Rasheed, Where You At? Redux

So, Rasheed Wallace drew the attention we're sure he was seeking with his insinuation that the Cavs victory in the Eastern Conference Finals was fixed:

"I still don't think they (Cavaliers) beat us, we beat ourselves," Wallace said. "And I think we also fell victim to that personal NBA thing where they are trying to make it a world game and get (television) ratings. They wanted to put their darling in there (the NBA Finals) and they did, and look what ended up happening."

The league's darling, according to Wallace, was LeBron James, and what ended up happening were the worst ratings in the modern history of the NBA Finals.

"This game ain't basketball anymore, it's entertainment," Wallace said. "It's starting to get like the WWF. There ain't no real wrestling anymore either. It's all fake."

What we find especially rich about these comments is that, back in June on this very site, we analyzed the video of LeBron's 25 straight points in Game 5 to examine where the Pistons' once-formidable interior defense had broken down, and guess who was Culprit No. 1?

Yes, it was Mr. Sheed. He repeatedly failed to close down LeBron's wide-open driving lanes as he was apparently too afraid to leave Donyell Marshall open, even though you might remember that LeBron was excoriated for passing to Donyell instead of taking a last-second shot in Game 2 (perhaps Sheed was still feeling burned by leaving Big Shot Bob Horry in the 2005 Finals).

We should note that our single favorite Sheed team defense moment in Game 5 was when he left LeBron a wide-open lane for an uncontested dunk because he felt compelled to turn his head and follow Eric Snow away from the ball when the always dangerous Snow cut away to the weak side.

If you don't believe us, you can watch the video clips here.