Detroit Free Press

Novelists say when they start a new book that they often have several endings in mind. But at some point they choose one and throw out the others. No more "maybe this happens, maybe that." They find their North Star and sail toward it defiantly.Same goes for the Pistons, on this morning of the last day of the last game of the year. All other endings have been thrown out now. All other possibilities -- early exits, unexpected collapses -- are crumpled in the trash can. There is one page -- and one page only -- that completes the book of Detroit's operatic season.Win it.

With all the problems facing this country, the issue of "who sits where" shouldn't rank very high. But last week it did, after two Muslim women were denied seats behind Barack Obama at his rally at Joe Louis Arena, seats that would have placed them in full view of the TV cameras broadcasting his speech.The women were moved away, they said, because they each wore a hijab, the traditional Muslim head scarf. That image, volunteers told them, was politically sensitive for Obama.

All right, Rasheed. You want to make up for it? Have a monster game tonight. Have a game where you not only start strong, you finish strong, too. Have a game where you don't float in and out like a ghost going from room to room looking for someone to scare. Because the Pistons need you to be scary tonight. And, quite frankly, you owe them one.

SAN ANTONIO - They took every stone the devil could throw, and they caught the last one and threw it back in his face. It took history. It took belief. It took desperation in every dribble. But mostly it took hope, and with every Pistons achievement - every Rip Hamilton jumper, every Rasheed Wallace put-back, every Ben Wallace block, every Chauncey Billups three-pointer - there was hope. They were supposed to die, because that's what teams do when faced with silly odds. But here they were at the end, heading off the floor with one more game to play.Dead men walking.

You don't leave him alone. You never leave him alone. But there he was, alone, at his favorite killer spot, the three-point line, Rasheed Wallace had gotten snookered, and by the time Tayshaun Prince went charging toward the killer, like a man trying to save a dog from a speeding bus, it was too late. The killer lined it up. The killer got it in his sights. The killer fired. The killer hit.

Dad needs a song.I mean, it's Father's Day. He oughta have a sound track. Everyone else has a sound track. When Tony Soprano takes the screen, he gets "Woke Up This Morning." When the Pistons take the floor, we hear "The Final Countdown." Even the president has "Hail to the Chief."But I have spent some time looking into this and, as often happens with dads in America, they are getting gypped.Lovers? There are endless songs for lovers. Children? My goodness. They'll make you weep. And mothers? Even rap artists put down their profanity to pay homage to Mom.

Thursday was some night for Lindsey Hunter at the Palace. He was draining baskets from the corner, from the key, down the lane, off the glass. He was dishing assists and shaking defenders, stepping up past flying bodies and firing away. He had a team-high 17 points, and his younger teammates spurred him on, slapping each other the way kids do when they see their father take the joystick on a video game."Old man, you still got it," Richard Hamilton told him.

This was the moment that said it all: Tayshaun Prince, holding the ball, alone on the wing with Manu Ginobili, the early god of these NBA Finals. And Ginobili stuck a big, old Argentinean hand in front of Tayshaun's eyes. Block his vision? That schoolyard trick? Tayshaun shook his head, then shook his shoulders, then shook his torso and his feet - Elvis getting ready to rock - and then he shook off Ginobili as surely as a Labrador shakes off a bath. Whoosh. He blew right past him for a two-handed slam.