原文出处： http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/season_review_latemay07.html -- Editor’s note: Pistons.com looks back at the 2006-07 Detroit Pistons season with a month-by-month review, starting with training camp and concluding with the Eastern Conference finals, which the Pistons reached for the fifth consecutive season. Part IX: Late May and beyond. 主编的注解：活塞官网用每月回顾来检讨'06-'07年活塞球季，自季前训练营写起，至 活塞已经连续五度闯进的东区冠军赛为止。第九回：五月後半段及之後的事。 AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – In five straight trips to the Eastern Conference finals, the Pistons had never felt so strongly about their chances – from management through the coaching staff and on to the players – to advance to the NBA Finals. 密西根奥本山讯 - 在连续五趟通往东区冠军赛的旅程中，活塞从未像这次强烈感觉自 己有大好机会 - 从管理阶层到教练团队到所有球员 - 可以晋级NBA总冠军赛。 When they got swept by New Jersey in 2003, they were still learning what playoff basketball was all about with a first-year backcourt of Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton. When they won the NBA title in 2004, they had to get past a 61-win Indiana team that had finished seven games ahead of them in the division. 当他们在'03年被纽泽西横扫，他们第一年的後场搭档枪蜥&RIP仍在学习什麽是季後赛 的篮球。当他们在'04年赢得NBA总冠军，他们必须打倒例行赛胜场数达61胜的印地安那溜 马，溜马在该分区领先他们多达7胜。 In returning to the NBA Finals in 2005, the Pistons needed to win a road Game 7 against a Miami team stacked with stars – the same team that would beat the Pistons in six grueling games the following season en route to that franchise’s first title. 为了重返'05年NBA总冠军赛，活塞必须在客场举办的第7战击败众星云集的迈阿密热火 - 同一支热火在隔年历经六场焦土战後胜出并一举拿下队史首座欧布莱恩金盃。 Against that string of heavyweights, the Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t seem to stack up. Aside from LeBron James, they were a modestly talented team filled with role players, most cast aside by other franchises or largely ignored in the draft. The Cavs were a very good rebounding team and somehow seemed to play pretty good team defense despite not possessing obviously gifted individual defenders, but it usually wasn’t enough to mask their offensive deficiencies against elite teams. 面对这样一匹经验丰富的识途老马，骑士并不被看好能够与之对抗。除了LBJ，他们只 是一支天份普普，充斥着被大多数球队放弃或在选秀会上被大多数人忽略的绿叶球员的球 队。骑士队的篮板能力相当出色，而且不知怎地，虽然队上没有个人防守技巧特别出色的 球员，但似乎能拿出非常杰出的团队防守，但那通常并不足以掩饰他们在面对联盟顶级球 队时的攻击劣势。 The Pistons considered themselves all of that and the national experts agreed, most believing only Detroit from the Eastern Conference would pose a credible threat to whichever team emerged from the power-packed West. 活塞认定了他们自己而且全国专家们也都同意，不管哪支球队从竞争激烈的西区脱颖 而出，东区联盟大概只有活塞能对他们产生一些威胁。 Conventional wisdom held that the only way the Cavs could spring the upset would be if James could take enough on his powerful shoulders to carry Cleveland by himself, holding serve at home and stealing the one win at The Palace necessary for the Cavaliers to advance. 一般认为骑士要突围只有一条路，除非就是LBJ用他强而有力的肩膀将骑士一肩挑起， 帮助球队保住所有主场球赛并在宫殿球场偷得晋级所需的那一胜。 The Pistons didn’t think he could do that against their stout defense and they didn’t see enough reliable help at his flanks to threaten them. The game plan was to make James work hard for every point and make him work just as hard on defense in his matchup with Tayshaun Prince – and make his suspect teammates knock down the open shots they would inevitably get as they ganged up on James. 