Who here thinks that it's the Pistons fault that they lost to the Heat?

Question

A lot of people are saying that if the Pistons picked Wade instead of Darko Milicic in the Draft that they would have gone to the Finals this year. (But If they did they may not have won the Finals in 2004, or even gone to the finals in 05.) I think that the Pistons lost because they traded Darko. Even though Wade did a lot for the Heat no one can argue that most of the victories against the Pistons were mainly because of Shaq. I think that if the Pistons had Darko that they would be able to put Darko on Shaq, this would give Wallace a break and Shaq wouldn't beast on the Pistons like he did when Wallace was on the bench. And the Pistons wouldn't have picked wade anyways, Wade was the 5th overall pick, so why would the Pistons waste their pick on him unless they can see into the future which they can't which is exactly why they picked Darko.

I think the Mavs will beat the Heat. Hehe they should put that on a shirt.

Answer 1

Well the pistons franchise doesn't really have the time to spend making rookie players better with all the other players that were so much better than him at that time. Wade did so well with the heat in his rookie year because the team sucked and he got to play a lot of minutes. and when a rookie player gets a lot of minutes on the floor he's going to want to do more on the court, and eventually get better. And most if not all of the games the Heat is because they play lazy or not as a team , or when they shoot more missed three pointers than 2
Point-shot attempts. And when their field goal percentage is below 40%.
or when 3 or more players are injured at the same time. So i say it is the pistons fault they lost because they played lazy and they would have lost even if they picked wade because they don't have the ability to work with players and he wouldn't be as good as he is now. So yes it is the pistons fault

Answer 2

Darko has potentials, no doubt. He was under the Piston's management for two years and they still haven't unlocked that monstrous potential. This means that the Piston's coaching staff is lame and/or Darko sucks, plain and simple.

The Pistons' lost to Miami was pure luck. In Game 6, Detroit's three main scoring guys where shooting under a ridiculous 30% while that ***** Williams was nearly perfect from the field (he hits 3 point shots but misses a lay-up!). Three guys on their off night while the enemy had his best career game. There's no way the Pistons could compete with that. If they'd tied the series in Game 6 and bring Game 7 to Detroit, the Pistons would certainly have won and beat Dallas for the championship!

Answer 3

One, the main reason why the pistons lost to the Heat is because the Pistons shot like crap, two Ben Wallace, and I quote, said "if we woulda took D-Wade or Melo, they woulda messed up the team's rotation and the teams chemistry and we wouldn't have won the finals in 04 and we wouldnt have made it to the finals in 05." plus the pistons had a dude on their bench for shaq, named dale davis, but they never played him so darko wouldn't have played a minute of the series. AND THE PLAYERS DO NOT BLAME COACH FLIP SAUNDERS, SOME OF THE PRESS DO.

Answer 4

They should have picked Carmello. The players should stop blaming Flip Saunders and take a lot at their efforts in the playoffs. A 60+ win team should never loose to a .500 team in the first round or be down 1-3 to Cleveland.

Answer 5

Well, they can't handle the Heat...

Answer 6

Rothstein years

In 1987, after some influence from Billy Cunningham, the NBA voted to expand by adding four new teams: the Charlotte Hornets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Orlando Magic, and Miami Heat. The Heat came into the NBA for the 1988-89 season with an unproductive first year, with a roster full of young players and journeymen. Among the players on the inaugural roster were first round picks Rony Seikaly and Kevin Edwards, fellow rookies Grant Long and Sylvester Gray as well as NBA vets Rory Sparrow, Jon Sundvold, Pat Cummings, Dwayne Washington and Billy Thompson. The team started out the season by losing its first 17 games, an NBA record. It didn't help that the Heat were placed in the Midwest Division of the Western Conference. This forced them on the longest road trips in the NBA; their nearest opponent was the Houston Rockets, over 900 miles from Miami. The team ultimately finished with a league-worst 15-67 win-loss record under former Detroit Pistons assistant coach Ron Rothstein.
Original Heat logo used from 1988–1999
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Original Heat logo used from 1988–1999

The Heat picked Glen Rice from the University of Michigan in the first round of the 1989 NBA Draft and Sherman Douglas of Syracuse University in the 2nd round and the team also moved to the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference for the 1989-90 season, where they would remain for the next 15 years. However, the Heat continued to struggle and never won more than two consecutive games, en route to a 18-64 record.

The 1989-90 season saw Miami awarded with the 3rd pick overall, only to parlay via two trades (first with the Denver Nuggets and later with the Houston Rockets into getting the 9th and 12th picks, with which they selected Willie Burton of the University of Minnesota and Alec Kessler of the University of Georgia. Both picks flopped. The Heat tried to turn Burton, a college small forward, into a shooting guard without much success. Kessler was bogged by injury problems and was not physical enough to be a quality NBA power forward.

