Cavs hope to put Detroit in a deep hole on Friday night

DETROIT (AP) — The Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons had a day of rest Wednesday. Cavs coach Mike Brown and reserve Wally Szczerbiak had conference calls with reporters.

The Pistons stayed quiet.

At this point, perhaps there’s not much more to say about the demise of Detroit basketball.

The Pistons fell apart when they traded Chauncey Billups in November and their freefall dropped them to the bottom of the playoffs picture and into a first-round matchup with LeBron James and the Cavaliers.

It hasn’t been pretty for the Pistons.

The Cavs coasted to an 18-point win in Game 1 and allowed a 29-point cushion to get cut to seven before winning Tuesday night by 12 points for a 2-0 lead.

As the series shifts sites, the only question seems to be how much longer James and Co. are going to allow the Pistons to hang around.

Game 3 is Friday night at The Palace and Szczerbiak said it would be “huge” to win it.

“We know their crowd is going to be hostile and we know their guys are going to be really up for the game,” he said. “They’re proven professionals that have been in the Eastern Conference finals six straight years.”

James is averaging 35.5 points — on 59 percent shooting — 10.5 rebounds and 6.5 assists. When Detroit forces the ball out of his hands or keeps him out of the lane, he simply finds an open teammate who makes a shot more times than not.

“They tried to do a good job of keeping me out of the paint, but I don’t need to take a lot of shots to be an effective player out on the court,” James said. “I can do other things besides score the basketball.”

James watched as Will Bynum and other Detroit reserves sliced into a huge deficit in Game 2.

A day later, coach Mike Brown didn’t sound too worried about possibly giving Detroit hope that it can compete with Cleveland.

“What we had on the floor in the fourth quarter, that is close to our second unit, but it is not our second unit,” Brown said.

Brown said his top reserves are Mo Williams, Delonte West, Ben Wallace, Joe Smith, Daniel Gibson or Szczerbiak.

He chose to rest Williams and the banged-up Wallace because of the lopsided score and the next thing he knew, it wasn’t so one-sided any more.

“I’m not saying that Detroit can’t do that against our starters or our second unit,” said Brown, adding, “but it’s just a little different.”

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