King Kaufman's Sports Daily

The only guys the Pistons can't stop are Shaq and Wade. In other words: They're in big trouble. Plus: Sound is the next frontier in TV sports.

Read more: Sports, NBA, Basketball, King Kaufman, NBA playoffs, Sports Daily

May 30, 2006 | Miami's 89-78 win over Detroit in Game 4 Monday wasn't just one of those nights for the Pistons. It wasn't just the shots not falling, the bounces not going their way. It was a full-on butt kicking.

And leery as I am of typing these words about any NBA team in the ever-shifting landscape of a late-round playoff series, even a team that's down 3-1, Detroit is in deep trouble.

The good news for the Pistons is that there are only two Heat players they can't figure out how to stop. The bad news is that those two are Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade, the two guys you have to stop if you're going to beat the Heat.

O'Neal is playing with the energy of his high-and-tight days, exposing Ben Wallace's highly overrated ability to guard him one-on-one, though to be fair Wallace has been a victim of the wheel of fortune in the officials' dressing room having apparently landed on "Look at Shaq = foul on you."

If some of the fouls Ben Wallace has been whistled for while guarding O'Neal had been called on Rasheed Wallace, Rasheed's head would have exploded. I don't mean that as a figure of speech.

In the second quarter Shaq gave every sports highlight show in this fair land its opening clip by blocking a shot, controlling the loose ball, dribbling the length of the floor, scoring on a layup and going back up court with his old signature Godzilla step.

"That was lovely," Wade said at halftime. "I haven't seen that since Orlando, when he was young."

Then he added, "And slim."

Wade is young and slim now, and the Pistons haven't been able to bottle him up for long. There was a good stretch Monday, including the entire third quarter, when the Pistons did a nice job of forcing Miami's offense to look elsewhere, and the Pistons got back into the game before Wade emphatically took over again.

With Miami ahead 62-61 a minute into the fourth quarter, he knifed into the lane, leapt around and almost over Antonio McDyess, who was trying to draw a charge but ended up lunging after the sailing Wade and bumping him for a blocking foul. Wade, falling, flipped the ball wildly into the air -- and right through the hoop.

That'll be on his next shoe commercial. He made the free throw for 65-61.

Next page: Pistons whine publicly. Plus: Let's hear the game. Sound is the next frontier in TV sports