51? 51 points, are you kidding me? A few days ago I didn't think the Pacers could beat a high school team by 51. Granted the Bulls aren't the cream of the NBA crop but still, beating another professional team by 51 points (during what I am now calling a drought, not a slump) is unheard of. It is the biggest margin of victory in a NBA game this year. And almost more impressive it was done mostly by the bench, as each starter only played between one and two quarters. So how did this happen, and more importantly, what does it mean? Is this all Tim Haraway's doing? Will the Pacers get two win for their effort? Okay probably not, but it may be the final shove to get them back on track for one last run this season. Tonight the Pacers won again against a playoff team from "dominant" Western Conference, even though they were basically out played for most of the game. The Pacers won the hustle points as they got every loose ball and they played extraordinary defense. Eric Strickland stuck to Stephon Marbury like white on rice, in what possibly was the best defensive effort Marbury has ever faced (he scored only 10 points). Ron Artest finally showed us why he IS worth having on the team as he basically set the tempo on both ends of the court. The Pacers are beginning to look like the team that was once 33-13 (seems like along time ago doesn't it) the way they have played defense and have played unselfishly on offense. They are getting healthy, with the exception of Reggie who is still playing injured, and Tinsley who is having family problems; and seem to be getting a new spark of the bench from Tim Hardaway. Yes, there is finally some optimism for the Pacers, and isn't ironic the on the night they begin to look like their former selves, they clinch a playoff berth? Is it an omen, I hope so. Weekly Predictions: The Pacers are hot, this may be fun again! Last Week:2-2 Season Total:17-15 VS. Kings: This will show us what the Pacers are really made of. A win would be huge for both teams but the Pacers are at home where they seem to thrive. Pacers by 2. @ Cavs: Pacers don't "thrive" as much on the road, but the Cavs have basically mailed in the season and are looking for losses ? hey you would be too if it meant a chance at Lebron. Pacers by 1300(okay not really but you get the idea) @ Pistons: If the Pacers win the two aforementioned games this game will be the biggest to this point in the season. I'm sticking with Pacers even if it is on the road. Pacers by 1 (a Reggie Miller three, hopefully)

Perry A. Farrell of the Detroit Free Press reports: The Detroit Pistons are going to the playoffs.

Last night, despite being down double digits, The Detroit Pistons came back and forced overtime, where Chauncey Billups nailed the game winning three-pointer with .2 left to lock up the 102-99 victory and a playoff spot.

The Pistons improved the best record in the Eastern conference to 45-25 and are now 6-0 in overtime.

"The goal is always to make the playoffs, so this is an important night for us," coach Rick Carlisle said.

Earlier this season, it was thought that Zeljko Rebraca's career might be over. However, the Pistons center said on monday that he is planning on being ready for the playoffs.

"I need to play four or five games before the playoffs," Rebraca said. "I will be ready for the playoffs.

"I'm starting with a little bit of running and shooting and some drills with the ball. (I'm going) a little bit slow because I haven't done anything for almost three months. I want to start practicing with the team and get in the lineup if everything's good."

Marc Spears turns in a piece about Chauncey Billups and his home neighborhood of Park Hill.  Everyone in Colorado is a Billups fan.

Marc Spears turns in a piece about Chauncey Billups and his home neighborhood of Park Hill.  Everyone in Colorado is a Billups fan.

Let the signing begin.  The season isn't even over yet and the Detroit Pistons are already making personnel decisions, the team giving Cliff Robinson a two-year, $10 million contract extension Chris McCosky of the Detroit News is reporting.

The Pistons decided that it was better to secure the services of the 36 year old who acts as a key component to the team's workings now rather than risk being outbid in the offseason.  Making $8.42 this season, Robinson is set to earn $4.74 million next season and $5.28 million in 2004-05. The team will then hold an option for a third season.

"We look at Cliff Robinson as a valuable asset to our team, and we didn't want to put ourselves in a position where we could lose him," said John Hammond, vice president of basketball for the Pistons. "Getting the agreement done now is beneficial both to Cliff and to the organization."

"Cliff's legacy in this league, I believe, will be as a true winning player," Pistons Coach Rick Carlisle said. "He has never won fewer than 44 games in a season, and he has never missed the playoffs in his 14 seasons. This sends a clear message that contributions to winning are going to be rewarded by the Detroit Pistons."

"Of all the great moves Joe (Dumars) has been able to make here, trading for Cliff Robinson has been one of the most important," Carlisle said. "He just enhances our situation so many ways."

Robinson came to the Pistons as a luxury tax sacrafice of the Phoenix Suns and immediately made an impact.  To say that the team acquired him cheaply is an understatement, Detroit giving up just Jud Buechler and John Wallace - both of whom are no longer in the league - to get the job done.

