Before we get to the game, I just wanna address the Conseco crowd last night. Indiana has great fans, among the best in the league, but… What kind of a pussy shows up to a crucial Game 6 with a sign that says something like, “Reggie, thanks for the memories,” or “Reggie, we’ll miss you.” Could you show a little faith? Would it be too much to ask to show up and believe your team is going to win, and put that above your efforts to get your sign on TV? If I was Reggie, I’d have been pissed. They were burying Reggie before he was dead.

The man still had a job to do. He was still a competitor. Last night, that’s what he wanted. Not for people to be wishing him a happy retirement at halftime.

But anyway… the game will miss Reggie. Absolutely positively great for the game, and that’s a really high compliment for someone who’s made a career out of basically cheating. I don’t say that as an insult. But Reggie was dirty… not in the sense that he’d ever try to hurt anyone, but if he could break the rules and get away with it, he was doing it. He would’ve done anything to win. Tireless worker. He wanted the ball. The best clutch player of the last 20 years other than MJ. It’s really too bad that not every team has a Reggie Miller to root for.

But anyway… it ended last night because the Pistons did what the Pistons do. Talk about a tough win. You’ve got a team full of guys who would do anything to extend the career of their leader, a crowd with more to cheer for than most crowds ever have, an elimination game against a well-coached team, in one of the best home-court advantage buildings in the league… and they did what they had to do. Wins don’t get much tougher than that one.

For two teams that are supposed to hate each other, the Pistons and Pacers respect each other an awful lot. It’s not often that an entire visiting team and their coaching staff stop before the game’s over to give an opposing player a standing O. I really feel like these teams, despite how much they want to beat each other, also really appreciate each other. I mean, Larry Brown called an extra time-out to keep the ovation going for Reggie. The brawl actually made them come together, if that makes sense.

The best/worst moment of the day. Representative Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts was all over David Stern and Billy Hunter for their “pathetic” policy on steroids. I think that in itself is asinine, as anyone who has a television can turn it to ESPN or TNT on any given weekend night and be pretty sure that the NBA doesn’t have a steroid problem. I’m pretty sure that Beno Udrih isn’t on the juice.

But even allowing for that particular idiocy, it gets worse. The guy said that one of the side effects of steroid use is violent behavior, and then wondered aloud if the Ron Artest Brawl was caused by steroid use.

I don’t even know where to start with that. I can’t believe this guy is a public official. Just a few points…

1) Ron Artest had been fucking crazy long before that incident.
2) Was he referring to Artest, or to the anger of Ben Wallace, or Stephen Jackson, or the anger of the fan who threw the beer? Or perhaps all four of them were sharing the same needle.

Billy Hunter said that Lynch’s conclusion was “a quantum leap.” To say the least. Hunter and Lynch interrupted each other a few times, until David Stern chimed in with this: “On behalf of the players of the National Basketball Association, I would like to say that the guilt that you seek to attribute to them on the basis of this policy is ill-taken and very unfair.”

Lynch said something else, then Stern said “It’s a free country, and I would just like to disagree with your approach, that’s all.”

Boo-yah. Major ups to David Stern for standing up to a clearly idiotic statement.

I think David Stern should just walk into the next hearing and say, “Hey, do whatever you want. If you want us to adopt a policy where someone who tests positive for steroids gets immediately sentenced to death, that’s fine, because it’s really not going to affect my league. By the way, congratulations to all of you for representing areas without any crime whatsoever, because I’m sure that has to be the case before you start hassling the NBA about steroids.”