Saturday, May 24, 2003
New Jersey has rallied to win two low-scoring games.
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) -- The Detroit Pistons certainly have their work cut out for them if they hope to reach the NBA Finals.
Richard Jefferson's two free throws with 48 seconds left gave the New Jersey Nets an 88-86 win Tuesday night, and put Detroit in a 2-0 series hole in the Eastern Conference finals.
The Pistons, which blew an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter, will attempt to join the 1994 Houston Rockets and the 1969 Los Angeles Lakers as the only teams in league history to win a best-of-seven series after falling behind 0-2 at home.
The Pistons became just the seventh team in NBA history to advance after trailing 3-1, when they got past Orlando in the first round. But that doesn't matter to Ben Wallace now.
Challenge
"It's no comparison," Wallace said. "First round is the first round. Eastern Conference championship is a different ballgame."
And the Nets are clearly not the inexperienced, one-dimensional team that Orlando is.
They have rallied to beat Detroit in two low-scoring games after trailing by wide margins after three quarters.
After the Pistons took a 69-58 lead with 11:24 left, Kenyon Martin led New Jersey's comeback with 16 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter. Detroit led by 10 late in the third quarter of Game 1 before losing by two points.
On Tuesday, Martin brought the Nets back, Jefferson scored the final points and Jason Kidd forced Chauncey Billups to take a tough shot to seal the win for the defending Eastern Conference champions.
With Kidd standing tall, Billups missed a 3-pointer as time expired.
In his face
"He was going to have to shoot it over me and he was going to have to make a tough shot," said Kidd, who made the game-winning shot in Game 1. "If he made it, tip your hat to him. He didn't, and we got the win."
Detroit coach Rick Carlisle bristled when he was asked whether he thought Kidd fouled Billups.
"Forget the last play," Carlisle said. "It shouldn't come down to the last play when you have a lead in the fourth like we did. We just made too many careless mistakes down the stretch: turnovers, defensive mistakes, a technical foul. We just did things you just can't do at this stage of the playoffs."
Game 3 is Thursday night in New Jersey.
"We feel pretty good where we stand right now," Nets coach Byron Scott said.
What made Martin's fourth-quarter burst even more impressive was that he played with four fouls until getting called for a fifth with 1:07 left.
The Pistons forced New Jersey to miss more than 60 percent of its shots for the second straight game, but lost again. "It was a slugfest," Kidd said.
Kidd had 20 points, seven rebounds, five assists and two steals. Jason Collins added 11 points and a career-high 14 rebounds.
Pistons' problem
Richard Hamilton was Detroit's only consistent scoring threat for a second straight game. He made 11 of 20 shots, while the rest of the team was 18-of-48. Wallace grabbed 19 rebounds and scored seven points.
In Game 1, Hamilton scored 24 of Detroit's 74 points and was 9-for-16 while his teammates combined to make just 16 of 55 shots.
"It's very frustrating," Hamilton said. "But I've got confidence in my teammates. Their shots are going to start falling."
Billups scored 15 on 4-of-13 shooting. Cliff Robinson scored 11, but the 6-foot-10 forward had no rebounds in 38 minutes as the Nets outrebounded Detroit 51-36 overall and 19-7 on offensive rebounds.