Losing 4 straight games to a clearly inferior Cleveland Cavs team after winning a ludicrous number of reg season games = choking.
Getting outplayed badly and bounced by a clearly inferior Miami Heat team after winning a ludicrous number of reg season games = choking.
They are a slighly more successful Dallas Mavericks of the east.
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Originally Posted by RIP CITY
They have choked in the CONFERENCE FINALS, not early in the Playoffs, there is a difference.
I'll still don't think you can call them chokers, they HAVE CHOKED, but they have also won it all.
And I didn't hear anyone calling the Heat "clearly inferior" before that Series, not the way people swung from Shaq, and Wade's nuts back then.
Slighty more successfull than the Mavs.....ok.....believe what you want. 5 Conference Finals appearances, 2 NBA Finals appearances (Back-to-Back), 1 NBA Championship>>>2 Conference Finals appearances, 1 Finals appearance. The Championship alone makes it more than "slightly" more successfull, that's the only goal for any team.....the Trophy.
If you cant recognize that owning the regular season two years in a row, being heads and shoulders favorites to win the east if not the title, and then getting clearly and squarely beaten by inferior teams is choking, you are a far bigger idiot than you think I am.
It was choking when Dallas blew a 2-0 lead to Miami, and it was choking when Detroit blew a 2-0 lead to the heavily underfavored Cavs. But I guess I cant expect you as a deluded Pistons fan to understand that.
I'll still don't think you can call them chokers, they HAVE CHOKED, but they have also won it all.
And I didn't hear anyone calling the Heat "clearly inferior" before that Series, not the way people swung from Shaq, and Wade's nuts back then.
Slighty more successfull than the Mavs.....ok.....believe what you want. 5 Conference Finals appearances, 2 NBA Finals appearances (Back-to-Back), 1 NBA Championship>>>2 Conference Finals appearances, 1 Finals appearance. The Championship alone makes it more than "slightly" more successfull, that's the only goal for any team.....the Trophy.
I dont recall calling them chokers. I recall saying they choke. Which they do. There was no one on the planet who thought Cleveland had a chance to beat them last year, let alone run off 4 straight games after being down 0-2 and blow them off the court in game 6. Ditto for 2 years ago.
If they do the same thing this year, then they will be chokers.
Sure. Lets see how far from the Mavs they are when they finish with a top 3 record in the league this year, and then lose again in the conf. finals to a team they have no business losing to. And dont forget the obligatory sore loser locker room talk afterward from Chauncey or Sheed. "I still feel we're the better team." I wonder does their arrogance rub off on their fans, or vice versa.
Sure. Lets see how far from the Mavs they are when they finish with a top 3 record in the league this year, and then lose again in the conf. finals to a team they have no business losing to. And dont forget the obligatory sore loser locker room talk afterward from Chauncey or Sheed. "I still feel we're the better team." I wonder does their arrogance rub off on their fans, or vice versa.
Well, now it's becoming clear.....you don't like the Pistons. That makes this debate kind of worthless for me. It's just silly to downplay the accomplishments of one of the most successfull teams in the NBA of this decade. I know the Pistons are not the greatest team ever, you won't ever hear me say that. But they have done very well, and to make it sound like it was no big deal is just ridiculous.
Oh and by the way here is my post before Game 1 of the Cavs Series last year (On another board)......
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Originally Posted by RIP CITY
Well I think people are sleepin on the Cavs in this Series, they aren't going to get it handed to them. They can run with us.
But we need to start this Series of like we did the last one, and put a whoppin on them to try to ruin their confidence a little, they believe they can beat us and beating them down in this game will put a little doubt in their minds.
No, I didn't say that the Cavs would win, but I knew that Series wasn't going to easy.
Well, now it's becoming clear.....you don't like the Pistons. That makes this debate kind of worthless for me. It's just silly to downplay the accomplishments of one of the most successfull teams in the NBA of this decade. I know the Pistons are not the greatest team ever, you won't ever hear me say that. But they have done very well, and to make it sound like it was no big deal is just ridiculous.
