one-point halftime lead to a game-high 14 midway through the period, relying on continued hot shooting by Wallace and bruising defense.

But Miami closed to within seven, 74-67, entering the fourth quarter, as Van Gundy employed a lineup he hadn't used previously, putting O'Neal and Alonzo Mourning on the court together. With the two big men playing side-by-side--much to the delight of the crowd--and O'Neal hitting a gentle hook and a rim-rattling dunk, the Heat stayed in the game.

The teams played so closely in the first half there were 13 lead changes. Miami led by no more than four, the Pistons, five. At halftime, however, Pistons Coach Larry Brown listened to his players, who begged him to send more manpower at O'Neal.

"My players were yelling at me," he said. "I tried to make a case, 'Look, he got some early . . . but they said, 'Coach, let's go at him a little bit.' "