Game 1 of the NBA championships was about what was expected. The Pistons started stronger, since the Spurs had a longer lay-about period and got rusty. But by the time the second quarter started, the Spurs were back on top of their game and never looked back. Rasheed is the key to Piston victories in the playoffs. When he does well, the team wins, and when he doesn’t they struggle. He played well tonight but Brown inexplicably sat him down way too early.
I think Pop generally out-coached Brown, keeping him off-balance with mass substitutions and a lot of timeouts to reconfigure the team. The real narrative of this series is the coaching battle between these two men, best friends who talk every day and who coached the Olympic team together last summer. Their teams are well-matched talentwise, so watching the game was like watching them play chess.