THE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES : LOS ANGELES LAKERS vs. DETROIT PISTONS : Rodman and Pistons Couldn’t Quite Hold On : Rebound Slipped Away From Detroit Forward and the Game Went With It

Dennis Rodman held his big right hand out in front of his face and said yes. Yes, he had the ball in his hand. When the rebound came down after Joe Dumars’ shot with eight seconds on the clock, yes, he got a hand on it.

Rodman sat in the Detroit Pistons’ locker room and looked at the palm of his hand, as if he still could not believe that someone knocked the ball away. As if those fingers should be cradling a basketball.

But Dennis Rodman was empty-handed.

The ball got away. The game got away.

The series, though, has not yet gotten away. The Pistons kept insisting, in voices barely above a whisper, that the series will not get away. There is a seventh game to be played in this National Basketball Assn. Final series with the Lakers. They vowed to be back strong on Tuesday.

OK, so they weren’t strutting and crowing and making brash promises. The Pistons had just suffered a defeat. Truly suffered. They had the NBA championship dangled in front of their faces and then snatched away.

The Pistons were, as John Salley so succinctly put it, “Melancholy.”

Understandably.

To get to Dumars and ask him about his shot that didn’t drop, reporters had to climb over the platform that was erected for the trophy presentation that didn’t take place.

It wasn’t the first time the champagne was chilled for a celebration that fizzled. It wasn’t the first time CBS commentator Brent Musburger stood next to NBA Commissioner David Stern on the victory platform watching the final seconds of what looked to be the final game on a TV monitor, only to see on that monitor that the party was off.

But it was one of the toughest almost-but-not-quite moments for those on the losing end because it was so, so close.

As the final seconds were played out, NBA officials kept workmen standing by, ready to whisk away the photographers’ stand and the victory platform if need be. But it was too close to call.

The commissioner was at his appointed spot, ready to present the trophy, when the Pistons led by three points with a minute to play. When Byron Scott scored to bring the Lakers within a point, the order was to stand by. Even after Kareem Abdul-Jabbar made the two free throws to put the Lakers up by a point with 14 seconds to play, the call was--get ready, get ready.

The order to “Strike it, Strike it” didn’t come until Scott stepped to the line to shoot his two free throws with 5 seconds left. And still, when the carpenters saw by the monitor that Scott missed both shots, they froze, waiting to see if a last-second Piston basket might bring on the order to put the thing back together.

With the buzzer, all the reporters and photographers already in the locker room ready to witness the festivities were ordered out, the trappings of the celebration and the remains of the platforms were stowed away, and within seconds the celebration site was somber and subdued.

It was the losing locker room. Not a fun place to be. Even Musburger went outside to interview Isiah Thomas.

Inside, center Bill Laimbeer demonstrated the studied restraint of a man choosing not to speak his mind.

Of his final foul, the one on which he fouled out, the one that sent Abdul-Jabbar to the line for the winning points, Laimbeer said, “Fouls are part of the game.” Asked, directly, if he thought it was a foul, Laimbeer said, “It’s not important.”

Asked if he thought the Pistons had the game won, Laimbeer said, “You never have anything until the horn sounds. We had to make a shot or get a stop at the end, and we didn’t get it done.”

And when a new wave of reporters tried to get Laimbeer to express an opinion of the last call, he said, “We don’t complain about the refereeing.”

Salley was unusually short on commentary, too. “It’s just frustrating to know that one more basket, one less foul called, and you could have a championship,” he said.

Dumars did, actually, flash a quick hint of a smile during one of his play-by-play descriptions of how his shot went. He was explaining that he was the second option on the play, after Isiah Thomas, who wasn’t open. He took the ball and saw (quick smile at the thought) that the lane was open.

“It was open for a second, and I thought I could get to the hole,” Dumars said. “But Byron Scott was coming at me from one side, and one of these guys just told me that it was A.C. Green coming at me from the other side, I’m not sure. Anyway, there were two guys converging on me so I had to kind of double-pump. I had to kind of change my shot. But I knew I had to get it up.”

He shrugged. He didn’t have to point out that the shot missed the basket. It was a miss being widely discussed.

That one and the 18-footer that Thomas missed from the left corner. Thomas went over and over and over the one miss--as much as he went over the 43 points that didn’t miss--until finally his team trainers ordered the crush of reporters to back off and let him stretch out on the bench, his ankle wrapped with ice.

Dumars covered his face with his hands for a moment as he tried to picture his shot. He concluded, “I thought Rodman was going to get the rebound. . . . I’m pretty sure he had a hand on it.”