I know what I like

Note, there will be no more Larry Brown speculation on here. He said on The Fan today that if health permits, he's coaching the Pistons. That's enough for me. Okay, one more thing... just have to point out that for the nth time, Marc Stein is an idiot. The paragraph that starts with "I say". Yeah.

Note two, I didn't go into details on Amare's big block because it's getting a ton of play elsewhere. Yes it was great, but no, it's not one of the greatest blocks of all time (as Doug Collins put it on PTI earlier). So I'll be the first and stop with the talking about it. Trendsetter(?)!

Ah yes!
That was precisely what I was hoping for in game four. Well, outside of Ben's 2-11 performance. But aside from that... precisely! Everyone defended well, everyone drew fouls, almost everyone was good on O... I love it. I really have next to nothing to complain about on the Piston side in that game. Faaaaaaaantastic.

On the other side... wow. So many things wrong with the Heat. Their defense were nowhere to be found, especially when Eddie Jones was doing said defense. He couldn't stop Rip or Tayshaun and it showed. Yes, he got a lot of boards and had an alright PPS for 10 shots, but that D... Heat fans everywhere must've been cringing whenever he found himself opposing the ball handler. It's not like Rasual Butler did a lot better, but at least he could guard for a few seconds out on the wing. With E. Jones, it was no time and nowhere. Another note on the D? Pistons didn't have a turnover until 7:24 remained in Q3.

Shaq looked like a beached whale in the second half. Yes, I know he's wearing down in the second half due to his injury... but he did only play 8 minutes in the first half. That's not a lot of play time. This is because of the three fouls he picked up, of course. His first foul came at 9:14 remaining in Q1... is that the quickest Shaq's ever gotten a foul in a game? Quickest I've seen, I think.

Haslem got his shot back, that was surprising to see, considering that he's operating with about seven fingers. Rebound numbers are alright, PPS was good... but he also had a lot of trouble defending. Rasheed had a pile of open dunks and McDyess had one or two as well.

Wade... that guy can sure hit some crazy shots. As long as they're inside the arc, anyway. He played a nice game aside from that stretch where he missed 7 straight shots... and when, you know, he bullrushed Lindsey. I've seen Lindsey piss off numerous talented guards (Kidd and Iverson come to mind) but I've never seen one of them do that to him. That was funny. I knew the Heat were in trouble before, but when that happened, I knew that they weren't going to be able to do anything down the stretch. Call it a turning point, I guess.

Doleac... can't believe they spent part of their MLE on that guy!

Dooling, don't hurt yourself. I found that move funny too. It wasn't as obvious as the Wade on Lindsey play, but it was still a dumb move. If you didn't catch it, late in the game, he drove to the hoop. Since the Pistons were trying to avoid fouling and were up by a bunch, they let him by. He went and threw up a gorilla jam, slammed his right hand off of the backboard and nearly fell on his back coming down. That's a fall on the hard court on the back from about five or six feet up. Considering that these are the same playoffs where Joe Johnson took a header from a similar distance and was out for six games, he probably shouldn't be doing such a move. Still funny, though.

This seems excessive I know, but hey, this is my Carnival post. If it's going to have a central topic, it's going to be big and excessive! More on other stuff tomorrow when it's not Carnival time.