Game 7 guaranteed because of breakdown

Twice in the final minute, Detroit missed jumpers and got the offensive rebound.
By JOE SCALZO
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
CLEVELAND -- The brash, cocky, villainous Rasheed Wallace with the bad ankle injury was nowhere to be found Friday night at Quicken Loans Arena.
He was replaced by the talented one, the almost unguardable one, the one with the turnaround jumper so unstoppable that you might as well just turn around and start boxing out.
Which is why, with the game on the line and the Pistons leading 83-81 and 16 seconds on the clock and Detroit needing just two free throws to seal the win, there was no one more suited to be at the line than Wallace.
Then, unbelievably, he missed both. "I boinked it," said Wallace. "I thought I messed up."
Then, unbelievably, Ben Wallace got the rebound. Want to know the biggest reason why Detroit escaped with an 84-82 victory that forced Game 7?
The culprit
It rhymes with offensive rebounding. And it's spelled the same.
"We did a good job in that area for most of the game," said Cavs coach Mike Brown. "Toward the end, we let it get away from us."
And, as a result, they let their best chance to win this series get away from them. Twice in the final minute, Rasheed Wallace missed jumpers that would have given the Pistons a four-point lead. Twice, Detroit got the offensive rebound.
By the time Chauncey Billups hit one of two free throws with 10 seconds left, the Cavs were almost out of options.
Brown opted not to call timeout in the closing seconds -- he later hinted that forward Donyell Marshall tried to call one and the officials couldn't hear him -- and LeBron James chose to drive the ball into the lane, hoping to get a pass out to Flip Murray in time for a game-tying attempt.
He couldn't. The Pistons fouled him with 1.4 seconds left. James made the first, missed the second on purpose and Cavs center Zydrunas Ilgauskas -- or Pistons guard Chauncey Billups, depending on your angle -- nearly tipped it in.
"Z got off a good tip," said James, who finished with game-highs in points (32) and rebounds (11). "He's one of the best tippers in the world.
"I thought it was going in."
The difference
Want to know the biggest difference between a heart-breaking loss and a back-breaking one? Heart-breakers occur in Game 6.
"Cleveland did something nobody did against us all year -- they won three in a row," said Rasheed Wallace, who finished with 24 points and hit 4-of-8 3-pointers. "We damn sure couldn't make it four straight and go out like that."
James, who scored 24 points in the second half, downplayed the loss -- "It's over and done with," he said -- but Game 7s favor the home team and the Pistons, who won an NBA-best 64 games in the regular season, are extremely tough to beat in Detroit.
"It's gonna be bananas, yo," Rasheed Wallace said of the Palace of Auburn Hills. "We're hoping [the fans] match our energy.
"We're gonna tear the roof off the joint."
James, meanwhile, will be playing in his first Game 7, the game that often defines careers. Don't think he's not looking forward to it.
"Nobody thought we'd be here," said James. "We proved the doubters wrong. We've got to do it again."
Oh. By the way. Cleveland's most vocal doubter? None other than Rasheed Wallace, who earlier guaranteed the series would be over in five games.
Any predictions this time?
"Ah man," he said, smiling. "You already know what it is."
scalzo@vindy.com