No one could have ever imagined that it would end this way. No, not the Eastern Conference finals, but the Pistons' wonderful run the past five years. In the end, the Pistons pulled one of the biggest choke jobs in the NBA. With their embarrassing 98-82 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 6 before a sellout crowd at the Quicken Loans Arena on Saturday night, the Pistons lost the best-of-seven series, 4-2. Worse, they lost four straight games after winning the first two games of this series. The Pistons -- who appeared to be heading to their third trip to the NBA Finals in four seasons -- are the third team in league history to fail to make it to the championship after winning the first two games in the conference finals. "It's disappointing," point guard Chauncey Billups said after the debacle. "I feel bad for the guys on the team. "We've had a great year, and for it to come to an end like this we put a lot of work in, but it was a tough one out there today." But this is bigger than losing to LeBron James, the NBA's next biggest star since Michael Jordan, and the Cavaliers, a lesser team. This series was never about the Cavaliers. Easily, the Pistons would have been moving on if they played their basketball, did regular things, not phenomenal basketball. "Some of the key guys didn't play their best series," forward Tayshaun Prince said. "We played up and down." This was a team that had the best record in the Eastern Conference, a team that won its first seven postseason games with a lot of focus and determination. Add to that, the experience factor. They won so many big games, especially on the road. It just didn't happen. Pistons lack energy Like last season, the Pistons simply seemed to run out of gas at the end. Maybe, it's the roughly extra 100 games they've played the last five seasons of making it to the conference finals every year. Maybe, it's just that there was no more left in this group of overachievers who bucked the odds, winning an NBA title without a superstar, in a superstar league. It's an amazing feat, but you can't live on that forever. The Pistons' magic clearly has run out. This is the second straight year that their season ended in the conference finals with a Game 6 loss on the road -- last season it was against Miami. They used to own big moments like this, winning six straight Game 6s before the last two years in the conference finals. Worse, it's the second straight year someone other than the star of the team was the player who killed them. Rookie Daniel Gibson scored a career-high 31 on 7-for-9 shooting from the field, including 5-for-5 from 3-point land. Last year, it was the Heat's Jason Williams, who hit his first 10 shots. No answers The Pistons never seemed to have an answer in the biggest moments the last two seasons. That's not an abrasion. That's a pattern. Billups, who becomes a free agent this summer, wasn't sure if this run -- which produced a championship in 2004 and five straight trips to the conference finals, the first team to do that since Jordan's Bulls -- was officially over after horrid losses in early June back-to-back. "That's not really up to me," Billups said. "I love the guys I play with. "We love being around each other. We had some really great years, and if we keep it all together, we can have a few more great years. Nobody's too old; we still have a group." Like last season against the Heat, the Pistons simply couldn't shoot the ball. They shot a paltry 36 percent from the floor and were drubbed 31-16 in the fourth quarter. Prince had a horrible series and went 1-for-10 from the field in the finale. But Richard Hamilton and Billups, the Pistons' two All-Stars, failed to play to their levels in the conference finals for the second year in a row. "Our shooters never really got into a rhythm as far as anytime in this series, and you've got to give them credit for that," said coach Flip Saunders, who failed to make it to the Finals despite getting to the conference finals for the third time in four years. "I didn't play my best, but I played my hardest," Billups said. The same could be said about the Pistons as a whole. Imagine that. http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070603/SPORTS08/706030346/1127 --

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