NBA PLAYOFFS: Pistons Tie Eastern Conference, top Celtics on road

Home victories are no longer good enough for the Boston Celtics. The road to the NBA Finals in the Eastern Conference now goes through the Detroit Pistons.

Richard Hamilton scored 25 points, and the Pistons beat the Celtics 103-97 on Thursday to tie the Eastern Conference finals at a game apiece and seize the home-court advantage.

''It is even,'' Pistons forward Rasheed Wallace said. ''We don't sitback and say, 'Oh, look, they are undefeated at home.' ... A lot of theteams they played in the postseason and the regular season were scaredof them, as far as [Kevin Garnett] and Ray [Allen] and Paul [Pierce].They are good players, but we have good players also.''

Who knows with this team? As we all are probably well aware, the Wizards had a loose game-day locker room....at least with hair-dos as Caron carved "Tough Juice" in the back of his head , evidently himself, and Andray Blatche and Nick Young were sporting mohawks. My initial reaction is that this team doesn't need to be clowning around...then again, I'd rather have them loose than uptight.

Ron Thompson makes a nice assessment on how Gil starting will affect Roger Mason (as Antonio Daniels will be coming off the bench)....essentially, Ron speculated that Roger might play better because he is used to playing with AD. We will see. Personally, I'm more curious to see how AD will play. (Even though I have a good feeling about the Silent Assassin.) The Wiz have gotten zilch from AD this series. We need his energy off the bench.

In a preview of the Western Conference finals, the TNT analyst said the current edition of the Los Angeles Lakers is the best team Kobe Bryant has been on.

"This is the best team he's ever had ... even counting Shaquille O'Neal," said Barkley. "They had him and Shaquille O'Neal, and the rest were role players. But this team with Gasol ... and Odom and Kobe, I think those three are better than Kobe and Shaq."

Barkley's studio cohorts ridiculed him, wondering how he could rank a team that has yet to win a single title ahead of the three-peating Shaq and Kobe squad.

So much for the Boston Celtics' perfect post- season record at home.

Richard Hamilton scored 25 points, Chauncey Billups added 19 and the Detroit Pistons beat the Celtics 103-97 Thursday night, squaring the Eastern Conference finals at one game apiece.

The Celtics had won 15 consecutive games since March 24, including 9-0 in the play-offs at TD Banknorth Garden, before the Pistons put an end to the run.

It's been a tough road to San Antonio vs. Los Angeles in the Western Conference finals.

There have been a lot of tough matchups, a lot of tough games and a lot of future Hall of Famers sent packing. But things ended up as expected.