AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – Loose is the best way to describe the Cavaliers as they prepared to take on the Detroit Pistons in Game 3 of the opening round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. 

Leading the series 2-0, there’s no way they shouldn’t be.   Some might expect that the Pistons are more dangerous at home.  Well, that’s not quite the case.  Earlier this week when Detroit forward Tayshaun Prince said that his team didn’t defend home very well.  Given they own a 21-20, he was right.

It’s quite possible, however, the Pistons would be in a different position had they not traded point guard Chauncey Billups who currently has the Denver Nuggets up 2-0 on the New Orleans Hornets.  Mike Brown, for one, is glad he doesn’t have to see Billups – yet.

Chauncey is a great player; we had our hands full with him every time we played these guys. If I can help it, I’d love to not have to play against Chauncey Billups at any time.

The main guy the Pistons got in that trade – guard Allen Iverson – is done for the season with an apparent back injury.

It hasn’t exactly gone viral – yet – but the Cavs spoof of the now infamous Heineken beer walk-in closet commercial, but it has still racked up over 300,000 hits.

Coach Mike Brown was asked about the obvious glee that the players took in doing the commercial, which began showing at Quicken Loans Arena during playoff games.

Again, that’s our guys being our guys.  They are a group of guys that hang out together, a group of guys that eat together.  A group of guys have fun together and that commercial is just their personality, their being – at least this year. 

You can understand the looseness the Cavs have considering that the Pistons have only offered answers for their second team as opposed to the starters, especially in the case of LeBron James.

The Pistons’ Coach Mike Curry played him straight up and then they sent half the team and Bill Laimbeer and John Salley after him to no avail. When asked what he’d do, Brown said.

You’re going to have to ask Michael Curry.  I can’t help him.  I can’t try to help him.

Injury update:  Rookie forward J.J. Hickson hasn’t been cleared to participate in any activities yet…Expect Ben Wallace to play another 10-15 minutes against the Pistons.

- This quote from Tayshaun Prince says a lot about the Pistons psyche when they go back to Motown and heaven forbid they go down 2-0:

We haven’t played well at home all season. Being down 2-0 against them puts yourself in a tough situation because this season we played better on the road than we did at home.  We’ve had a lot of bad losses at home to teams we definitely should have beat.  To get in the playoffs now and obviously have your home crowd and court is something that’s important, but we’ve definitely shown throughout the season that we haven’t done a good job of taking care of our home court.

Think they’ve already tossed in the towel?

- Mo Williams doesn’t seem worried about the Pistons stifling LeBron:

We’ve seen it all. There won’t be nothing a team throws at us that we haven’t seen at some point in time this season.  We just read and react.  ‘Bron is a good enough player to react and if they double team him, he’s a good enough player to find the open man.  It’s up to us to knock it down.

- Coach Mike Brown may have heard from some of his former coaching mentors, but he’s not sure:

I’m sure I have, but this is on overload (laughing as he points to his Blackberry) right now. I still havent’ gotten back to them.  I haven’t checked.

- Lastly, Brown’s sons got the pleasure of telling their father he’d won Coach of the Year.  G.M. Danny Ferry hearded the entire Brown family, along with the team’s three owners and assistant G.M. Lance Blanks into Brown’s office where the boys delivered the news:

I can’t remember which of my two boys said it, but they kind of make fun of me because I say ‘heckuva’ a lot. They were going ‘Mike is a heckuva…’ And one of them said ‘He’s a heckuva coach of a the year.’ I said ‘Oh’ and we had out little celebration moved on.

- So what took them so long? Mike Brown got the Coach of the Year award in the NBA, formally known as the Red Auerbach Trophy, today in the worst kept secret in post-season awards history. But what took them so long? He’s taken the Cavs to the playoffs in each season he’s been here and they went to The Finals two years ago. There’s paying dues and then there’s ridiculous.

LeBron James came up with a reasonable explanation for that - his presence has handicapped Brown in some respects.   As weird as it sounds, it’s very possible.

I think it was the main reason. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that we still have to go out there and play for him and abide by his system and go out there.  There’s a lot of teams with great talent, but that doesn’t automatically classify you as a good coach or give you wins as a team.

- The Cavs aren’t putting much stock in the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic losses to the Chicago Bulls and Orlando Magic against the Chicago Bulls and Philadelphia 76ers respectively, a smart move given the pedigree of those teams.  Although, as I type this the Celtics are in a nip-and-tuck battle with the Bulls at TD Garden.

It’s just one game.  A series is never won in one game, LeBRon James said.

Center Zydrunas Ilgauskas said it could turn into a lesson for his team:

It just goes to show you every team and play and if you let your guard down, before you know it you won’t have a homecourt advantage. Or it happens very quickly and then you have a fight on your hands. If anything we should learn from it and keep our focus.

You have to appreciate their ability to keep their eyes on the here and now.  Read below for another example.