While Rice, Seikaly and Douglas all showed improvement from the previous year, Miami still only went 24-58 and remained in the Atlantic Division basement.
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Loughery years

Rothstein resigned before the 1991-92 season and the Heat picked Kevin Loughery, who had 29 years of experience in the NBA both as a coach and a player, to be their new head coach. For the 1991 NBA Draft, the team selected Steve Smith from Michigan State, who provided an agile guard to a more matured Heat team. With the help of rookie Smith, Rony Seikaly, and a more experienced Glen Rice, the Heat finished in fourth place in the Atlantic Division with a 38-44 record and made the playoffs for the first time. Playing the league-best Chicago Bulls, the Heat were swept in three games. Steve Smith made the NBA All-Rookie team and Glen Rice finished 10th in the NBA in scoring.

The 1992-93 NBA season included the additions of draft choice Harold Miner of the University of Southern California as well as trading a 1st round pick (which would turn into the #10 overall pick the following season) for Detroit Pistons forward/center John Salley. While Salley's addition was first met with optimism because of the role that he played on two championship Detroit Pistons squads, it became apparent quickly that Salley was a quality role player for a good team, but not a quality player for a mediocre team like Miami was at the time. Salley would eventually have his playing time diminish, ultimately resulting in his being taken by the Toronto Raptors in the 1995 expansion draft. As for the season itself, it started off poorly, with Smith missing time with a knee injury and Burton being lost for most of the year with a wrist injury. Upon Smith's return, Miami posted a winning record in February and March, but it wasn't enough to dig themselves out of the 13-27 hole they began in. They finished 36-46 and would not return to the playoffs.

A healthier squad fared better in 1993-94, posting the franchise's first-ever winning record at 42-40 and returning to the playoffs as the #8 seed versus the Atlanta Hawks. Atlanta rallied from a 2-1 series deficit to win the best-of-5 series. After that season, Steve Smith would be selected as a member of the 2nd Dream Team, the collection of NBA All-Stars who were selected to compete in the 1994 World Basketball Championships in Toronto as Team U.S.A.. Dream Team II, also made up of future Heat players Shaquille O'Neal, Alonzo Mourning, Dan Majerle and Tim Hardaway, would go on to win the tournament.

In 1994-95, the team overhauled their roster, trading away Seikaly, Smith, and Grant Long. In return, the Heat obtained Kevin Willis and Billy Owens.

Also, at this time came a power shift in Heat's front office. On February 13, 1995 Cunningham and Lew Schaffel were bought out by the Arison family of Carnival Cruise Lines fame, who to that point in time had been silent partners in the day-to-day operations of the franchise until the buyout. Micky Arison, son of Carnival founder Ted Arison was named Managing General Partner. He immediately fired Loughery and replaced him with Alvin Gentry on an interim basis to try and shake up the 17-29 Heat. Gentry went 15-21 for the remaining 36 games of the season for a 32-50 record overall, 10 games off the previous year's mark.
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Riley years

In the 1995 offseason, the Heat hired Pat Riley from the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers and the 1990s New York Knicks to be their new president and coach. Riley dropped a bombshell shortly before the season began, sending Glen Rice and Matt Geiger (among others) to the Hornets in exchange for All-Star center Alonzo Mourning. In a flurry of midseason deals, Riley acquired several players including Tim Hardaway, Chris Gatling and Walt Williams. The Heat finished with a winning record with Mourning among the league leaders in scoring and rebounding, but lost in the playoffs in a 3-game sweep against the 72-10 Bulls. The following season, the Heat finished with a franchise-best 61-21 record with new additions, Dan Majerle, P.J. Brown, Jamal Mashburn, and Voshon Lenard. They took out Riley's former team in seven games, rallying from a 3-1 series deficit, partly due to several Knicks players leaving the bench (leading to several suspensions) during a fight that occurred between P.J. Brown and Charlie Ward after Ward was body-slammed by Brown, leading to a brawl. The Heat were however ousted from the playoffs in five games (after falling into a 3-0 series deficit) by the Bulls for the second consecutive year, this time in the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Heat celebrated their 10-year anniversary in the 1997-98 season and captured their second straight Atlantic Division title. However, in what would become a heated rivalry, the Heat lost in the first round against coach Riley's former team, the New York Knicks after Mourning would miss the deciding Game 5 via suspension after getting into a Game 4 altercation with Larry Johnson and with Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy literally hanging onto Mourning's leg in an attempt to intervene.

1998 was a lockout-shortened season. The Heat would lose to the Knicks again after Allan Houston hit a game-winning jumper in Game 5 to decide the series. The Knicks would go on to play in the 1999 NBA Finals, losing to the San Antonio Spurs

As a result of their success on the court, the Heat moved into the American Airlines Arena in 1999 with seats for over 20,500 fans. The Heat again lost in a deciding Game 7 to the Knicks by a single point.

In 2000, the Heat missed Mourning for 69 games due to a rare kidney disorder. They managed to win 50 games with help from Eddie Jones, Anthony Mason and emotional leader Tim Hardaway, but lost in the first round of the playoffs.

