Pistons Seek a Fresh Start

If it was Thursday, the Detroit Pistons must have been in Texas, unfortunately.

Coming off a seven-game series that ended Monday in Miami, they flew back to Detroit that night, got back on a plane Tuesday night, flew here and opened the series Thursday with an 84-69 loss.

The Pistons led for most of the first half and were within 55-53 early in the fourth quarter before the San Antonio Spurs put them away.

“I think the second half we just ran out of gas,” the Pistons’ Antonio McDyess said Friday.

“I’m not taking nothing from the Spurs because they played excellent defense. And offense, they did great, you know, but I talked to a couple of guys and they said they were tired, also. I thought it was only me at first.”

Accustomed to being underdogs, the Pistons aren’t worried. Ben Wallace, asked how he felt Friday, said, “Sleepy.”

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The Pistons are 6-0 this postseason when Rasheed Wallace scores 17 points or more but 1-2 when he’s in single figures, including his six-point Game 1.

Nobody wants to criticize Wallace but the more he’s into it, the better his teammates like it.

“We love when he’s aggressive,” said Chauncey Billups. “We just try to force-feed him. We’ll break a play to get it to him any time because we feel like most of the time, he’s going to make good things happen.”

Wallace got six shots, suggesting to Piston Coach Larry Brown he wasn’t fed enough.

“I don’t know,” said Wallace, “that’s probably a question better suited for Chauncey or Rip [Hamilton] or whoever that you would like to ask that. I can’t say why. I don’t know why. That’s a question for them.”

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Hamilton, Detroit’s leading scorer this season, plays off the ball, which can be a problem against the Spurs’ Bruce Bowen, who is good at keeping opponents off the ball.

Bowen held Denver’s Carmelo Anthony a point below his average in the first round of the playoffs, Seattle’s Ray Allen two below his in the second and Phoenix’s Shawn Marion 11 below his in the third.

Hamilton scored 14 points in Game 1, five below his season average, and needed 21 shots to get them, missing 14.

“The most dominating player in the game in my mind before the fourth quarter was Bruce Bowen and he didn’t score a point,” Brown said. “Played 35 minutes, 0 for 6 from the field I think, maybe had two rebounds.”

Said Hamilton: “I’ve been having a lot of big challenges through these playoffs, chasing Allen Iverson around the first series, chasing Reggie Miller around the second series, then, you know, playing mostly the whole games of the Miami series and guarding Dwyane Wade. Well, this is what I do.

“I feel as though I condition myself, you know, to be in this situation and to get better as the season progresses. It’s the Finals, you can’t worry about, you know, how many minutes you played or how your body feels and everything like that. It’s all mental right now.”

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ABC drew 27% lower television ratings for Thursday’s Game 1 of the NBA Finals than a year ago.

The Spurs’ victory was watched by an average of 7.2% of the 109.6 million U.S. households with televisions, according to Nielsen Media Research. Last year’s Finals opener matching Detroit and the Lakers drew 9.8% of viewers.

The first game of the 2003 Finals between San Antonio and the New Jersey Nets had a 6.4 rating. That series was the lowest-rated championship round since 1981 with a 6.5 average.

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Bloomberg News contributed to this report.

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NBA Finals

Detroit Pistons vs.San Antonio Spurs

Best-of-seven series

All games 6 p.m. PDT

TV: Channel 7; *if necessary

* Game 1: San Antonio 84, Detroit 69

* Game 2: Sunday, at San Antonio

* Game 3: Tuesday, at Detroit

* Game 4: Thursday, at Detroit

* Game 5: June 19, at Detroit*

* Game 6: June 21, at San Antonio*

* Game 7: June 23, at San Antonio*