Au contraire. I do like Detroit. I've been rooting for them to come out the east every year since they beat my Lakers in 2004. I was rooting for them against SA, I was rooting for them against Miami, and again against Cleveland. And each of the last two years, I was dissapointed and disgusted at their respective chokejobs. The only part of their team I have a problem with is their unmitigated arrogance. Even after getting shallacked by these teams they still won't admit to themselves they need to committ and do better. Those "I still feel we're the better team" quotes say it all. No sense of responsibility. And a huge sense of entitlement. They are still living off that title from 04. In their minds they probably truly still believe they are the true NBA champions.
I dont have to dislike a team to have a negative opinion about some aspects of them. The arrogance specifically. And fans like DeuceWallace arent helping me here.
Their record would be even better if not for some absences from stars earlier. They're an awesome team when they play with intensity. And that's why they only have 1 title, they lack consistent intensity. And you could argue that having 1 superstar player to always rely on would've been the difference.
1. You compared them to the Mavs who clearly have not been to 5 straight conference finals, 2 NBA Finals, and do not have a championship
Pistons and Mavs both finish with top records among the NBA two years in a row, are both favorites to win the title two years in a row, and both lose to teams they should have beaten and were favored over two years in a row. No other teams fall in that category. That is why they are currently the Mavs of the east. They overachieve in the regular season, and underachieve in the playoffs. Regardless of whether they won a title what, 4 years ago? And against the Cavs, they barely won the games they did win.
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2. They did not own the regular season last year
53-29, best record in the east, third best in the entire league. And if thats not owning it last year, they certainly owned it the year before, when they finished 12 wins ahead of the next best record in the east.
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3. They were not favorites last year until Wade got hurt
Are you ****in kidding? They were the favorites all year, from the 1st week of the season after Miami got their asses beat by 30 in Miami, by Chicago, during their ring ceremony, and all the analysts were saying they lost their passion and drive, up until the end of the season right before they swept Orlando. The only reason people didnt write Miami off completely and entirely is because they were the defending champs. And look where that got them.
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4. The '05 Heat were not a clearly inferior team
Detroit: 64-18
Miami: 52-30
Clearly, clearly inferior.
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5. Not every team can win it every year. Subsequently, 27 teams do not choke a year
No, just Detroit and Dallas.
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Originally Posted by DeuceWallaces
Searching for quotes you made up? Here let me help:
Suppose I better just shut off the comp and....wait! A quick 3 second google search and guess what I find!
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Pistons' Billups: All our guys better than Cleveland's
June 4, 2007
So, does this change everything, the Cavs—yes, the Cavs—in the NBA Finals?
Look, this is what everyone was saying, that any team from among five or six in the Eastern Conference could go to the Finals. No one knew which. But the Cavs? It's tougher to digest when it happens, and which starter other than LeBron James would you want from that team?
But they got there, and we all aren't the Pistons.
"I believe [we're better], I really do," Chauncey Billups said after a conference finals series in which the Pistons probably didn't deserve to win one game. "There's nobody on that team who is better than ours. And maybe I'm crazy, maybe I've got too much confidence in these guys, but I believe in us. I believe we're the better team.
"Did we back it up? No, we didn't. But I still think we're better."
Billups is a free agent, and after his poor series the talk is he'll have no serious option but to return to the Pistons, and probably at substantially less money than he was considering a month ago.
Not only were my quotes right, but there were worse and more arrogant quotes than I remembered. "Did we back it up? No, we didn't. But I still think we're better". Boy Chauncey you just take losing so graciously and humbly, don't you?
Chauncey: 'We didnt back it up, and they whooped us, but we're still better, so there...yeah, cant faze us.'
Reporter: 'But Chauncey, how can you be better if--'
Chauncey: *puts fingers in ears* La-la-la-la-la-la-la I cant hear you'
Chauncey didnt even think Lebron was better than anyone on his team. Chauncey: "Rip > Bron...book it. Bron just got lucky. Yeah. Luck was all it was.
You're such a uninformed ignoramus you don't even know whats going on with your own team. How pathetic.
Re: How are the Pistons 26-7?
