Big-game wins give transition a foothold

It might not be a substitute for the consistency sought by Michael Curry - or any coach, for that matter - but with their win over Orlando earlier this week, the Pistons must have more big-game wins than any NBA team so far this season.

They beat the Lakers in LA after they'd started the season 7-0 and winning by two touchdowns a game. They beat Cleveland after the Cavs had opened 9-2 and were on an eight-game winning streak. They beat San Antonio on the road with the Spurs at full strength after treading water for the first month without Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. And, finally, they beat Orlando with the Magic at 24-4 in their last 28 games after a 0-2 start and on a seven-game winning streak.

For every good win, of course, there's a bad loss - the 26-point pounding a 2-9 Minnesota team administered at The Palace, the bloodbath at Madison Square Garden on a Sunday afternoon, the squandered leads against struggling Philly and Washington teams.

Again, consistency is the hallmark of great teams, not equal doses of delirious highs and crushing lows. But the delirious highs at least tell everyone that matters - from Joe Dumars to Michael Curry to his players to Pistons opponents - that the Pistons still have the greatness gene somewhere within them.

"It shows we're capable of competing against elite teams in this league," Michael Curry said before the New Year's Eve matinee with New Jersey. "To be an elite team, you have to do it consistently. For the most part, we've played with that kind of consistency. We're oh-and-six on Sundays. If you go .500 on Sundays, more people right now would probably be considering us right up there as well. But we've got to earn that."

The transition from the Billups to the Iverson eras caused enough dislocation to explain some of their mercurial nature, but Curry raises a good point. It really goes beyond just swapping out Billups for Iverson. Even if Billups had remained, the fact so many new players were being asked to shoulder greater responsibility probably was going to yield some degree of unevenness in the Pistons' play.

"We know we have the talent and are capable of getting there," Curry said. "Some of our young guys are growing right in front of our eyes. Their contributions in big games have been well-documented and that's part of it."

Beyond that, even, there's the fact that Curry was in the midst of changing the offense even with Billups to put the ball in others' hands more often, Tayshaun Prince particularly.

"Some of our veteran guys have played in different roles," he said. "I don't know how many games in the past we went down the stretch and Tayshaun touches the ball four out of seven possessions. It's different for him, as well."

Throw out one three-game stretch - blown 15- and 17-point leads to Philly and Washington sandwiched around the Knicks debacle - and the Pistons would be 21-8 heading into the Nets game instead of 18-11. In the big picture, their big-game wins have been sprinkled throughout the schedule, while their troubling losses have been more concentrated.

That bad stretch came more than three weeks ago. The Pistons haven't played poorly since then. The transition - a phase Pistons fans feared would become a tunnel to nowhere - now has a foothold.

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