Mr. Big Shot lives up to his name

They don't call him Mr. Big Shot for nothing, although you'd be excused for wondering how he ever even got that nickname if all you were judging him on was his body of work over the first three games of this series and the first three quarters of Game 4.
In fact, Chauncey Billups was such a borderline liability through the first 36 minutes of Game 4, he began the fourth quarter on the bench and stayed there past the midpoint of the period. At that point, it seemed dicey whether he'd even get back into the game.
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But Billups finally peeled his warm-ups off and checked back in with 4:50 remaining, and his 3-pointer with 2:55 left ended up being the biggest shot of the game, extending a seven-point lead to 10 and giving the Pistons the breathing room that had been eluding them all night as they defeated the Boston Celtics 94-75 Monday night to even the Eastern Conference finals at two games apiece.
The final score, with its 19-point margin, was not indicative of how close this game was for the first 46 minutes. The Pistons never trailed, but they also couldn't find a way to put away a Celtics team that stayed within striking distance by going to the free-throw line 39 times and making 32 of them.
Boston shot a shade below 32 percent from the field, went 1-for-9 on 3-pointers and didn't get any sustained offense from its big three as Paul Pierce shot 3-for-14, Kevin Garnett was 6-for-16 and Ray Allen was 2-for-8 and missed two big free throws with 2:04 remaining when Boston had a chance to cut its deficit to eight.
"Well, we do bounce back," said Pistons coach Flip Saunders, whose team improved to 5-0 following losses this postseason. "No one likes it, but it's the way the personality of our team is, and what we've got to do now is go out and win two games in a row. Usually whoever wins two in a row takes control of a series, and neither us nor Boston has been able to win two, so hopefully we'll go in there Wednesday and do what we need to do."
Partly because of foul trouble, partly because of the way some of his starters were playing, Saunders went with an unusual lineup through the middle four minutes of the fourth quarter, using Rodney Stuckey, Lindsey Hunter and Richard Hamilton in a three-guard alignment along with Antonio McDyess (who was huge with 21 points and 16 rebounds) and Jason Maxiell (also huge with 14 points on 6-for-6 shooing and a terrific block of a dunk attempt by Garnett).
Billups remained on the bench for so long, you started to wonder not when, but whether, Saunders would put him back in. He had missed nine of 11 shots, and the crowd actually was groaning as his misses piled up.
"We were up 10, and we were going to let those guys stay out there and play with their energy unless they got it down to six, which they did. Otherwise, if they could keep it at eight or 10, we were going to let them play it through," Saunders said.
But when Pierce followed his own miss and cut the deficit to 78-73, Saunders brought back Billups along with Rasheed Wallace (who had gone to the bench with his fifth foul 1:43 into the fourth quarter) and Tayshaun Prince.
An offensive foul on Hamilton gave Boston a chance to get closer, but Pierce rushed a 16-footer that missed. Garnett blocked Prince's hook shot to give the Celtics another shot, but Rajon Rondo couldn't convert a runner inside. Wallace made two from the line with 3:23 left to restore a seven-point lead, and Allen committed a turnover with an ill-advised forced pass to Garnett.
That's when Billups came down and knocked down the biggest shot of the night, the ball looking good from the moment it left his hand before swishing straight through to make it 85-75 with 2:55 remaining.
"For me, I was looking to get back in there and make plays for the team," Billups said. "Me, my confidence is always high. It's not about me making shots. I was disappointed after last game because I didn't step up and lead when the team needed me. Today I did that, still didn't hit shots, but the game was different and my presence was felt out there."
So the series is now guaranteed to be back here on Friday night, when one of the teams will be playing to keep its postseason alive. Each team has now proven it can win on the other's home court, and both have shown that whichever team comes out of the gate with the most aggression -- and is able to sustain it -- is going to be the victor.
Celtics coach Doc Rivers said the Pistons' aggression was most noticeable through their use of the no-layup rule, which helped send the Celtics to the line so many times and stretched the time of game to nearly three hours. Billups' 3-pointer took the life out of them in this one, but in reality the Celtics knew they really had no business being in this one as long as they were. Aside from James Posey, no one on the Boston roster played even reasonably well.
If that's the case again Wednesday night in Boston, the Celtics aren't going to be able to defeat an opponent whose experience and confidence is light years ahead of theirs.
That experience and that confidence was what allowed Billups to pull the trigger on that 3-pointer when probably 95 percent of the people in the arena would have preferred he let someone else shoot.
But the ball dropped through, and Mr. Big Shot -- despite his sore hamstring and his sorry shooting percentage (35 percent) in this series -- had lived up to his nickname.