However, the Heat's line-up changed in 2003. Pat Riley stepped down as coach of the Heat to focus more on being team president and promoted assistant coach, Stan Van Gundy to the head coaching position. More changes occurred when the Heat drafted Dwyane Wade in the 2003 NBA Draft, and signed troubled players Lamar Odom and Rafer Alston. Odom revived his NBA career by averaging over 17 points per game. Wade brought energy to the team and broke many rookie NBA records, while being compared to other rookie superstars, Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James. The Heat found themselves in the 2004 NBA Playoffs, where they beat New Orleans 4-3, then lost to the Indiana Pacers 4-2 in the conference semifinals.
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Shaquille O'Neal

The Heat acquired superstar center Shaquille O'Neal on July 14, 2004 in an historic trade with the Los Angeles Lakers in which Miami shipped Lamar Odom, Caron Butler and Brian Grant out west. Wade and O'Neal worked well as a pair and each solidified their position as NBA elites with both averaging over 20 points per game. The season also reunited several former club members. Ron Rothstein, the Heat's inaugural head coach, became their assistant coach and both Steve Smith and Alonzo Mourning rejoined the team as role players. The Heat had their second best record in franchise history: 59-23. They were seeded first in the playoffs, and swept through the first two rounds by winning eight consecutive games against New Jersey and Washington and advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals against defending champion Detroit. The teams split the first four games, before Miami pushed the Pistons to the brink of elimation with an easy 92-78 victory in Game 5 - but in the process lost Dwyane Wade to a strained rib muscle suffered on an attempted crossover. Without Wade, the Heat were routed, 91-66, in Game 6 in Detroit, setting up a deciding Game 7 in Miami. In that game, Wade returned, and the Heat held a 6-point lead with 7 minutes remaining before a series of missed shots and turnovers down the stretch cost the Heat the game and the series to the Detroit Pistons, 4-3.

After an 11-10 start and with O'Neal hurt, Riley became coach of the Heat for the second time on December 12, 2005, after Van Gundy stepped down due to personal and family reasons. The team went on to win its first three games under Riley until losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cleveland loss encouraged the Heat to finish up the month of December strong. They concluded the month with 4 wins and 2 losses. The Heat though were still criticized, however, for being unable to to beat the top caliber teams of the NBA. This criticism though would just grow more and more on the Heat come the month of January. Although they finished the month of January with 10 wins and 5 losses, they still could not beat the top tier teams. They suffered a loss to Detroit in late January, and in February were blown out by Phoenix twice and lost to the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs. The months of February and March were very successful for the Heat, including a stretch of 15 wins in 16 games which began with a crucial victory over the Eastern Conference powerhouse Detroit Pistons. Dwayne Wade was electric and Shaquille O'Neal stepped up his game up in a tremendous fashion, helping the Heat resurge and finish with a 52-30 record, earning the second seed in the Eastern Conference.
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2006 playoffs

Earning the second seed in the 2006 playoffs, the Miami Heat drew the seventh seed Chicago Bulls as their first round opponent. The Heat won the first two games of the series at home, despite Udonis Haslem being ejected in the first game and suspended in the second for throwing his mouthpiece in the area of the referee. Also, Alonzo Mourning did not play until the third game of the playoffs due to a hurt calf and Derek Anderson missed the first two games with the flu. The team lost both games three and four in Chicago, but bounced back to win game five at home. After easily winning game six in Chicago, the Heat eliminated the Bulls from the playoffs and went on to face the New Jersey Nets in the second round. The Heat lost Game 1 at home, but then swept the Nets out of the playoffs for the second year in a row taking Game 5 at home 106-105 when Dwayne Wade stole the Nets final inbounds pass. The Heat subsequently advanced to their second Eastern Conference Finals in as many years. The Heat opened up the 2006 Eastern Conference Finals in Detroit on Tuesday, May 23 by facing the Detroit Pistons in a rematch of last year's Eastern Conference Finals, in which the top seeded Heat lost Game 7 in a heartbreaker. This year the Pistons were top seeded and it was time for the Heat to answer back. They immediately stole home court advantage by winning the all important Game 1, barely holding on for 91-86 win. Miami lost the second game 92-88 after trailing by eighteen at one point, but never surrendered home court advantage. They went home and took care of buisness and easily won both Game 3 (98-83) and a decisive Game 4 (89-78) at home. The Detroit Pistons then won Game 5 in The Palace of Auburn Hills 91-78 but their poor road record in the 2006 playoffs would continue as the Heat easily won game 6 (95-78) in Miami. By defeating the Pistons, the Heat advance to their first NBA Finals in franchise history, where they will meet the Dallas Mavericks, who are also making their first NBA finals apperance. Both the Heat and Mavericks have had some heartbreaking playoff failures in recent years where they had solid regular seasons but would fall short of their championship goals in the playoffs. In Game 1 of the NBA Finals, the Heat lost to the Mavericks 90-80.