The Cavs spanked the Pistons on Sunday 99-78 completing the first-round series sweep. The butt-whooping was a fitting ending to Detroit’s season, one that got turned upside down by the blockbuster Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson trade in November. Joe Dumars said he was sick of losing in the conference finals and wanted to get over the top. He broke the team down and the fans had to suffer through a crap year where they gave up towards the end just like the players. Despite the Billups trade, I’m guessing nobody envisioned such an embarrassing ending to the season — a first-round sweep at the hands of the Cavs. To add insult to injury, Cavs fans flocked to The Palace of Auburn Hills and took over the arena:
Word evidently got back to Ohio that tickets had been advertised as low as $12, and the Cavs fans arrived in droves.
”It was tremendous,” Williams said of the fan support. ”It was a little bit amazing, to be honest. Coming out to warm up, you hear all those Cavs fans. It was kind of jokingly going around the locker room, ‘Hey man, we’re at the Q.’
…
There were MVP chants for James and chants of ”Let’s go Cavs” during timeouts. There were loud ovations for the Cavs’ blocked shots and as many signs for the Cavs as there were for the Pistons. When the game ended, Detroit’s fans had left and about half the house stayed to cheer and roar and chant and do everything a crowd at Quicken Loans Arena would do.
I keep saying it: the ball’s in Dumars’ court now. He needs to deliver a big free agent (and a new coach if I might add). I keep hearing Carlos Boozer and I believe that would be a good fit. Problem is Boozer’s attitude — never know when he’s going to take an extra week or month off to nurse/heal an injury. As for the Cavs fans, good for them. They’ve had to wait a long time to be proud of their team. Hopefully they’ll have a championship to celebrate this year.
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Freeing up Wallace and Iverson from the salary cap will be huge, they’ll land a big free agent. NY is unlikely to free up enough. But I’vebeen saying it since the other Larry Brown stepped down after those fixed finals…. HIRE BILL LAIMBEER!!!!!!
It was no accident that Cav fans were there in bunches. I heard that the Pistons, with the bad team and the bad economy in Detroit, actually took out ads in Cleveland and mailed ticket request forms to Cav season ticket holders to beef up the crowd at games 3 and 4. It didn’t work as well for Friday night, but certainly was successful for yesterday.