They Can Manage a Deficit

If there is one quality that has defined the Detroit Pistons since their championship run last year, it’s resilience in dire situations.

They trailed the New Jersey Nets, three games to two, in the conference semifinals last season and came back to win.

They fell behind the Indiana Pacers, 2-1, in the conference semifinals this season, then faced deficits of 2-1 and 3-2 against the Miami Heat in the conference finals.

And here they are again, trailing the San Antonio Spurs after the first game of the NBA Finals.

“I think the one good thing about us, when we’re down in the series or down in the game, the one thing that we’re able to do is all stay together,” Piston guard Richard Hamilton said. “We never point any fingers. We all feel as though, if we’re going to get out of this foxhole, we’re going to do it together. Sometimes -- or most of the time -- we play better that way. ... We always just stay connected, regardless of how the game is going or regardless if we’re down or whatever, we just always stay connected.”

*

If the Pistons are resilient, the Spurs are remarkable for their versatility. After averaging 108.2 points against the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference finals, San Antonio won Game 1 of the Finals with only 84 points.

The thing about the Spurs is, they actually prefer this style.

“We’re more comfortable in this than we were last series,” forward Tim Duncan said.

Said point guard Tony Parker: “Against Phoenix, we had some adjustments to make and tried to play a little bit different and use the transition and fastbreak a little bit more because we knew that we had to score points to beat Phoenix, and that’s what we did. “Now we’re playing against Detroit and they play very physical, aggressive, so same thing, that’s what it is, the playoffs, it’s adjustments and it’s more our style of basketball, Detroit than Phoenix.”

*

Detroit’s next adjustment is to find a way to stop Manu Ginobili, who found his comfort zone in time to score 15 fourth-quarter points Thursday.

“Maybe we’ve got to think about doubling him in certain situations,” Piston Coach Larry Brown said. “We’ve got to figure out a way to keep him in front of us a little bit better. You know, we switched a lot on him. Usually when we switch, we try to take something away when we switch. I think a lot of times in this last game, we just switched without taking anything away, and that got him isolated on the big person, which made him even more effective.

“But he played great. He was just remarkable. I thought his effort, he made some great plays to score the ball, but just his effort and his aggressiveness was great. Then we’ve got to make him defend a little bit. I don’t think we put him in a position where he had to work defensively as maybe we need to make him work.”

*

At least when Phil Jackson made his “asterisk” comment about San Antonio’s 1999 lockout-season championship he was savvy enough not to use a word that could be thrown back at him. Brown learned the hard way back in his ABA days.

“I made this comment, ‘The only thing I liked about San Antonio was the guacamole,’ ” Brown said. “The guacamole dip. So then they had this for like eight days, they kept playing that sound bite.

“There was a lot more to it because their coach said something about me, and it was Bob Bass at the time. So they had that 10-cent beer night and people were hitting me with avocados and throwing dip on me. I remember walking through the crowd, people were punching me. In the ABA, that was, you know, that was typical. So it was an interesting experience. But I came back and coached here and I found out I liked a lot more than the dip about San Antonio. But it was pretty intense.”