1. LeBron James finally has his sidekick.

At one point during Cleveland's series-clinching game six vs. Detroit in the Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron James was barking at Daniel Gibson. But it wasn't for a mistake the Texas rookie made. It was because he caught fire in the last quarter and a half of the game on his way to 31 points on nine shots.

Gibson doesn't have to dominate the ball a la Larry Hughes or Lamar Odom. His performance the last three games of the ECF should help keep LeBron in Cleveland for the remainder of his career. Once injured rookie Shannon Brown gets healthy, Cleveland could have the League's scariest perimeter trio.

Either Brown, Gibson or James can handle the ball on a break. Either of the three could spot up anywhere on the floor and drain a shot. And any of the three can finish at the cup.

2. A shakeup is needed in Detroit.

There is a way for the Pistons to rebound from this loss and remain contenders for the next five, six years.

What Detroit needs to do is sign "that guy." That guy is a player who can get a team on the brink over the hump.

The Pistons have been defeated by a "that guy" prototype the past two playoff runs. Dwayne Wade and LeBron James both took over close games vs. Detroit and helped their teams advance to the finals.

Here's what Joe Dumars must do to keep his team on the map and in the title hunt:

Seriously look into a deal that would send Richard Hamilton and Rasheed Wallace to the Lakers for Kobe Bryant. No matter how much ESPN and NBA analysts want to give the League to Wade and James, those in the know recognize Bryant as the League's best player.

Dumars should also draft Texas point guard Acie Law IV and Pitt big man Aaron Gray with the 15th and 27th picks, respectively, in this month's draft. Billups, who did not earn a max deal with his performance in the Cleveland series, could serve as Law's mentor and you can't teach Gray's 7'2" frame.

Pairing Bryant with Tayshaun Prince, a great perimeter defender in his own right, would give Detroit something similar to what the Bulls used to employ with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen: one of the two would be on the floor at all times, to guard the opposing team's best perimeter player, and for the offense to run through either of them. I fully give Prince a pass for shooting under 30 percent during the Cleveland series since he had to put so much of his energy into defending James. But if you could switch Bryant and Prince off of James, and Wade, for example, neither would be so tuckered out on the other end of the floor that they couldn't get their points.

3. Leave Flip alone.

I still don't understand why Jason Maxiell barely saw action in five of the six games this series after scoring 15 points in game two. And I have no idea why Billups and Hamilton were put at the point of the zone Detroit employed. But I do believe that the Pistons' performance this series was not entirely the fault of their head coach.

Saunders could have called for quicker double teams of James at times, where the double could have came before James received the ball, but Saunders wasn't the one on the court looking for foul calls late in games. Neither was he the one pointing the finger at teammates at times.

If this were college, the brunt of the blame would be reserved for Flip. But this is the NBA. "A player's league," where the coach doesn't matter as much. Give Flip "that guy," and a core that doesn't play when it feels up to it, especially in the playoffs, and Saunders already has two finals appearances under his belt.

4. Spurs in five.

'Nuff said.

Gone: Shaq, Dwight Howard, Darko Milicic (don’t laugh), Chris Bosh (soon).

Still remaining: Ben Wallace, P.J. Brown, Drew Gooden, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Mikki Moore.

There is no opposition remaining in the 2007 Eastern Conference Playoffs for Rasheed Wallace. Wallace should use the remainder of this postseason, an assumed run to the NBA Finals, as a way to put everyone on notice that he is still one of the premier big men in the League.

There should be none of that “float around the three-point line and launch a deep three” in his game — at least until next season. Rasheed should plant his big backside on either low block and go to work. Wallace is the only post player remaining in the East half of the bracket who can command a double team, which would free up his teammates for open looks. Him launching 25-foot bombs six times a game doesn’t.

Rasheed’s performance on offense — he should be able to rest somewhat on defense until the Finals if you look at what he'll be matched up against — will be the X-factor in Detroit having to work through a couple of six- or seven-games series leading up to the Finals, or in the Pistons plowing through lesser competition on their way to their third Finals appearance in four years.

That’s not to stay Chicago, Detroit’s second-round opponent, will be a pushover. The Bulls did beat the Pistons in three of four regular-season meetings. But that was the regular season — the time of year that allegedly doesn’t matter to anyone on Detroit’s roster.

Don’t get it twisted. This East semi is the conference final. Whichever team wins the series between Cleveland and New Jersey/Toronto will only serve as a practice squad for the Pistons or Bulls.

The match-ups are intriguing. Both squads’ perimeter players (Chicago’s Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon and Luol Deng and Detroit’s Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince) are going to have to get it done on both ends of the floor.

