The heart of a Champion truly lies in how they fight back, and the Detroit Pistons showed last night that they still have a knockout punch in their arsenal.  With their decisive 105-88 win over the Philadelphia Sixers, the Pistons put to rest any upset talk, at least until game 3 on Friday in Philly.

Thadeus Young’s  hot start and nice contributions from Lou Williams and Reggie Evans (again) off the bench, were not enough to overcome the less then stellar performances of Andre Iguodala, Samuel Dalembert, and Willie Green.  The three starters were a combined 4-23 from the field, and 18% shooting will not do much to get you a win, let alone keeping your team close.

In the end, this is what you had to expect after the Pistons got embarrassed  on their home court in game 1 of the opening round series.

In game 1 the Pistons relied more heavily on Rasheed Wallace in the post one-on-one against Dalembert, which effectively took the Pistons away from their strength, which is normally to allow Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton to create the offense.  They seemed to make the adjustment for game 2 and the Sixers could not overcome the standard great defense that the Pistons come with even on off nights.

Mo Cheeks may have a tough time getting his teams confidence back.  They are young and a loss like this could have an affect on the teams psyche, however, the team has responded well to coming back and playing well after a loss since January.  They are going to have to change up the game plan, maybe bringing Evans in to start the game and allowing Young to provide some additional spark off the bench and change the pace of the game if needed.

At this point the Sixers have to conecentrate on just keeping the game close and hope that the Pistons go back into self destruction mode at some point and take advantage, like they were able to do so well on Sunday.