Wait, the Pistons lost again?

It's true, the series is tied up at 2 games apiece. Admittedly, a little hard to believe, and not just because I had Detroit in 5. This game was, in fact, "guaransheed", and that's usually a good indicator that the Pistons will win. Tonight, no so much, as Cleveland pulled it out 74-72.

Admittedly, the loss of the Rasheed to a sprained ankle (or at least, the loss of effectiveness of Rasheed) was huge. Although, as YAYSports points out, Cleveland was also playing without their starting SG. However, in my mind, I do think Rasheed is more important to Detroit than Hughes is to Cleveland, especially considering how Hughes has played this postseason (not so great) and how Flip Murray has played this postseason (very well).

Unlike Game 3, this wasn't so much LeBron taking over the game as it was Cleveland playing good defense and Detroit uncharacteristically missing some relatively easy shots (such as Hamilton's short jumper after Big Ben pulled down an offensive rebound). LeBron was not very good at all shooting tonight, finishing 8/23 from the field, including something like 2/13 in the 2nd half. But the all-around game was there again, with 8 rebounds and 9 assists. Anderson Varajeo and Donyell Marshall contributed off the bench, and the Cavs even got a nice scoring effort from Eric Snow.

For Detroit, only 33% from the field, including 4/15 from downtown - ouch. Rip Hamilton led the team with 30 points, butit uncharacteristically took him 25 shots to do it. Chauncey Billups, normally Mr. Reiliable in the clutch, never got it going.

For Game 5, the Pistons are going to Need Sheed to be back close to his normal self in order to get the offense back together. Detroit's defense was excellent again, but they need to remain potent offensively. If they don't, we could be in for a shocker in this series.