Cleveland beat them on the boards—49 to 41 rebounds. They beat them on the offensive boards—18- 11. They beat them on steals—11 to 3. But Cleveland did not beat them on the scoreboard. In a tough defensive battle, it was the Pistons over the Cavaliers—79- 76 in the first game in the best-of-seven NBA Eastern Final series.A few things happened in this game that may define the entire series.

First, the Pistons were solid from downtown, hitting five of 14 (35.7%). The Cavs were good for only one of 10 (10.0%). There’s a game winning stat right there.

Although the Cavaliers had 14 more shots from the field, they only converted one more than the Pistons. Cleveland was 32 of 86 (37.2%) from the court, while Detroit went 31 for 72 (43.1%).

Detroit was also dominant at power forward with Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess combining for nine of the Pistons’ 10 blocks. Wallace had 7 of those. Although Detroit could not contain center Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who scored 22 points and pulled in 13 rebounds, they were able to hold LeBron James (27.3 PPG) to 10 points and Drew Gooden (11.1 PPG) to six.

For Detroit, Richard Hamilton (19.8 PPG) came through, leading all scorers with 24 points. Hamilton also had seven assists. The assist stat is especially telling as the Pistons rang up 25 to Cleveland’s 16. James passed to Donyell Marshall in the final seconds of the game and Marshall, who was in the open, threw up a 3-pointer to tie but missed. That potential assist that wasn’t defined and ended the contest.

Detroit shut down James, played tough “D,� and hit threes while Cleveland missed all but one of their downtown shots. That was the difference. Along with some fine team ball by the Pistons.

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