Other views:

On ABC Sunday Magic Johnson, the former Los Angeles Lakers legend, said that his former team watched the Cavs 102-84 win over the Detroit Pistons and wanted to one-up them by blowing out the Utah Jazz.  The Lakers ultimately beat the Jazz by 13.  LeBron James wasn’t buying into that notion:

We buy into the fact that we’re keeping an eye on Detroit.  Detroit is our only main focus right now.  It’s a long playoffs and we got to approach Game 2 like it’s our last.

And, yes, Tracy McGrady is around for the playoffs, he’s just not playing for the Houston Rockets- and whether he plays hoops again is up in the air.  But he has no limit to when it comes to opinions about who will win the NBA Championship.  It’s not who he picks, but how he dismisses the Cavaliers in an interview:

It’s no knock on Cleveland, I think Cleveland’s gonna get there… Cleveland to me is really not that good.  If you take what the Celtics did last year… You knew, they were either gonna get to the finals, or they were gonna win it.  You can’t really say the same thing about the Cavaliers.  Although, they had the best record in the league this year, a lot of people like, ‘Okay, they havin’ a great year, but we don’t know if they can win the championship.’  They really didn’t do anything on the road with the elite teams in the league, they lost, they had a bad record when they went to face the elite teams in the league.  I think they’re a good team, but I don’t they’re ready to take the next step.

Ultimately he may be proven right, but the lack of respect for what the Cavs have accomplished this season is interesting for someone who’s never sniffed a second-round playoff game.

If you’ve been following the NBA playoff race at the bottom rung of the Eastern Conference, you’ll notice a small, albeit significant chance to standings. The Chicago Bulls, by virtue of a win last night over the Miami Heat, have inched into the seventh seed.  And Detroit, currently on a three-game losing skid, has slipped into that eighth spot.

And I do not want to see them there for reasons both personal and professional.

Let’s deal with the latter first.  Despite the fact that the Pistons have a losing record at 34-37 and despite the fact that there appears to be a quiet protest going on with Allen Iverson regarding his playing situation , the Pistons will be dangerous for the Cavaliers.  There’s just too much intensity in the rivalry for them not to be.

Nevermind that the situations have changed over the course of just a season with the Cavs running away with the division, they still have Rip Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, Tayshaun Prince and, according to reports, Iverson, who always has fun at the Cavs’ expense, will return next Tuesday for the final push.

Yes, there are no guarantees should they play the Bulls given that the Cavs finished their season series against them before they completed trades that brought Brad Miller and John Salmons to the team.  There, however, hasn’t been much of a rivarly there since Michael Jordan frustrated the Cavs years ago.

Detroit?  Different story.

As for why I don’t want to see it?  The Palace at Auburn Hills is a great facility, but it reminds me of the Richfield Coliseum in that it sits almost in the middle of nowhere. 

Secondly, driving I-75 as repairs continue to be made would test the patience of a Bhuddist monk.

Post mortem:

Someone on press row had to wake me when this one was over because the Cavs 99-78 win over the Pistons tonight was a snoozefest from the first quarter on.

The most excitement came toward the end of the game when fans wondered whether the team’s deep bench players would score the magical 100 points to score them a free chalupa.

As you can see by the score they left disappointed.

If Friday night belonged to LeBron James, this one was Delonte West’s.  Injured since Jan. 15, he returned to score 25 points including hitting 5-of-5 from the three-point arc.

Game: Cavs (41-11) vs. Detroit Pistons (27-26)

Broadcast:  TV: ESPN. WAKR (1590 AM); WTAM (1100 AM), WHBC (1480 AM)

Starters:  Cavs:  LeBron James (F); Ben Wallace (F); Zydrunas Ilguaskas (C); Delonte West (G); Mo Williams (G).  Pistons Tayshaun Prince (F); Antonio McDyess (F); Rasheed Wallace (C); Allen Iverson (G); Rodney Stuckey (G).

Injured-inactive: Cavs:  Sasha Pavlovic (ankle)

Officials: Joe Forte, Gary Zielinski, Eric Dalen

This year: The series is tied 1-1, the Cavs won the last meeting on Feb. 1 90-8- at the Palace of Auburn Hills.
Streaking:  Cavs have won three in a row; the Pistons are losers of five consecutive.

Three things to watch:

• Pistons on the road:  Detroit has won four-of-five from the Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena and, most notably, are one of the league’s better teams on the road with a 13-11 record.  Having lost five consecutive at home, it may be a case of road sweet road for them.
• LeBron James: He’s coming off a 55-point performance against the Milwaukee Bucks, but he also has success against Detroit.  He said that the three-minute burst of scoring he had against the Bucks was second only to game five of the Eastern Conference Finals a couple of years back.  This season he is averaging 29 points againt the Pistons – both in Detroit.
• Delonte West:  What does his return do for the Cavaliers?

Quotable:

From the coach’s office:

Mike Brown on Delohte West’s return :

I have to applaud those guys in the locker room; we stepped up.  But Delonte’s a hard guy to replace.  He’s that good. We missed him, but we didn’t miss him to the point where it hurt us.

From the locker room:

Delonte West on:

We’re very confident in every guy that suits up.  We’re confident in our coaching staff and that’s where trust comes in.  That’s why we feel we can put any five on the floor at any time and we can compete with the best of them.  That’s what Cleveland basketball is.