活塞并不认为他能以一己之力对抗他们固若金汤的防守而且他们也没看到他身边有任 何足以威胁他们的可靠副手存在。比赛策略就是让LBJ每一分都拿得异常辛苦，而且他负责 防守的小王子也积极地去挑战他 - 然後放给他不可靠的队友们空档出手的机会，这是无法 避免的，因为和LBJ同队打球一定会有很多这样的机会。 “He’s going to get his love. He’s going to get to the line,” Rasheed Wallace said of James before the series. “But we’re going to make it hard for him. He may get 30, but he’s going to have to put up 30 shots. We can’t give up easy buckets.” "他会得到他应得的"照顾"。他也会有很多上到罚球线的机会，"关於LBJ，溪蛙在系列 赛前说道。"但我们会让他寸步难行。他可能会拿到30分，但他至少必须出手30次以上。我 们不能给他任何轻松得分的机会。" The strategy worked well enough in games 1 and 2, the Pistons surviving last possessions from Cleveland for identical 79-76 wins in which James was held to a combined 29 points. 这样的策略在第一、第二场比赛中收到不错的成效，活塞守住了克里夫兰最後的几波 攻势，两场比赛都以79比76险胜，而LBJ合计只拿下29分。 But the Pistons’ offense was curiously out of sync. Chauncey Billups had 12 turnovers and just 11 assists. Rip Hamilton had a big Game 1 but then struggled to find good shots in Game 2. And Prince, most ominously of all, made 1 of 19 shots in the two wins. Only Wallace’s superb play at both ends was the stuff the Pistons were accustomed to seeing from their veterans in the cauldron of playoff intensity. 但活塞的进攻很诡异地完全在状况外：枪蜥失误12次但只传出11次助攻。RIP在第一场 火力全开但在第二场却很挣扎，找不回投篮的手感。而小王子，更是所有人里面最囧的， 在球队获胜这两场比赛中合计出手19次只命中1球。只有溪蛙在两场比赛末段亮眼的表现才 是活塞习以为常的，老将在大家拼得你死我活的季後赛期间应有的作为。 There was no cause for alarm, of course, because the Pistons had long espoused the view that it didn’t matter how they won – only that they won. And they still fancied themselves a team that would make the clutch plays nine times out of 10 in the fourth quarter of a tight game. 一点警讯也没有，当然，因为活塞一直以来都遵循同样一个信念，不管他们是怎麽赢 的 - 反正就是赢了。而他们仍误以为他们是一支在战况胶着的比赛中第四节关键一击出手 10次有9次会命中的天生赢家。 But games 3 and 4 turned the series – and the Pistons’ title chances – on its ear. The Pistons entered the fourth quarter of Game 3 ahead by one point but lost 88-82; they went into Game 4’s fourth quarter ahead by two but lost by four. Along the way, a new and most unlikely star emerged for Cleveland: rookie Daniel Gibson, a late second-round pick from Texas, who scored nine points off the bench in Game 3 and then exploded for 21 in Game 4. 但第三和第四场比赛扭转了整个系列赛，以及已经近在眼前的，活塞争取冠军的机会 。第三场活塞带着一分领先进入第四节但以82比88输球；第四场比赛他们带着二分领先进 入第四节但仍以四分输球。在这过程当中，克里夫兰有一颗大家意想不到的新星逐渐崭露 头角：菜鸟D.Gibson，一个第二轮末段中选的德大生，他在第三场比赛从板凳上跳出来拿 下了九分，第四场比赛更是火力全开为骑士贡献了21分。 The Pistons were shook to their foundation – it was Game 5 when the roof fell in. It was the nightmare scenario: The Pistons blew an eight-point fourth-quarter lead and were overwhelmed by a tour de force from James, who put on one of the most spectacular individual displays in NBA playoffs history. He scored 29 of Cleveland’s final 30 points, the last 25 in a row, including all 18 in the two overtimes of an epic 109-107 win. 活塞很讶异他们的根基被撼动了 - 而第五场比赛连屋顶都塌了下来。这根本是个标准 的恶梦：活塞在第四节白白浪费了8分的领先优势，然後眼睁睁地看着LBJ演出NBA季後赛史 上最惊人的个人秀中的其中一场。他拿下克里夫兰最後30分中的29分，最後连续25分，包 括两度延长赛中所有的19分，带领骑士以109比107拿下史诗般壮丽的一场胜利。 