"I could have played it out, waited and gone into the summer, but I am really excited about the direction this team is going. I weighed all my options, but in the end it just didn't make any sense to go anyplace else. We have started something here, and I want to be part of it when we finish it."

Next up for the Pistons will be the resigning of guards Richard Hamilton and Jon Barry, both expected to be mere formalities.  The signing of the trio will eliminate any cap space the team may have had.

"Any cap space we would have had would have been created if we chose not to re-sign Cliff and Rip," Hammond said. "But you would be talking about losing a huge part of our team. Obviously we want to re-sign Rip. We want him here and we want him here long-term and we plan on doing so. That will take up our cap space, but no one in this organization is interested in us not re-signing him."

McCosky mentions that Detroit now finds themselves in a unique situation that many teams would love to be in themselves.  Not only will they have their core secured, but the team are in no threat to exceed the luxury tax threshold and will have two, potentially three, draft picks this summer.  This means the team will have plenty of flexability to make deals this summer should the right scenario arise.

"We had flexibility to improve our team last summer, and we will have flexibility to do it again this summer," Hammond said.

Last year I made the mistake of thinking that the Eastern Conference wasn't as bad as other people believed. I wasn't about to put that opinion out there at the start of this season, but I also pledged not to write off the good ol' East too early. I thought: Let's give those New Jersey Nets, those Detroit Pistons and those Indiana Pacers some time to jell. It was a season, after all, in which the three-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers appeared ready to implode, paving the way, perhaps, for a beast from the East to rise.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it appears time to write off the East. I still believe the Nets are the best team in the conference, and while there was a time when I believed they might be the third best team in the NBA behind the Lakers and Sacramento, I don't think that's the case anymore. I put New Jersey at No. 7 or 8 in the league, just ahead of the Pacers and a couple of spots in front of the Pistons. In fact, while everyone has to appreciate what Detroit gets out of its talent, I now wonder if the Pistons shouldn't be ranked behind the Philadelphia 76ers, the only Eastern club that's made a real run recently and one that at least knows how to bow out valiantly in June, having won a game in the Finals against the Lakers in '01.

The wise-ass answer to the question of what makes the West so dominant is obvious: They have better teams and better players. Ha ha. The question is: Why? When the dominance of the West is brought up to NBA execs, understandably, they say something about this conference-dominance thing being cyclical. That's true to a certain extent. The Houston Rockets' improbable back-to-back conference title wins in '94 and '95 were the only championships won by a Western team from '89 through '98. But that wasn't an East-is-dominant thing as much as it was a Michael Jordan-is-dominant thing, as the six Chicago Bulls' championships followed back-to-back title wins by the Bad Boy Pistons. The competition in the West during those years (in no particular order -- the Lakers, the San Antonio Spurs, the Utah Jazz, the Phoenix Suns, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Seattle SuperSonics and, of course, the Rockets all had strong teams) was just as good as it w! as! in the East. It harkened back to the '60s when the East was ascendant basically because the Boston Celtics were next to unbeatable.

What we're seeing these days is unusual because of the depth of good teams in the West vis-a-vis the East. Something is bound to happen with the expansion team in Charlotte coming aboard in 2004 (probably the Minnesota Timberwolves joining the East). But it's interesting to note that, to a large extent, the East has only itself to blame for the current state of affairs.

Take a look at the top teams in the West and consider:

The Milwaukee Bucks drafted Dirk Nowitzki with the ninth overall pick in the '98 draft, but traded away his rights for Robert (Tractor) Traylor, who is still, basically, a tractor trailer, now rumbling along the interstate in New Orleans, while Nowitzki has become, as the ad copy might say, a marvel of German engineering.

The Orlando Magic had the draft rights to Sacramento's Chris Webber but traded them to Golden State for Penny Hardaway, a deal that, to be fair, didn't look bad at the time. When Webber came back to the East, as a Washington Bullet, he was famously unloaded to the Kings for two nice, but over-the-hill, players, Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe.

Both the New York Knicks and the Toronto Raptors traded Webber's underrated teammate, Doug Christie, and any number of Eastern teams probably could've made a deal to pry Mike Bibby from Vancouver, as canny Sacramento general manager Geoff Petrie did. Speaking of Petrie, while many GMs still couldn't find Yugoslavia and Turkey on a world map, he was drafting Peja Stojakovic and Hedo Turkoglu.

