Heat Lands First Blow

The Miami Heat remade its roster last summer with one objective in mind: push through the Detroit Pistons in the playoffs.

Filling in around Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade, whose high-wattage presence wasn’t enough to prevent a heartbreaking Game 7 loss to the Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals a year ago, the Heat brought in veterans Antoine Walker, Jason Williams, James Posey and Gary Payton.

And Tuesday night in Game 1 of the best-of-seven rematch of Eastern heavyweights, the makeover paid dividends, the Heat riding a decisive performance from its supporting cast to a 91-86 victory over the heavy-legged Pistons at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

“Even though we think of them as role players,” Heat Coach Pat Riley said later, laughing at the description, “they remember how to do it at times.”

Payton, especially, pulled a page from his past. Distancing himself from an abysmal effort for the Lakers against the Pistons in the NBA Finals two years ago, the 16-year NBA veteran made six of eight shots and scored 14 points in 34 minutes while spelling Wade, who sat out long stretches of the middle two quarters because of foul trouble but still led all scorers with 25 points on nine-for-11 shooting.

Walker scored 17 points, a foul-plagued O’Neal had 14 points and eight rebounds, Williams scored 10 points and the Heat, idle for a week after dispatching the New Jersey Nets in the conference semifinals, made 56.2% of its shots.

“That’s what he brought us here for,” Payton, speaking on behalf of the newcomers, said of Riley, who as team president retooled the roster. “He brought us in to get over the hump, win the Finals, get the championship.”

That was the idea, but the Pistons won three of four regular-season meetings, the only Heat victory coming at Miami on a last-second shot by Wade, and compiled a league-best 64-18 record, 12 games better than the Heat.

A seven-game second-round series against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, however, in which the Pistons lost Games 3, 4 and 5 before rallying to win it Sunday, seemed to leave them a step slow.

They fell behind, 11-0, in the first 3 1/2 minutes, rallied to lead briefly in the third quarter and then fell back again.

Battering the rims in a building where they’d won 43 of 48 games this season, they made only 37.8% of their shots. Guards Rip Hamilton and Chauncey Billups combined for 41 points, but Hamilton missed 13 of 22 shots, Billups 13 of 19.

“I didn’t think we had consistent energy or didn’t totally play with the edge we played with the last two games,” said Coach Flip Saunders after the Pistons gave up countless layups and dunks. “I think that when you have a series and you come back, you become more emotionally drained maybe than physically....

“When you start another series, you’ve got to start all over again, and especially when you’re in a situation where you fall behind as we did, we were swimming upstream the whole time.”

Wade made his first six shots, but he and O’Neal were on the bench for much of the second and third quarters.

It hardly mattered.

“You know,” Billups said, “they had other guys that stepped up, played great for them. Gary was good, Antoine, everybody.

“Their supporting cast was good. That was the difference.”