Pistons show Brown love, then hold off Knicks

Hamilton hugs Brown, then goes off for 40 points.
By Dave Hogg

Now the Detroit Pistons can get back to just playing basketball.
After Friday's 106-98 victory over Larry Brown, err, the New York Knicks, the Pistons are looking forward to a quiet visit to Chicago.

"I"m so happy this game is over,” said Chauncey Billups, who finished with 11 points and 11 assists.

Brown gets warm welcome from players, lukewarm from fans
Isiah Thomas has his name and number honored alongside court.
By Dave Hogg

As always, Brown walked onto the court a few moments before the introductions, and was greeted by a mixture of cheers and boos. The boos grew louder when he was introduced by Mason, but the mood changed when Rasheed Wallace started a parade.

Wallace went over to the New York bench to hug the coach that helped the Pistons to two Finals appearances and an NBA title in 2004.


Flip 1, Larry 0

Pistons top Knicks, former coach the respectful way
By Krista Latham

Sure, they respect Larry Brown. Most players still call him a friend. All of the starters greeted him with a hug, and even the fans, for the most part, showed their appreciation with applause.

But after playing nice with the New York Knicks -- Brown's new team -- for the first half Friday night, the Pistons made their point loud and clear. They held the Knicks to a turn-your-head-away-and-don't-watch 3-for-17 shooting performance in the third quarter and took over what had been a tie game.

Despite the boos, he got hugs he wanted
By Mitch Albom

He chose pinstripes, a New York thing, with a stiff white collar and a charcoal tie, and the moment he came onto the floor there were boos and photographers and more boos and more photographers. He strode to center court like a presidential debater and shook a firm hand with Flip Saunders, the man who replaced him, then retreated to his new bench on the visitors' side.

And when his name was called during introductions -- "Welcome back to the Palace ... Larry Brown" -- the boos really rained down and only Isiah Thomas stood beside him, his arm around the old coach's shoulder, smiling impishly, whispering something in his ear.

Zeke floored by new honor
By Krista Latham

In many ways, Friday night's Pistons game was less about the basketball and more about the basketball legend who spent his glory days in Detroit and now works in New York.

Not Larry Brown. His boss, Knicks president Isiah Thomas.

The Pistons honored Thomas, the point guard that led the Bad Boys to back-to-back titles, at halftime by unveiling a portion of the floor where his name and No. 11 are now embossed.


Flip bumps into LB at restaurant
by Dana Gauruder

On the way to The Palace, Flip Saunders had a strange thought.
"Let Larry coach 'em both," Saunders said with a smile.

It's not that Saunders didn't feel like coaching his team Friday night. He simply got caught in the massive traffi c jam on I-75 heading to the arena. His usual 20-minute drive from his Birmingham condo took nearly two hours. He didn't arrive until an hour before tipoff.

Though Saunders had no time to visit Brown after he finally arrived, the coaches had a chance encounter Thursday night. Saunders was having dinner with assistant coach Ron Harper at Cameron's Steakhouse in Birmingham when he spotted Brown in the restaurant. Saunders asked Brown about his family and his health but little about the upcoming game.

The book on LB is not yet closed
by Keith Langlois

The boo-birds had the more urgent agenda. So right after introduction of the New York Knicks' starters, those with an ax to grind took up the cause.

But they were soon overcome, if not overwhelmed, by the cheers of those who'd rather let the Larry Brown saga go, and others uncertain the 2004 title would be theirs without him, and still more who were aware ESPN was piping this game to the nation and didn't want to provide another reason to dump on Detroit.


Brown gets cheers, jeers
By A. Sherrod Blakely

It's always been like this for Larry Brown.
Some people love him.
Others don't.

That was certainly indicative of the cheers and jeers the former Pistons coach received from the fans in his first return to The Palace as the New York Knicks head coach on Friday.

Play was uneven, but Pistons show Brown what he's missing
By Danny Knobler

Believe it or not, it wasn't all about Larry. And not every reaction was mixed.

On the night former coach Larry Brown returned (and heard more boos than cheers), the Detroit Pistons turned an uneven performance into a fan-pleasing 106-98 Friday night win over Brown's New York Knicks.

It wasn't a perfect night for the Pistons, not even close, but it was a win, and at least the emotions and the heavy focus of Brown's return to The Palace are finally in the rear-view mirror.


