Queasy, Easy Night for Heat

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The Miami Heat leads the Detroit Pistons, 3-2, but the Pistons have won eight of nine elimination games over the last three postseasons. The Heat was eliminated at home in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2004 before losing Game 7 to the Pistons here in 2005.

And Dwyane Wade, whose injury in Game 5 turned the 2005 series around with the Heat up, 3-2, just got flu and spent the day in the hospital getting fluids intravenously.

Proving it was finally a new day, none of that history mattered. The Heat put the Pistons out of their misery, sending them home for the summer to thaw out with a 95-78 romp and winning the Eastern finals, 4-2, on Friday night.

Wade was a minor factor with four points in the first half and 14 altogether. That didn’t matter, either, as 34-year-old Shaquille O’Neal recalled better days, scoring 28 with 16 rebounds and five blocks, making 12 of his 14 shots.

For Miami, a star-struck franchise for most of Coach Pat Riley’s 11 seasons, it will be the first NBA Finals appearance.

For the Pistons, who upset the Lakers in the 2004 Finals and lost to San Antonio in seven games in 2005, it will be the first one they’ve been home watching on TV in a while.

“Detroit is an absolute great team,” Riley said. “They’ve been the stronghold of the East for the last four years.

“They’ve been our nemesis the last three years and in order for us to beat them, [we] were going to have to put the hammer down and that’s what it was going to take.”

The Pistons dominated the regular season, starting 39-6. Fortunately for Miami, by the time they reached the conference finals, the Pistons were an absolutely cold team.

The Pistons take great pride in their resilience, according to their motto, “If it ain’t rough, it ain’t right.” Included in their exploits was a 6-0 record in Game 6s on the road in the last three postseasons.

Their hope of making it 7-0 was buried under a pile of their own bricks. Chauncey Billups shot three for 14 Friday and 39% for the series. Richard Hamilton shot 12 for 28 with a closing flurry in the fourth quarter, but for the series he shot 38%. Rasheed Wallace was four for 12 Friday and shot 36% for the series.

Wade said he awoke at 3 a.m. Friday knowing he was ill and couldn’t go back to sleep. Around 7, he said, he called trainer Ron Culp, who told him to go to a nearby hospital, where Wade ultimately spent the day.

Riley acknowledged as much to the media at Friday morning’s shoot-around, although he pooh-poohed any thought that Wade wouldn’t play.

“There ain’t no Plan B,” Riley said.

By the pregame news conference, Riley was casual about it to the point of turning into a stand-up comedy act.

“Well, we just took him out of the ambulance,” he said. “I needed to go over the game plan with him.”

ESPN, which televised the game, interjected clips of a flu-stricken Michael Jordan’s dramatic performance against the Jazz in the 1997 Finals, but this wasn’t like that.

With Wade on the periphery, the Heat was in control from the start. O’Neal had 19 points by halftime, point guard Jason Williams, a minor factor all series and, indeed, all season, had made all five of his shots and Miami led, 47-36.

This wasn’t the old Shaq running over anyone in his path. With Detroit making passes into the post difficult, Riley moved O’Neal around Friday as teammates found him with lobs over the defense and passes off pick-and-roll plays, making it the easiest 28 he had scored in a long time.

Wade got another IV at halftime and didn’t start the third quarter, but the Pistons weren’t about to catch up. At the end of three quarters, they were shooting 29% and it was 72-53.

“I think we had a great year,” said Coach Flip Saunders, who took the heat all series from his own players, as well as Pistons fans and the Detroit media. “But ultimately every team that comes in when you start Oct. 3 has one goal in mind. And ultimately, there’s failure for 29 teams and success for one team, and that’s pretty much how you judge it.”

Riley had his own problems, starting in the 1990s when the Bulls barred his path, through three losses in the playoffs in the bitter rivalry with the Knicks before Alonzo Mourning’s kidney illness turned the Heat into an expansion franchise all over again.

“We had a lot of near misses, unlucky bounces, suspensions,” said Riley. “We’ve had very good teams that I thought were championship contenders. We had a major setback with [Mourning’s] kidney when that set us back and two years to rebuild. But ever since Shaquille O’Neal showed up on the scene, this team has been a legitimate contender and we have put pieces around him.”

Whether there are enough pieces remains to be seen. The Heat was 0-2 against Dallas, losing by 13 and 36 points, and 0-2 against Phoenix, losing by 18 and nine.

But that’s next week. Now for the greatest weekend in franchise history.