Bulls

Whatever victory smells like, the Pistons smelled it in the fourth quarter Thursday night. And the Bulls? Well, they seemed to be holding their noses.

Like most everybody else in Chicago and Detroit, I was engrossed in the fourth quarter. A ball went out of bounds off the foot of Rasheed Wallace. He thought it didn't.

He got angry. He drew a technical foul. Epitomizing the Bulls' late collapse in the deciding Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, their Player of the Game was scoreless in the second half.

Despite the Pistons shooting a series-low percentage, coach Scott Skiles continued to downplay the efficiency of the zone defense the Bulls utilized for longer stretches of Game 4. Eight teams have wiped out a 3-1 deficit in an NBA playoff series and come back to win, and it even happened last year, with Phoenix upending the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round. Amare Stoudemire will be calling the Bulls dirty next.

Winning for the first time in 14 calendar days, the Bulls dismissed the Pistons' plans for a sweep with a 102-87 victory, sending the series back to Detroit on Tuesday. Everybody has proof now that the Bulls lost this seven-game series in three. Everybody is painfully aware now that this series ought to be tied and Detroit would be in danger of exploding like a used Pinto.

Detroit's Chauncey Billups had his own local cheering section. New Northern Illinois basketball coach Ricardo Patton and one of his assistants attended the game because of their personal rooting interest in Billups. With the Bulls perilously down 3-0 in their Eastern Conference semifinal series with the Detroit Pistons, you say you want a revolution?

They call it HPTFZ here. It's the Detroit Pistons' secret weapon that has turned the Bulls' graceful, flowing offense into a Dan Ryan stop-and-go mess. I wish you rats would wait at least 48 more hours before jumping ship.

Andres Nocioni looked more hobbled than harried in a Game 2 performance that at least didn't rival the ineptitude from the impostor who invaded his uniform in Game 1.