Rasheed Wallace of the Detroit Pistons tried to bite his tongue. Honest, he did.

Wallace wondered why the real issue — the officiating — wasn't addressed. After holding back, Wallace could do it no longer, so he let go with an expletive-filled tirade against the referees.

It's too soon to tell whether Richard Hamilton will be able to play in tomorrow's Game 6 matchup against Boston. But if the game were tonight, Detroit Pistons coach Flip Saunders said his leading scorer wouldn't be able to play.

"It would be different if it was his left arm, but it's his right arm, his shooting arm, the golden arm" Saunders said. "I think he'll need to get it polished up a bit before he can play."

If Hamilton doesn't play, look for rookie Rodney Stuckey to be in the starting lineup and either Juan Dixon or Walter Herrmann, to be added to the active roster.

The Boston Celtics survived, but they will not forget this. They can't. They have flirted with disaster too many times in these playoffs, raised too many questions about their mettle down the stretch, and though they go to Detroit with a 3-2 lead, they also have to come home and do this all over again. Do you really think the Celtics will close out the Pistons at the Palace on Friday night? I don't see it happening. This series has been too close, and the Celtics remain 1-7 on the road in the playoffs. This is the same Celtics team that could not close out Atlanta or Cleveland on the road in Game 6 wrote Detroit Free Press columnist Michael Rosenberg. And are you telling me the Detroit Pistons can't win Game 7 in Boston?

**Audio interview**

AUBURN HILLS -- Richard Hamilton's strained right elbow is still not feeling great, but it won't keep him out of the lineup tonight.

As he was making his way off the practice floor to receive treatments, he told me "there's no way in hell I'm not playing tonight."

I'll have more later on Hamilton playing despite the still-sore right elbow in the Booth Newspapers and on mlive.com.

Never has a coach taken so much grief from his team for playing his All-Star point guard.

When Detroit Pistons coach Flip Saunders summoned Chauncey Billups to replace Lindsey Hunter with 5:18 remaining in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals, the decision was met with immediate second-guessing.

Hunter fumed as he headed to the bench. A couple of other Pistons threw up their hands in a "What is he doing?" show of dismay.

It wasn't a lack of respect toward Billups. The Pistons had rallied from a 17-point deficit against Boston with a three-guard lineup of Hunter, Rodney Stuckey and Richard Hamilton. Some Pistons felt Saunders should keep on riding them.

Billups justified his coach's move 31 seconds later with a 3-pointer. He added five more points before the game was through, but the Pistons still wound up with a 106-102 loss and a 3-2 series deficit.

"As coaches we make decisions," Saunders said. "Players question, media questions, everybody questions. Not until it plays out do you find out if it was good or bad."

It's never a bad option to rely on Billups when he's healthy and shooting with confidence. For the first time in the series Wednesday night, Billups looked like his old self.

If not for the Celtics' overpowering rebounding effort and Ray Allen's breakout game in the playoffs, Billups would have carried his team to a pivotal victory. He delivered his best offensive performance of the series with 26 points and six assists while moving fluidly, a sign that the right hamstring he strained during the second round is close to 100 percent.

You might be wondering what Rasheed Wallace had to say after his dreadful performance in the Pistons' season-ending loss to the Celtics Friday.

Here you go: "That's the end, man."

There's probably more to that short sentence than even he knows. It was the end of the season. It was the end, most likely, of Flip Saunders' coaching tenure. It was the end of Lindsey Hunter's playing career.

It might be the end of this core group of Pistons and it might be the end of Wallace's time in Detroit.

Wallace has one more season on his contract, and the plan has always been to let him play out that final year, even if his role is reduced.

But, for the second straight year, Wallace flamed out in the conference finals. Last year, he openly defied Saunders' defensive calls in Game 5 against Cleveland, then got himself thrown out of Game 6.

This year, the season ended with earning a $25,000 fine from the league for bashing the referees after Game 5, coming late to shoot-around Friday morning and playing one of the worst playoff games of his career.

The Celtics have three and now the Pistons have three.

Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, known as The Big Three, ended the Pistons' season in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals at The Palace on Friday night, beating Detroit, 89-81, to take the series, 4-2, and advance to the NBA Finals for the first time in 21 years.

The Pistons' three now consists of three straight losses in the conference finals: to Miami, Cleveland, and now Boston.