Those two picks speak to the fact that, in general, the West has shown more perspicacity than the East in selecting foreign players. The only international player of recent vintage making a true impact in the East is Zydrunas Ilgauskas, drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers at No. 20 in the '96 draft. Meanwhile, the West's list doesn't stop with Nowitzki and the mini-United Nations established in Dallas. San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich (he gave up his GM handle this season but no Spur gets drafted without Pop's approval) plucked point guard Tony Parker with the 28th pick of the '01 draft and, two years earlier, beat the East (and everyone else) to Emanuel Ginobili, snagged with the 57th pick. (Andrei Kirilenko adds to that case: the Utah Jazz got him at No. 24 in the '99 draft.)

The Trail Blazers aren't, in my opinion, a title contender -- they probably blew their best shot in '00 when they had the Lakers all but beat in the Western finals -- but Portland would certainly be the cream of the East. The theme continues. The team's best player, Rasheed Wallace, played in Washington for one season, before being traded to the Northwest in '96, while Portland's second best player, Bonzi Wells, was drafted by Detroit and then had his rights traded to the Blazers for a draft pick. (It's probably not fair to mention Scottie Pippen, who made a stop in Houston before going to Portland, but, for the record, there's another Eastern expatriate.)

The Rockets and Suns are probably a couple of years away from a title run, but shrewd rookie picks -- Yao Ming for the former, Amare Stoudemire for the latter -- have helped fuel the resurgence of both clubs.

Anyone else? Oh, yes. There is the matter of that former Eastern Conference resident Shaquille O'Neal (who came to L.A. from Orlando via free agency) and his playmate, Kobe Bryant, whose potential was apparently insufficient to satisfy the Charlotte Hornets -- they traded him to the Lakers for Vlade Divac, who is now back in the West helping the Sacramento Kings.

Look, some of this is 20-20 hindsight. Playing alongside Tim Duncan, as Parker, Ginobli and ex-Miami Heat swingman Bruce Bowen are doing, would make anyone look better. Then, too, the East has had some bad breaks, most recently the possibly career-ending injuries suffered by two centers. But with apologies to Philadelphia's Todd MacCulloch (a progressive nerve disorder) and Detroit's Zelijko Rebraca (irregular heartbeat), they are not the kind of players who make franchises. Now, Grant Hill was that type of player and, partly due to his bad ankle, the Orlando Magic have never risen the way many observers thought they would.

Speaking of the Magic Kingdom, for a long time it was the rumored destination of Duncan, who will be a free agent at the end of this season. Now? The betting is that Duncan will stay put and the Nets' Jason Kidd, the second-most coveted free agent, will flee to San Antonio. Add to this the factor of Jordan's retirement, and the East's future isn't exactly getting brighter, is it?

It was one of the best duels of the season writes Chris McCosky of the Detroit News, Pistons guard Chauncey Billups Vs the man everyone seems to be watching Gilbert Arenas.  The duo have similar body types and similar games, and when they went at eachother at the Palace the results were nothing short of entertaining.

"That was a lot of fun," said Billups. "He played (Saturday) night (an overtime loss in Milwaukee) and I was tired. So I know he was tired."

Billups finished the game with 31 points, including nine of the Pistons final 13 points and the game-winning three pointer as time expired.  Arenas scored 13 of his 28 in the fourth quarter, including the teams' final six.

"It felt good all the way," Billups said of his game-winning basket. "That was a huge win for us."

Try as they might, the Indiana Pacers can?t seem to drop out of first place in the NBA?s Eastern Conference.
This, of course, says a whole lot more about the relative strength, or lack thereof, of the East than it does about the championship aspirations of the Pacers.

Over the same stretch of the past two weeks during which the Pacers were losing six of seven games, including six in a row, the Pistons were out on the West Coast continuing to flail about as their losing streak ran up to seven. Then there were the Nets, who were having trouble beating anyone but the Knicks on their home court, dropping six of their last 10 games.

So as March began, the Pacers found themselves in the curious situation of playing their worst basketball of the season yet remaining in first place, not only in the Central Division but the entire Eastern Conference.

Indiana departed home Monday to begin its own critical stretch of games on the West Coast, beginning Tuesday night at Golden State, where the Warriors have turned from reliable patsy to possible playoff contender in the far superior West. What follows are games at the Lakers, Kings and Trail Blazers.

Indiana easily could play well in all four games and return to the heartland with another four defeats. What has become abundantly evident for Indiana is how fragile its grasp on excellence has been this season.

Reggie Miller has been a Pacer for 16 years. He knows a thing or two about the subtle difference between winning and losing.

?It?s all the little things,? Miller said. ?We?ve got to get back to executing our offense. Defensively we?re where we want to be at, holding teams to 35 to 40 percent shooting. Offensively we?re a step behind. We?ve got to get out and get some more easy baskets. Obviously, we?re stopping people, but we?re not getting a lot of fast break points. I think that was one of the combinations we had earlier this season, the combination between fast break points and our half court offense.?

