Defense wins championships.
Never has such a statement been so true than when the Detroit Pistons won the NBA championship in 2004. In a 4-1 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals, Detroit gave up only 90.8 PPG on average in the five games played.
In the 2003-2004 regular season, the Pistons were ranked as the second best defensive team in the league, giving up just 84.3 PPG, while holding opponents to an average of 41.3 percent from the field.
The 2007-2008 season marked the last time that Detroit was among the Eastern Conference's top four teams. They made the playoffs that year as the second seed, losing to the eventual champion Boston Celtics in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals.
After that year, the Pistons traded star player Chauncey Billups, as well as Antonio McDyess, in a trade with Denver for Allen Iverson. Detroit signed two additional players in Will Bynum and Kwame Brown.
The result? An eighth seed in the 2008-2009 campaign, and a first-round battering at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
This last season (2009-2010), they did even worse.
Detroit fa ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NBA
Article written by Naim Kalaji
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