The Pistons' incredible run is now over. It stretched six years to the conference finals, through three different coaches, a slew of different players, a championship in 2004 and a loss in the Finals in seven games the following year.

Despite leading his team to the Eastern Conference finals, Pistons coach Flip Saunders isn't a lock to be back next season. Saunders has a 176-71 record in three seasons in Detroit, but the Pistons, an experienced team that has been to the Finals twice in the past five seasons, have not advanced past the conference finals in Saunders tenure.

When asked about his future with the Pistons after a season-ending 89-81 loss to the Celtics in Game 6 last night, Saunders said, "That's not a good question to answer right now. Just thinking about just playing the game and the loss. I'm sure that's something that [Pistons president] Joe Dumars and I will sit down and evaluate."

Rasheed Wallace seems to symbolize the Detroit Pistons.

He is a unique talent, the only player in league history with 100 3-pointers and 100 blocks in multiple seasons, and the team defies NBA convention by having success without a superstar or two.

Wallace also appears to check out mentally at inopportune times, as do some of his Pistons teammates. That leads to lackluster performances that infuriate teammates and those who root for them.

“It’s like we tease each other, tease our fans,” Antonio McDyess said. “Give them a good dose in the beginning, and let them down in the end.”

Detroit was good and composed enough to hand the Boston Celtics their first home loss in the playoffs in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals.

But the Pistons were dysfunctional enough to waste an opportunity in Game 3 and to blow a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter Friday night as Boston ended Detroit’s season with an 89-81 win.

“We just didn’t go down the way we expected it to, and we gotta pay for it,” McDyess said.

There has been some talk about the future of the Pistons after their third consecutive Eastern Conference Final series loss. Well, one bright spot that Joe Dumars and other Piston players think about is the future of Piston rookie Rodney Stuckey.

The Detroit Pistons losing in the Eastern Conference finals has put Flip Saunders' future as the Pistons head coach in limbo. But he may not be the only member of the coaching staff on his way out.

Assistant coaches Terry Porter and Michael Curry are both candidates for NBA head coaching jobs in Phoenix and Chicago, respectively.

Both have been reluctant to say much about their job prospects elsewhere because their attention was focused on trying to get the Pistons to the NBA Finals.

Now that the season is over, both will look more closely at potential head coaching jobs.

Matt Dery, the host of the pregame, halftime and postgame shows on the Detroit Pistons flagship station, WDFN-AM 1130, believes that despite reports to the contrary, Flip Saunders will be out as Detroit Pistons head coach in the near future.

This Flip Saunders situation is looking a lot like the final days of the Rick Carlisle regime.

This season had a disappointing ending, just like Carlisle's final season did. Despite racking up a bunch of wins, Saunders found himself being second-guessed all season by fans publicly and players privately, just like Carlisle. And when Saunders left for the summer, he felt as though he would be back, just like Carlisle.

Not only did Carlisle expect to be back, but there were preliminary talks about a contract extension.

This run is over , things will change, we just don't really know what those things will be. Sheed may go, Flip may be gone, Rip could be traded as well as Tay. Things are uncertain...we wait.

And you know what, that's OK. We'll ride right on Joe D's bandwagon and trust that whatever he does with this team is what he thinks is best. Who are we to judge, he's given us six straight years of glory, excitement and entertainment.

How about that Joe Dumars? He fired his coach, then made bigger news at the press conference.

Dumars said he will try to shake up his core, a surprisingly bold statement that was intended to send a message to the rest of the league: Call me.

Chauncey Billups and Rasheed Wallace are most likely to go. Rip Hamilton and Antonio McDyess are most likely to stay. Tayshaun Prince falls somewhere in between.

Flip's downfall was that he couldn't develop a respectful working relationship with Rasheed Wallace. He needed a stronger presence in the locker room, but he chased away the only guy unafraid to stand up to Rasheed and tell him enough was enough.

That was Ben Wallace.

Most of the Detroit players liked Saunders as a person. Despite quiet rumblings about his penchant for calling just three plays, they still respected his knowledge of X's and O's, along with a Pistons coaching record of 176-70.

What the players couldn't respect was his unwillingness -- despite the prodding of Dumars and several veterans -- to trust younger players such as Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson because of the toll that it was visibly taking on Wallace, Antonio McDyess and others.

Plus, Saunders wasn't Larry Brown.

"We still love LB," one player said, requesting anonymity. "LB was something special. He knew his stuff but also knew us to a tee.