POISED UNDER PRESSURE – Not many teams over the years could have withstood the type of heat the Celtics – in their own building, at a fever pitch – threw at the Pistons in the fourth quarter. The basket McDyess hit to snap the 8-0 run, the Hamilton runner, the long jumper Prince hit after hustling down an offensive rebound, the Wallace baseline jumper to make it 96-90, Billups breaking free and Prince hitting him off the inbounds pass with three seconds on the shot clock … everybody made coldblooded baskets under situations where teams are lucky to find one or two players willing to take shots.
SAUNDERS: “Our whole team is like that. A lot of these guys have been on other teams and we’ve come together. They share a lot of the same philosophies. The biggest thing is we have a lot of trust and confidence in each other. When you know your teammate has your back, you can go out and play with a great amount of confidence and aggressiveness. That’s what we did.”
QUICK STUDY – Stuckey’s decision-making has been pretty good all along, but it’s been even better in the playoffs and remarkably so against Boston, an elite defensive team. Stuckey picked his spots well in Game 2 and had two heads-up assists in the second quarter, finding a streaking Tayshaun Prince for a dunk in transition and then executing a pretty give and go with McDyess for a three-point play to give the Pistons a five-point lead midway through the quarter.
PIERCE: “Stuckey really gave us problems tonight. I think he was the X-factor tonight.”
TECHNICALLY SPEAKING – Trouble was brewing three minutes into the game when Sean Corbin whistled Wallace for an offensive foul in what replays showed was a bad call. Wallace was setting a screen on Allen when Allen grabbed Wallace and forced both to go tumbling. Wallace sat on the floor stewing for several seconds. Two minutes later, Wallace was assessed a technical foul, his fifth of the postseason, which puts him two away from a one-game suspension.
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