AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Detroit is famous for gritty, for tough, for unyielding winters, and now an equally stubborn basketball team. The kids here grow up knowing about Joe Louis, Tommy Hearns, the famous Kronk gym, hot and sweaty and turning out champions made of guts and hard labor.
The Detroit Pistons are almost there, a win away now after an 88-80 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers last night that gave the Pistons a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals. No team has come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals to win the NBA championship.
Shaquille O'Neal was dominant for the Lakers, getting 36 points and 20 rebounds. So the Pistons took the Lakers' best punch and stood there smiling. It gives an opponent doubt.
The Pistons, whose one-two punch came from Rasheed Wallace (26 points) and Chauncey Billups (23), go for the knockout at home tomorrow.
The Pistons broke from a 56-56 tie after three quarters and took the game from the tiring Lakers, clearly a game-long strategy of Pistons coach Larry Brown as O'Neal played the entire first quarter. With Karl Malone out most of the second half, Lakers coach Phil Jackson had to rely on O'Neal and a thin bench.
The Pistons got back-to-back three-pointers from Billups midway through the fourth quarter and then a parade to the free-throw line that gave them a 10-point lead and left the Lakers gasping at air. Then the Pistons watched Kobe Bryant draw a technical foul, evidence of the Lakers' frustration with Detroit's defense, which continued to turn up the heat.
Bryant fired up 25 shots, made eight and finished with 20 points.
There was much talk before Game 4 that the Lakers would - or should - change their starting lineup. Instead, they changed their method.
Someone wondered innocently to O'Neal earlier in the series why the Lakers sometimes stop pushing the ball in to him.
"The story of my life, buddy," O'Neal cracked.
And so, shaded by a canopy of doubt, the Lakers sought to clarify their uncertainties. "It's all about Shaq," Rick Fox said.
Early on, it was for the Lakers, as O'Neal hit his first six shots.
Even Jackson drew a technical foul less than four minutes into the game. Jackson has been complaining about the disparity in foul shots favoring the Pistons, though Brown pointed out the Lakers were shooting a large number of three-pointers.
