i agree with micro on this... it's clear with this team (and maybe it's just true of the game in general) that offense and defense work symbiotically and i for one wouldn't feel comfortable asserting priority to one or the other. on the one hand, i can see that stops create run-outs and easier plays on offense that help the players not only get easy baskets but also get a scoring rhythm going. but on the other hand, i can also see that executing the offense so as to get easy shots or trips to the foul line help prevent easy run outs by the other team, allow the defense to set up, etc..

that's why i think aggressiveness (or intensity, if you prefer) is the key term that ought to be driving the play on both ends. and in fact, if it's there on one end, it is more likely to be there (or to come soon enough on the other). i think that's one thing that flip said early in the season that did make sense to me: challenging his players to be as intense on offense as they always had been on defense. and offensive intensity, in my opinion, doesn't necessarily mean always going to the bucket, though it certainly includes that when the opening is there; it also means cutting hard, making crisp accurate passes, being mentally aware of situation, clock, and where everyone is on the floor, setting firm picks, getting your legs under you and squaring up on your jump shots -- wherever they are from, and following shots (if that's your job).

i won't dismiss a certain lebron favoritism on the part of the officials, but i do believe that such star-favoritism will be outweighed in an officials mind by the intensity and aggressiveness of a team on both ends of the floor. indeed, though it border on sacrilege here to say so, i think lebron tends to get the calls when he ups his offensive intensity (which in his case means not settling for two dribbles and a fade away jumper).

anyway, intensity of course, being a psychological quality, can be notoriously elusive and fleeting, especially when one is playing an opponent against which one has experienced seemingly easy success. the ideal would be for our guys to have the psychological resources to bring intensity every game for the whole game. that would be cool. it would also make them an exception to the vast majority of the human beings i have known, whether athletes or not. moreoever, i think intensity, like any positive quality, needs to exist in a balance with its counterpart: coolness, for lack of a better word. they aren't opposite, they actually go together. sometimes, maybe the pistons let their coolness (which seems to come naturally to at least four of the starting five -- excepting ben, maybe) veer into complacency. this is a lot of rambling just to say i feel like i can really sympathize with the difficulty of maintaining intensity and coolness in a productive tension. and that clearly, they need tonight to ratchet up their intensity -- on BOTH ends of the court -- without letting it become "pressing".