Michael Jordan was the thorn in Miller?s side during Indiana?s run of excellence in the 1990s. As a Washington Wizard he is little more than a pest, but is nonetheless qualified to assess the Pacers? recent problems.

?I think they?ve lost their continuity a little bit,? Jordan said after helping the Wizards run the Pacers? losing streak to six a week ago. ?It seems to be that way. When you lose that rhythm, that connected feeling among all 12 players, it?s tough.

?Everybody goes through it over the course of a season. This is their time to go through that. They?ve got to fight themselves through it. We?ve done it, other teams have done it. This is not a perfect time to have it when you?re fighting for the division lead and possible home court advantage, but it makes the team stronger if you can fight your way through it.?

Of course, it is hard for a team to maintain continuity and ?connected feeling? among all the players when one of the players becomes such a distraction that his behavior threatens to overshadow everything anyone else on the team does.

Like it or not, that is what the Pacers face the rest of this season with Ron Artest, the NBA?s most enigmatic player.

Artest is a prime candidate for Defensive Player of the Year because he is the league?s best individual lock-up defender. The award usually goes to a shot blocker/rebounder like Ben Wallace or Dikembe Mutombo. But Artest merits consideration because he is capable of shutting down even the most athletic of big guards and small forwards, the most skilled players on the court.

But the remarkable intensity Artest brings to this unappreciated task too often has gotten the better of him this season. Celebrated outbursts of temper have resulted in suspensions, both by the league and his own coach. The fact Artest gets angrier at his own failures than the actions of others doesn?t ameliorate the negative effect his behavior has begun to have on his own team.

His teammates, of course, pay lip service to continuing to support him.

?He?s got my back and he?s still my boy,? Al Harrington said. ?That?s it.?

Except that?s not really it. Whether or not they admit it, Artest?s occasional lapses of logic have contributed to the Pacers? recent malaise.

For one thing, both his suspensions and his recent sit-down with NBA officials at league headquarters appear to have affected the very intensity that had made Artest such a feared player.

?I don?t know,? Miller said. ?You can never get into someone else?s head. But for us to be as successful as we were earlier this year, Ron was a big part of that. So by no means would we ever turn our backs on him. Hopefully there will be resolution between him and the league.

?He plays hard and sometimes he crosses the line. As a teammate you?ve got to be able to pull him back. There?s been some times when I?ve scratched my head, and other times when a lot of the things he?s done have helped us win. Sometimes you?ve got to take the good with the bad.

?He has to understand when he feels he?s crossing the line, and that?s where we?re in somewhat of a gray area.?

All of this leaves Pacers coach Isiah Thomas in a quandary. Thomas has done his best to imbue his squad with the same spirit of toughness that characterized his Pistons championship teams of 1989 and 1990.

Thomas has resisted the attempts to call the Pacers ?the new Bad Boys,? all the while doing his best to get his team to emulate the hard-nosed play that earned Detroit back-to-back titles during his best seasons.

Artest, of course, would have been a perfect ?Bad Boy.?

So if the Pacers helped to foster the ?loose cannon? image Artest carried with him, well aware that his menacing reputation often had a chilling effect on opponents, they must bear the consequences when he occasionally crosses that line to which Miller refers.

Thomas adamantly defends both Artest and his team?s approach.

Attempts to compare Artest with Portland?s mercurial Rasheed Wallace or, worse yet, former Piston Dennis Rodman, he says, are utterly inane.

?I see no analogy with Rasheed Wallace,? Thomas said. ?Two different people, two different backgrounds. All they have in common is skin color. Same with Rodman. People have said, 'Isiah and Rodman' and all this other stuff. I can tell you this, when Dennis Rodman was with me that stuff wasn?t happening. If you want to talk about Dennis Rodman, the Rodman I had wasn?t the Rodman other people got.

?Ron?s a young player in this league and he can have a really bright future. It?s not too farfetched to one day be talking about Ron Artest on the Olympic team. He has that type of talent and is that vital a player. You want to help those guys.?

Artest, of course, has to want to help himself first, and it appears he is making a sincere attempt to do so.

Meanwhile, his most recent crossing of the line kept the Pacers from making a clear break from the pack at the top of the Eastern Conference. The race at the top of the conference likely won?t be decided until the final few days of the season.

Bucks coach George Karl, whose brutal honesty usually gets him crosswise with his own players, accurately summed up the East the other night when he first asked, then answered, the question: Is there a single (Eastern) team that really scares the (heck) out of you??

His answer, of course, was, ?No.?

Since he was seated in the visitors locker room of Conseco Fieldhouse at the time, we can presume he hadn?t forgotten to consider the Pacers as a frightening team.