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Choose your dream: Spurs-Suns or Heat-Pistons

Sporting News, The, May 20, 2005 by Mike DeCourcy, Sean Deveney

Heat-Pistons: Who needs beauty queens?

You don't have to be really old to remember when the East mattered most in the NBA playoffs, but you do have to be able to remember a world in which we dealt with personal computers but not the Internet, ESPN but none of its offspring and Paula Abdul but not American Idol.

You don't have to think hard at all to remember when it was all about Shaq. That's pretty much how it has been since Michael Jordan won his last title.

Should the Heat face the Pistons for the Eastern Conference's berth in The Finals, the series will match the defending champions against the player most responsible for three championships since 2000: Shaquille O'Neal.

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The Pistons held their opponents to 80.7 points per game during the 2004 playoffs, including four curt dismissals of O'Neal's Lakers in The Finals. But that does not mean Detroit had an answer for O'Neal. He averaged 26.6 points in the five games it took the Pistons to finish their work.

Now, O'Neal is leading a more cohesive, functional team. Detroit won two of three games against the Heat this season, but O'Neal sat out the third game because of illness. So if these two great teams meet, we won't know exactly what to expect. We'll figure on Tayshaun Prince trying to control Dwyane Wade, on the Heat searching desperately for a counter to Rasheed Wallace, on the games being physical and relatively low-scoring. It won't be as pretty as what might transpire out West, but this isn't a pageant.

Spurs-Suns: What a clash of styles

Best game in the NBA this season, no question: San Antonio at Phoenix, January 21. Overtime. Steve Nash back from his leg injury, Shawn Marion with 37 points and 15 rebounds, Manu Ginobili with 48, Tim Duncan drops 30 and 19. Spurs win, 128-123.

Imagine seven games of that.

Another meeting of these teams featured Suns owner Robert Sarver flapping his wings, chicken-style, at Duncan and Ginobili, who sat out with injuries. That might count for added drama.

But this series would be much more than wing flapping. A Spurs-Suns showdown would go beyond gaudy regular-season records. It would be an epic clash of styles.

The NBA has gotten defense-heavy, and no team epitomizes that more than the Spurs. Dating back to the Spurs' first championship in 1999, San Antonio has ranked in the top three in points allowed every season. This season, the Spurs were No. 1.

On the other end is Phoenix, which averaged 110.4 points, first in the league, on its way to 62 wins. The Suns have led a rebirth of scoring, but the ultimate test of whether that rebirth is a one-year wonder will be determined by the success Phoenix achieves in the playoffs.

That would mean facing down the league's stalwart defense in the conference finals. Yes, this series would not be just about this season, or this championship--it would be about where the league has been in the past decade and where it could be headed in the future.

Choose your dream: Spurs-Suns or Heat-Pistons

Sporting News, The, May 20, 2005 by Mike DeCourcy, Sean Deveney

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