Overhaul leaves Pistons sputtering

For much of last season, and until he received his 2008 championship ring, Wyc Grousbeck, the managing partner and CEO of the Boston Celtics, carried a ticket stub in his wallet. It wasn’t from any of the big playoff games last spring, like the Games 7 vs. Atlanta or Cleveland, or Games 4 or 6 of the NBA Finals.

It was from a Jan. 5 game in the Palace of Auburn Hills. The stub served as a daily reminder for Grousbeck in that it marked one of the seminal moments of the eventual NBA champs’ turnaround season: a come-from-behind victory over the then almost-as-good Pistons in a midseason game which was hyped for days.

The Pistons entered the game with a 26-7 record and were on an 11-game winning streak. The Celtics entered the game with a 28-3 record and had won eight straight since losing to the Pistons in Boston on Dec. 19. It was the first time in 27 years that two teams with 54 combined wins had met as early as Jan. 5.

These teams were clearly the two best teams in the East and, at the time, in the NBA as well. They would end up with the two best records in the NBA last season, represented the two best defensive teams and, to many, looked to be pretty evenly matched en route to what surely would be a meeting in the conference finals.

The Celtics emerged with a 92-85 victory, led by an improbable hero, Glen “Big Baby” Davis, who paced the team with 20 points, 16 of them coming in the fourth quarter. (Unbeknownst to many, there apparently is a clause in Davis’ contract that he submit one breakout game in the month of January. This season, it was against the Orlando Magic on Jan. 22, when he scored a season-high 16 points.)

At the end of the game, James Posey chanted “Dee-troit, Basketbums” to some leather-lunged fans in the vicinity of the Boston bench. The two teams met once more in the regular season and then, as expected, in the conference finals, which the Celtics took in six games, twice winning on the Pistons’ home floor.

Grousbeck plans to be at the Palace again on Friday night when the Celtics visit the Pistons – but, oh, how the circumstances have changed in the space of 12 months. The Celtics have kept up their end of the deal; they’ve won nine straight and have a heady 38-9 record. The Pistons? They’re borderline irrelevant in the Eastern Conference after being the kingpin (or near kingpin) for so many years.

Detroit brings a modest 25-19 record into the game and has nearly as many losses this month (eight) as the Celtics do all season. The Pistons dropped games to Charlotte, Indiana and Oklahoma City in the space of four days. They lost at home by 21 points to Dallas who, two days later, lost by 24 in Boston.

The Pistons made a bold move in November, sending point guard and team conscience Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess to Denver for Allen Iverson. The deal might be seen in the light of taking a step backwards before moving ahead again; Iverson has not improved the Pistons one iota. Detroit was 4-0 when it made the trade.

In essence, with a rookie coach and a veteran unit that had run its course, Dumars decided to be proactive, figuring it was better to get something valuable for Billups while Billups still was viewed as a productive player. If nothing else, Iverson is still a name (although his starting in the All-Star game is ludicrous) and he is in possession of that treasured NBA commodity, the expiring contract.

"We've been battling at the top of the Eastern Conference for eight straight years, we knew at some point we would have to regroup," Dumars said by email.

Both the Celtics and Pistons returned essentially the same teams which shadowed each other last season. Boston lost Posey to free agency and PJ Brown (who wasn’t even on the team at this time last year) to retirement. Detroit brought back its top seven scorers – then dealt two of them (Billups and McDyess) to Denver. Billups has helped turn the Nuggets into one of the best non-Laker teams in the Western Conference. McDyess returned to the Pistons after sitting out the mandated 30 days before he could rejoin the team which had traded him.

While the Pistons don’t look too imposing right now – and they don’t – they would nonetheless start the postseason as the No. 5 seed in the East, just a half game behind No. 4 Atlanta if the playoffs opened Friday. Throw in the possibility of significant cap room in each of the next two summers and Dumars isn’t unhappy with the state of the franchise. The present team? That’s another matter.

“We've made some major changes on the fly and we're still holding our guys to expectations," he said. “Anytime you go through this kind of transition, it’s never easy, but we expected it and we're going to make the transition. Change is never easy, but it’s always necessary.”

While the Michael Curry-coached Pistons still maintain their careful ways with the basketball – Detroit once again leads the league in fewest turnovers per game – the team is not quite as strong defensively as recent years. We’re not talking Golden State East here, but Detroit is sixth in the NBA in defensive field goal percentage and fourth in points allowed. Last year, the Pistons were No. 3 and No. 1, respectively, in those categories. The Celtics, meanwhile, rank first in defensive field goal percentage and second in points allowed, exactly the same as last year.

Friday’s meeting will be the third this season between the teams. The Celtics have won both games, easily, by 12 points at the Palace on Nov. 9 and by 18 points in Boston on Nov. 20. Boston now looks at Cleveland and, to a lesser extent, Orlando, as its two biggest obstacles in the East.

For whatever reason, be it an all-too-public fixation on the future or two starters (Iverson and Rasheed Wallace) in the last years of their contracts, the Pistons have not been the same this season. Since the Billups trade, they’ve basically been little more than a .500 team while playing one of the easiest schedules in the league. Their six-year streak of conference finals appearances could well be coming to an end.

“We’re in a good position going forward,’’ Dumars said. “Our plan is to add more pieces as we regroup.”

But, for now, well, let’s go out on a limb and say that Grousbeck won’t bother keeping the ticket stub from the January 2009 game at the Palace. As hard as it is to believe, one year removed, it’s just another game now for the Celtics.