Cheers, boos rock The Palace
By David Mayo

The mad scientist struck a pose as familiar to the Pistons as it is part of their past, fingertips lightly scratching his forehead, while he pondered the question.

Both sides have moved forward despite the irresistable temptation to look back.
Yet their interpretation of history continues to differ greatly.

"Did it work out for me? No, it didn't work out for me," Larry Brown said, hours before his most dreaded road game of the season. "Yeah, I'm doing what I love to do. But I felt like this was my last stop."


By design, Dumars a quiet success
By Adrian Wojnarowski

The visionary for this Detroit Pistons championship renaissance stays in the shadows, satisfied with letting everyone else take the bows for a run that has never sufficiently saluted his genius. Joe Dumars runs a franchise upstairs, the way that he played downstairs. So unassuming, so good, sometimes it's easy to mistake his greatness for good fortune.

The Pistons could stand losing Larry Brown, but never Dumars. Once the glue of a Pistons championship glory, always.

"It's incredible what Joe has done in Detroit," Nets president Rod Thorn says. "And he's always going to do it in a low-key manner, never wanting to draw any attention to himself."


Mixed Feelings, Clear Result
By Howard Beck

If two years is enough to establish N.B.A. residency, then two and a half hours was easily enough for Larry Brown to become horribly homesick Friday night.

Skipping across the court, making the right passes and most of the big baskets, were Richard Hamilton, Chauncey Billups and a lot of other guys whom Brown not long ago publicly expressed his love for. The Detroit Pistons are no longer the object of Brown's affection, but they still model the "right way" philosophy that Brown, now the Knicks' coach, holds dear, and they showed it in a 106-98 victory.


Visit is no good for Brown's health
By Mitch Lawrence


The sad part came when Brown talked an hour and a half before tipoff about his sense of "dread."

There will be arguments forever around here about just how much he meant to the 2004 Pistons. But there is no denying that he did guide them to a championship. It was his crowning achievement as an NBA coach, in a distinguished Hall of Fame career. It gave him the rarest daily double in basketball circles: the only coach to win an NCAA title and also pose with the Larry O'Brien Trophy.

Larry shown love and loss
Cheered as Knicks fall in Detroit
By Frank Isola

The old coach was booed, cheered and in a moving display of class and affection, the same Detroit Pistons' starting five that gave Larry Brown an NBA championship walked over to the Knicks' bench and hugged him.

"It was pretty emotional for him," said Rasheed Wallace, who was the first to embrace Brown before tipoff. "He's a pretty emotional cat. So I think it was something that he enjoyed. I was just paying my respects."



By Marc Berman

Larry Brown emerged from the tunnel leading to the court 20 minutes before tip-off, flanked by security, his assistants and a gaggle of cameras befitting a prime minister.

Cheers mixed evenly with boos filled the sold-out Palace. Everyone inside the arena was stamding, watching the bespectacled 65-year-old Knicks coach head to the visiting bench for the first time in three years.

But during introductions, the boos significantly drowned out the cheers as expected.

Larry Gets Isaiah Support
By Marc Berman


Isiah Thomas stood by Larry Brown on the bench last night for moral support during player introductions, his arm around his coach as most of the Palace fans booed him.

"He said he's going to stand next to me," Brown said beforehand. "I told him you have to be silly."

Ironically, Thomas was then in a different position, at halfcourt at halftime, honored in a loving ceremony in which his jersey number "11" and name "Thomas" was embedded onto the red sidelines.


Knicks give Brown a reason to be proud
By David Walstein

It isn't often that Larry Brown is cheerful or upbeat after a loss, but last night amid a swirl of emotions, memories and reunions, even he couldn't complain.

On a night in which he was booed by his old fans, hugged by his old players and monitored at every turn, he was also rewarded with some inspired play from a new group of undermanned neophytes.

The Knicks, on the verge of being swept away by the defending Eastern Conference champions (and the best team in the NBA so far) on their home court, almost overcame a 19-point fourth-quarter deficit while making it a game at the end.


No happy return for Brown
Knicks give good effort, but in the end, Pistons have too much
By Greg Logan

Somewhere in The Palace of Auburn Hills, Pistons owner Bill Davidson was laughing Friday night as his former coach, Larry Brown, suffered through an ignominious return to the site of his greatest victories.

The team that gave him his only professional title two years ago hit the Knicks with a crushing 27-6 second-half run and held on for a 106-98 victory in the Pistons' "unwelcome home" party for Brown.