It was Cleveland’s ideal blueprint: Hold serve at home and get the great road game from James they would need to win one on the road before it came down to Game 7, when the home team seems to always prevail. 那是克里夫兰的理想蓝图：保住主场比赛的胜利，第七场比赛前在LBJ抑注下於客场拿 下晋级所需的关键一胜，因为主场球队似乎总能留住胜利。 Stunned and vulnerable, the Pistons gave it their best shot in Game 6 before a lathered Cleveland crowd craving the franchise’s first berth in the NBA Finals . The Pistons trailed by one point going into the fourth quarter, but the Cavs could smell it on a night that Gibson, who averaged 4.2 points in 60 regular-season games, put up 31. James barely worked up a sweat in taking 11 shots and scoring 20 points as Cleveland pulled away for a 16-point win. 在又惊又怕的情况下，活塞在第六场比赛使出浑身解数，但仍阻挡不了已经打顺手的 克里夫兰前进队史第一度的总冠军赛。比赛进入第四节时活塞落後一分，但在60场例行赛 平均得分只有4.2分的Gibson的31分带领下，尽管LBJ只有出手11次，贡献20分，克里夫兰 还是以16分之差拿走了总冠军赛门票扬长而去。 It was a swift and disheartening reversal of fortune for a team that had won its first seven playoff games in dominating fashion and seemed poised for a certain third NBA Finals berth in four years just days earlier. 这对於一支季後赛前七场比赛悉数以悬殊差距获胜，而且在数天前还被认为可以打入 四年内第三度总冠军赛的球队来说是个令人沮丧的急转弯。 And it promised to make for a restless summer for a franchise that seven years earlier had turned in desperation to Joe Dumars and asked that he return the Pistons to the glory they had known in his Hall of Fame heyday with the Bad Boys. Armed with a veteran core still in its prime plus promising young assets – second-year forwards Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson, blossoming talents on European rosters in Alex Acker and 7-footer Cheick Samb and two No. 1 picks in a draft universally hailed as one of the richest ever – the Pistons went into their off-season doggedly focused on proving wrong the consensus opinion that their era had passed. 对於这支七年前曾陷入绝望，但在被赋予带领球队重返众所皆知，与坏小孩共同缔造 黄金岁月的重任的老乔带领的球队来说，这个夏天一定不平静。以一群仍在全盛期的老将 为中心，加上一群前途可期的年轻球员 - 二年级前锋J-Max和A.Johnson，在欧洲大放异彩 的A.Acker和七尺中锋C.Samb，还有被誉为有史以来最有深度的选秀会中两名第一轮的新秀 - 虽然外界一致认为活塞的世代已经过去了，但他们季後的焦点完完全全摆在证明这是个 错误的想法上面。 Dumars, who wouldn’t speak publicly until nine days after the season was over, came out with a pointed message. He wasn’t going to run a fire sale and he still believed there was life in the nucleus of the team he’d crafted, but “ complacency” – a word he used repeatedly – would no longer be tolerated. And those young players in the system were promised chances to muscle their way into the rotation next season. 在球季结束後九天内都不曾公开说话的老乔放出了一个简洁有力的讯息。他绝对不会 疯狂地进行交易，而且他相信自己操盘的这支球队对於冠军的渴望仍然存在，但"骄傲自满 " - 他特别重复了几次 - 将不再被容忍。而那些年轻的球员也被保证可以在下个球季获得 打入固定轮替名单的机会。 “Breaking up your team and saying it’s the end of an era,” he said, “the only way it’s the end of an era is when you choose as an organization to stop competing.” "打散你的球队然後说这个世代结束了，"他说，"世代结束的唯一方式是你选择让球队 停止竞争。" Nothing about the look in his eye suggested he was prepared to pull the competitive plug on his organization. The popular notion is that the NBA’s Eastern Conference will belong to LeBron James for the next decade. Joe Dumars and the Pistons enter the summer planning otherwise. 在他眼里看不出一丝他准备将他的组织抽离竞争行列。虽然一般认为东区在接下来十 年都会是LBJ的天下，但老乔和活塞的暑假计画就是准备颠覆大家的想法。 --

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