Thanks Aurora! I was thinking of all of you too! The experience was WAYYYYYY to much to process, let alone write about coherently. So I'll just let the fragments spill out as they will.

When I first got a glimpse of the Palace as I was driving up I-75, I got so excited I almost swerved into some swanky new car in the lane next to me loaded with wine-and-cheesers. Excruciatingly slow cloverleaf exit onto whatever road feeds the entrance to the parking lot. I arrived around 7. Remembering Armygirl's advice to park far from the Palace itself; I weave my way through tailgaters dressed in blue and red and white and then somehow have the presence of mind to park directly under the "3G" signpost, cause I knew I'd otherwise never register where I'd left the car. Walking up to the building itself, I'm moved to call my father, who first go me into hoops as a young boy when he'd take me to see the three games a year the Bucks used to play in Madison, Wisconsin -- back in the days of Oscar Robertson and Lew Alcindor. Saw Alcindor and Chamberlain go at it once. Now I'd see Ben and Shaq go at it, some 30 odd years later. The carnaval atmosphere is feeding me: loud music, people drinking beer and eating outside, tents set up where we can pick up Men at Work signs and make up other signs. One couple I walk by stands holding a very large two part poster: 1) It ain't over til Aretha Franklin Sings; 2) huge black and white photo of Aretha. I don't know what to do first. I smoke a cigarette (my 7000th of the day -- normally I smoke 5, maybe 8 a day), but don't even notice. I'm momentarily resentful of the rich looking yuppies I see looking red-faced, glistening, and over-moussed. But I blow that out on a lungful of smoke. They're just here like me. Whatever. Walk into the Palace. Store on my left. Uh oh! The store. Like a moth to a flame, I am sucked in, stunned by the amount of money gravitating around this event, and wanting to do my share: I pick myself up a Sheed road jersey, a traditional blue Detroit Pistons t-shirt, as well as a kids Sheed jersey for Professorspawn and a nice Hamilton t-shirt for the boy. Then it's sort of time. But i'm not really ready yet. I don't want to miss anything. So i mill about in the atrium for a few more minutes just soaking everything up. I don the Sheed jersey over my PistonsForum shirt (with misgivings Roscoe -- sorry!, but I just felt the need for Sheed overpower me). Finally, going in - security check, I'm breathless, i want to tell even the guy wanding me -- THIS IS MY FIRST GAME!! (I'm guessing it showed). Lady scans my ticket (cool -- I get to keep the ticket, who knew!) and I bid her an overly cheerful good evening. I go up the stairs and start wandering around, only half looking for signs for my section. Beer. Good. A depressant right now would be good. I get a pint of Killian's and then spot my kinsmen -- the fellow smokers -- out on a little terrace milling in a haze. More good. I step out with my commodities in a white plastic bag in one hand, binoculars and disposable digi-cam slung over my shoulder, beer in the other, and a cigarette in the other. A guy bums a smoke. His ticket is laminated on a string around his neck. I'm jealous. I want that. I call my friends to see where they're at. They've just parked. I tell them I'm having a beer. We hang up. A moment later they call back. The cell phone ring startles me so I drop my bag of goodies, my binoculars, and my cigarette. The guys selling beer on the terrace shake their heads in dismay. I smile at them sheepishly, feeling like some kind of nerdy virgin on prom night. My friend says: "did you say you had beer?" (thinking i'm tailgating). I start drinking the beer really fast, then remember I can bring it back in with me (and that it's only the cigarette I can't bring in). I start smoking the cigarette really fast. Put it out. Gather my crap off the ground, and go back into the Palace where I locate my stairs. A little sign tells me that I'm entering the "noise factory and that ear plugs may be recommended" or something like that. I like that sign. The usher points out my row. I climb. I climb some more. 3 rows from the top, just about right behind the basket where Tay would posterize Zo and Ben would spalding Shaq. I'm surprised by how close the floor still seems, and how beautifully clean the lines and colors of the lane are. Find my seat. THUNDERSTICKS! woooooo hooooo! Hands shaking, I fumble with the weird little inflation thing (which isn't really weird at all: every non-automatically inflatable device should be as simple as a Thunderstick). Blow them up. Start pounding them. Lots of empty seats still. I stand up and practice: "deeeeeee-troit bas-ket-ball!!!!!!" and pound my sticks furiously. This is very good.

