Miami showed up in full-on “We’ll take a split” mode, and Detroit was still holding on for a narrow win at the end. Detroit’s effort level certainly superior to their Game One effort… for about 70% of the game. They came out, made the hustle playes, rebounded well, and (gasp) executed crisp offensive sets, making the extra pass when necessary. They were fantastic. For about 70% of the game.

Ben Wallace played a quintissential Ben Wallace game. I’m not sure of his stats, and I’m not going to look them up. They’re unimportant. Big Ben got after it. He hit the boards hard, he tipped a lot of balls and kept them alive, and he did a tremendous job on Shaq. And he hit a free throw. It was an impact game for Ben, and he was the Pistons MVP last night. Tayshaun Prince was also phenomenal, and a close second in the MVP race. And it was nice to see Rasheed hit some shots in the second half. His first half was spent playing as if he was giving Vin Baker a piggyback ride the entire time.

The win is nice, but… a complete effort would’ve been better. Forty-eight minutes of crisp, sharp basketball would really be a pleasant surprise at some point. Sure, credit the Heat for keeping after it, but other than the Wade three-ball from the corner, can you remember a single big play that the Heat made during that comeback? Maybe I’m forgetting something, but I can’t. Detroit just stopped playing. The stopped doing the things that built them that lead, and Miami just kept playing. I don’t remember any incredible hot streak that they went on. They just had to keep playing basketball, and they were back in the game.

Weird play towards the end of the game, too. Tayshaun Price was inbouding the ball for the Pistons, he couldn’t find a man, and he called timeout. But the building was really loud, and James Posey had just kinda shoved Chauncey Billups out of bounds, and inbetween Dick Bavetta and Tayshaun Prince. Bavetta didn’t see/hear the timeout call, and called the Pistons for a 5-second violation. And at some point after that, during the argument, I guess Bavetta said something to Tayshaun Prince that wasn’t very nice. He felt the need to apologize to him for it, and Tayshaun wouldn’t say what it was after the game… I kinda wish they had gotten into a fistfight.

Game 3 is Saturday night.