Pistons Finally Tire Of Toying With Bulls

Remember in the last game of the NBA regular season, when the Bulls simply needed a victory over the Nets to clinch the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference? If they hadn't lost that game, this Bulls-Pistons whitewash could have been our conference finals; this could be all there is.

Fortunately, it's just the semis, and the Bulls are toast. From the great Blog A Bull:

There is no implied destiny involved with these losses. The NBA doesn't work where you lose in the first round a couple years, then the second round a year, and eventually you get to the Finals. It worked that way 20 years ago because they had Michael Jordan. It doesn't work that way for every young team, and the history of the league is littered with abandoned young squads that once had the promise but never made it. The whole situation needs to be re-evaluated, not just because they've lost, but how every time Detroit wanted to put them away they simply did, making this talent gap seem pretty vast. If it takes minor tweaks (plus internal development) or a more thorough overhaul is up to Pax, but we can feel reassured to know that from what he's told the media Pax himself isn't satisfied with this cute fun little team he's assembled.

You have to think, by the way, that the Pistons would have beaten the Heat in three games, at this pace. Meanwhile, of at Detroit Bad Boys, they have a fantastic analogy for this series.

You know how — as a kid of the '80s — sometimes you'd think you pressed pause on the awkward Nintendo controller during mike tyson's punchout... and say you were fighting Glass Joe... But you didn't really pause the game, so while you were getting some Kool Aid, talking on the phone, or destroying a Micro Magic cheeseburger, Glass Joe was having his way with helpless Little Mac? You know when you came back to the game, Little Mac had already been knocked down once and his energy level was way down? Well, when you came back to the game, you didn't press reset, did you? I mean, you were fighting Glass Joe for godsakes. You just grabbed the controller and beat the hell out of him for the remainder of the fight.

Yep: That's exactly what last night's game was like. We arrived in Chicago just in time to watch the second half, and the Bulls were, without question, Glass Joe.

Pistons Topple Glass Joe ... Er ... Chicago [Detroit Bad Boys] Anybody Want Game 4 Tickets? [Blog A Bull]