Still looking for a Billups rise

By ESPN.-Three players were sprawled on the floor near center court after a mad scramble for a loose ball off a missed 3-pointer by LeBron James with 18.5 seconds left.Richard Hamilton, Sasha Pavlovic and Chauncey Billups all stayed down for a few seconds after the ball bounced out of bounds, then Hamilton and Pavlovic rose simultaneously. Billups stayed down, a sheepish grin finally crossing his face before he finally picked himself up.
"Rise Up" is the theme of this postseason for the Cleveland Cavaliers, so it seemed fitting that the one player who failed to rise up when it counted most, Billups, was the same player who stayed down the longest after that late scramble.

Although the responsibility for this loss is shared equally by everyone on the Pistons, the player who bore the brunt of the blame for the Pistons' failure to show any semblance of poise down the stretch was their leader, their No. 1.

When it counted most, Mr. Big Shot turned into Mr. Blunder.

Billups' first major mistake came with 1:15 remaining and Detroit trailing 87-83 when he got within eight feet of the basket and then turned and try to throw a pass to Rasheed Wallace back out by the 3-point line. Drew Gooden easily intercepted it.

"When Rip kicked it to me, I thought I had a shot for a minute, but they closed out quickly on me. So when I went to the rack, I saw Dice's man coming over, and I thought Sheed was floating to the corner. And then once I got up and seen he wasn't floating, I tried to make a pass over Gooden, like a bail out, and he made a good play on it," Billups said.

Gooden was immediately fouled and made one of two at the line, upping the lead to five, but Richard Hamilton came back and hit a jumper, and Wallace then blocked drew Gooden's shot underneath, giving the Pistons the ball back with a chance to cut their deficit to one -- or to tie it with a 3.

That's when Billups Blunder No. 2 happened.

Billups dribbled upcourt, and when he got to the 3-point line he jumped to his left and attempted a horribly off-balance 3-pointer that missed badly.

"I got the ball, and I knew there was a man [Pavlovic] trailing me hard. So I tried to take one step in, and make him kind of run into me and run me over. He dodged me, but I thought he was coming out of control, and I thought I could get a 3 with an and-1, or three free throws. I've won a lot of games with that shot, it's a shot I believe in, and I wish it would have went but it didn't," Billups said.

Billups knew full well that he bore much of the blame for the Pistons' failure to rise up at the end of the fourth quarter as they've done so many times in the past, and to his credit he explained each of his gaffes in minute detail and shouldered the burden of being the fall guy.

He insisted afterward, as did several of his teammates, that the Pistons' will not let their current circumstances affect their level of confidence, which they all maintained remains high.

Maybe so, but the Cavs seem to have gotten into the Pistons' heads with their relentlessness and fearlessness, which manifested itself Tuesday night in several ways -- from Larry Hughes sucking it up and starting despite a painful left foot injury, to Gooden horse-collaring Wallace and nearly throwing him down, to rookie Daniel Gibson going to the foul line 12 times and sinking every single one of them like he was the world's steadiest veteran.

"Both teams always respected each other, and this is 16 times we've played e\ach other in the past two years, so we know each other well. I think we've had respect for each other, and last year we gained it a little bit, we might have lost it a little in the regular season, and I don't know if we have it back yet, but we're slowly leaning toward getting it back," Cavs forward Donyell Marshall said.

James wrapped up the 91-87 victory by making a pair of free throws with 4.0 seconds left, tying the series 2-2 heading into Game 5 back in Auburn Hills, Mich. on Thursday night.

It'd be easy to say the Cavs' have the Pistons' attention at this point, but that wouldn't really do justice to how well Cleveland has played throughout this nip-and-tuck series.

"They pretty much know what they're up against, and they know if they don't bring their A-game they don't have much of a chance. But they're doing that, they're bringing their A-game," Billups said, going on to add that he hasn't seen the Pistons' A-game since the clincher against Chicago in the second round a week and a half ago. "Our A-game and their A-game [are] really different, and hopefully ours is coming real soon."

It had better show up Thursday, or the Pistons will find themselves in the same situation they were in a year ago -- trailing 3-2 and needing to win a Game 6 on the road. Last year, they were barely able to get that win. This year, you get the feeling that if Cleveland has a chance to close out the series at home, they won't come up one rebound short as they did last May.

So again , that A-game from the Pistons had better show up soon. And Mr. Big Shot had better start playing with the same level of poise we've grown accustomed to seeing over the last half-decade.

If not, a new finalist may just Rise Up in the East.