heat come out to warm-up. i look through the binocs. who cares about the Heat. Then the Pistons are about to come out, the place still only seems maybe 2/3 full to me, but the noise starts up. the noise. the NOISE (only later I realized that NOISE was nothing compared with the NOISE. warm-ups. realization: they actually exist. the pistons I mean. 3 dimensional, flesh and blood human beings, playing a game i've played all my life. just like me. and, of course, nothing like me at all (mostly black and all big and very rich and very very good). but they are real. i like that. i like that they seem to be having fun in warm ups. Sheed hits a bunch of shots from behind the arc like he was casually tossing a wad of paper into a trash can. net. net. net. net. (turns out not to be a sign of things to come). starting line ups: the spectacle begins. flames shooting out from some kind of flame belching tower erected in front of the hoops, mason bellowing, total insanity, players come out before they're announced or after, fans screaming continuously, and the flames punctuating the chaos, reaching 30 feet in the air. i reallllllly like the flame thingy. oh yeah, friends showed up, thanks a lot, this is incredible, wow, whatever.

two things i never understood, i mean with my whole self, with my skin and bones and guts and blood, until last night: 1) the agony and frustration some of you have expressed in recent weeks here on the forum; 2) the meaning of home court advantage. i have no point of comparison having never been to a game, but it seemed really loud, and really continuously loud. speaking for my section, at least, there was no defensive possession unaccompanied by the chant DE-FENSE followed by two pounds of the thundersticks. And there was no offensive possession unaccompanied by the chant "LET'S GO PISTONS" -- doo. doo. doo-doo-doo! on the thundersticks. Not a single possession either way. And I can feel, really tangible, it's quite amazing, the circuit conducting energy from the fans to the players and back. If we slacked for even half a minute, I could feel the players slump a little bit. I felt responsible for the team's energy. accordingly, i pounded the thundersticks non-stop for 2 1/2 hours, yelled almost continuously, and was standing for probably 80 % of the game (i figured if i blocked the view of anybody behind me then they didn't deserve to see cause they should've been standing). a drug. the whole thing was like a drug, but way better. henry miller writes of getting drunk on pure water. this joy. that's what it was. and definitely wanted more. i could give my life to this i felt in the midst of it (Hence my newfound visceral understanding of the agony and frustration of some of y'all on the forum -- and my apologies if I've sounded preachy or judgemental in response. I don't know if I'll feel that frustration in the same way, but rest assured, i get it now. i really get it). and the whole operation geared to keeping us making noise: make noise and we'll throw you some little blue bundle of something (I don't know what it is but I scream even louder, jumping up and down cause i want it -- sadly, the throwers of the blue bundles didn't have the arms to reach the ceiling where i was sitting); make noise cause miami can't hear you; make noise so that the little sledgehammer on the loud meter will finally, finally, swing from "louder" to "loudest". I like that. I like how everything in the place conspires to generate energy, energy manifested as noise. and all so that the five guys out on the floor, the five real human beings on the floor, playing this game, will feel a surge of something and be able to keep trying harder, beyond the limits of what they think possible. and this brings me to the game (most of which y'all have covered wonderfully).

superb energy throughout the game, by everyone who stepped on the floor. even the miami runs weren't caused by a relaxation of that energy. our guys were frickin' all over the place on defense. it was incredible.

tayshaun: obviously a beast, and the three different looks of him, rip, and lindsey on wade seemed to me to really throw wade, who looked pretty lost (except for about 3 minutes in the fourth where it seemed that simply be decree he shifted into another gear -- but that turned out to be an illusion, or at least, temporary).

sheed, as someone said, did a lot of things well that weren't necessarily directly linked to offensive production. he makes a lot of rebounds possible, even when he doesn't pull the board himself. and his tomahawk slam was awe inspiring. those some long arms the dude has -- generate some pretty serious force when they come down.

liked that they pushed the ball up the floor more, even if it resulted in some turnovers or missed shots (that might also have been fouls that weren't called); and liked that they seemed to remember to move the ball in their half court sets, and that they remembered for longer than four minutes at a time.

of course, there were lots of little things and maybe some big ones that could have been better, and hopefully will be on friday, but they really pale in comparison with the feeling -- the vibe -- that they had emerged from sort of spell cast on them by an evil Heat-loving wizard. they were setting picks, chasing loose balls, boxing out, rotating, manning up, running the floor, staying with nearly every possession until the last possible second. the statistical odds may still favor the heat, and the heat may win the thing for all i know, but i just can't believe that they weren't rocked a little bit by the sheer intensity of what the team brought last night, and by the sense that if on the one hand, yeah, sure, it coulda been closer if they'd made some free throws, it also coulda been a blow out if chauncey, rip, or sheed make even half the shots they usually make but missed last night. the crowd might have (I hope) contribbuted to that intensity, but I suspect a lot of it had to do with playing for fun cause they no longer had nothing to lose. i think tayshaun said something like that after the game and i said it to my friend during the game. man they look they are having fun just going balls out crazy for 48 and let the chips fall where they may.

okay, that's it. now i'm gonna stop.