{"id":567259,"date":"2020-04-30T00:03:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T04:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/?p=567259"},"modified":"2020-04-30T00:05:21","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T04:05:21","slug":"chauncey-billups-2004-lakers-should-have-swept-pistons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/news\/nba\/chauncey-billups-2004-lakers-should-have-swept-pistons\/","title":{"rendered":"Chauncey Billups: 2004 Lakers &#8216;Should Have Swept&#8217; Pistons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Lakers &#8220;should have swept&#8221; Detroit in the 2004 NBA Finals, based on their star-studded lineup, according to <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/tag\/chauncey-billups\" target=\"_blank\">Chauncey Billups<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, the Pistons humiliated a Los Angeles squad that featured four future Hall of Famers in a 4-1 beatdown, and Billups walked away with Finals MVP honors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Chauncey Billups relives ending the Shaq and Kobe Lakers dynasty | Hoop Streams\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OjXSQJd6tJM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Big Shot adds that <a href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/2889408-chauncey-billups-felt-there-was-no-way-lakers-could-beat-pistons-in-2004-finals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">he was confident<\/a> heading into the title round matchup when the Purple and Gold emerged from the Western Conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Per <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/2889412-chauncey-billups-says-lakers-shouldve-swept-pistons-in-2004-nba-finals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bleacher Report<\/a><\/em> (via <em>ESPN<\/em>): <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><em>&#8220;If you look at the names on the back of the jerseys, yeah, they should have swept us,&#8221; Billups said. &#8220;They really should have.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><p><em>However, he pointed out, &#8220;styles make fights, and our style against theirs was superior even in the regular season when we played them.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><p><em>He averaged 21.0 points, 5.2 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 1.2 steals throughout the series behind 50.9 percent shooting from the field and 47.1 percent shooting from three-point range.<\/em><\/p><p><em>&#8220;When [Los Angeles] beat Minnesota, I was happy,&#8221; Billups said. &#8220;Because I felt like there was no way the Lakers could beat us.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Related <a href=\"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/nba\/larry-brown-detroit-would-have-many-more-titles-with-carmelo-anthony\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Larry Brown: Detroit Would Have \u2018Many More\u2019 Titles With Carmelo Anthony<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Lakers &#8220;should have swept&#8221; Detroit in the 2004 NBA Finals, based on their star-studded lineup, according to Chauncey Billups. Instead, the Pistons humiliated a Los Angeles squad that featured four future Hall of Famers in a 4-1 beatdown, and Billups walked away with Finals MVP honors. Mr. Big Shot adds that he was confident [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":567260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,62493],"tags":[655,263,98,376,1097,89,1240,149,62523,136,232,175,162],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-567259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-newswire","tag-ben-wallace","tag-chauncey-billups","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-gary-payton","tag-karl-malone","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-larry-brown","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-mantle","tag-phil-jackson","tag-rasheed-wallace","tag-richard-hamilton","tag-shaquille-oneal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567259"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567263,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567259\/revisions\/567263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567259"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=567259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}