Deng and Gordon (51.7 ppg) currently make up the highest scoring tandem in the ’07 playoffs. The Pistons high-scoring duo, Billups and Hamilton, are netting 42.4 a night this postseason. The Bulls’ young guns will have to be slowed if Detroit wants to make its fifth consecutive conference finals appearance. It should help the Pistons since their perimeter trio is a combined 467 years younger than what Miami trotted out in its first-round sweep at the hands of the Baby Bulls. It should also help Chicago since Hinrich, the Bulls starting point guard, doesn't dribble 76 times before he takes a bad jumper, a la Jameer Nelson.

All of those guys will need in-game rest of they’re going to be chasing each other around for the next two weeks, which means both benches must perform throughout the series, too.

The Bulls’ subs have chipped in with 21.8 ppg so far this postseason (Andres Nocioni poured in 12 a game), while Detroit’s bench, which has been much maligned the two previous second seasons for lack of usage, netted 14 ppg during a four-game sweep of Orlando. That may not be a huge number, but reserves Antonio McDyess, Carlos Delfino and Ronald Murray averaged 23.3, 12.3, and 12.3 minutes a game, respectively, during that Orlando series. The team’s Methuselah, Dale Davis, even got about 10 minutes of burn in the three games he played in. This means Detroit’s starters got at least a quarter of rest in each game of the first round. That could be a telling stat when you consider how spent Piston starters were in the ’05 Finals.

The two teams' starting frontcourts are far from mirror images. Like Pacman Jones and Warrick Dunn. The Bulls starting 4 and 5, Ben Wallace and Brown, averaged 15.8 points and 14.3 boards a game in the first round, where they had to deal with Shaq, Alonzo Mourning and Udonis Haslem. Rasheed and Chris Webber, however, averaged 27.3 and 15.6 in the first round. Yes, I know Ben and P.J. weren’t brought in for their offensive prowess, but it helps any team in a quest for a title when it can dump the ball into the post and be confident that a pivot man can get a bucket.

Ben Wallace’s defense and toughness are what netted him a four-year, $60 million deal last July 4. That defense brings me back to his old running buddy.

Big Ben made his reputation as a help defender. Yea, I’ve seen him pick up guards full court, but Ben is a throwback big man — he doesn’t like stepping out of the paint. He’ll do it, but he’d rather not. Having played with him for two-and-a-half seasons, Rasheed should recognize this and exploit it the entire series.

If Rasheed does elect to play small forward during this series, Ben won't be in position to help his new running mates out in the lane, which would enable Hamilton rub off screens and get uncontested mid-range jumper after jumper.

If "Roscoe" decides to showcase his low post game, Chicago will be forced to double him, leaving whoever's on the perimeter open for what would turn into shooting practice.

Assuming Wallace takes advantage of the mismatch over a seven-game series, you can pretty much pencil the Pistons in to be playing in mid-June. Jason Collins and Anderson Varejao just don’t do anything for me. And they shouldn’t be able to do anything with Rasheed.

They gave up 70 points in the paint in an opening night home loss to Milwaukee.

They culminated a Western trip with a 32-point L at Golden State.

They're 26th in the league in offense with 93.7 points per game.

And they're 13th in the L in defense, allowing 96.4 ppg, behind defensive stalwarts such as Atlanta and New Orleans/Oklahoma.

No, I am not talking about some middle of the road team like Orlando or Denver. These are the Detroit Pistons. This is the team that has gone to the last four Eastern Conference Finals. This is the same squad that has been in two of the last three NBA Finals, winning the chip in 2004.

I'll admit: I thought getting rid of Larry Brown and Ben Wallace leaving would be beneficial to this group. But I'm not so sure now.

With both Brown and Wallace, Detroit had an identity. The Pistons were thought of as the roughest, toughest "team" in the League. They "played the right way" as Brown, the traveling man, used to say. Detroit was able to grind out games and get key defensive stops whenever they needed them.

Then something happened.

They won the title. Detroit toppled the heavily-favored Lakers in five games to bring a third championship to Motown-the first in 13 years. The Pistons were able to play the "no respect" card throughout the playoffs. And the chip on their shoulder wasn't heavy enough to deter them from the ultimate goal.

Goin' to work continued to play the no respect card even after they won the title. They felt that they weren't getting respect nationally, what with only one all-star (Wallace) making the 2005 squad. Detroit was nine minutes away from back-to-back titles.

Then something happened.

The Pistons finally got their respect. They earned it, too, going 35-5 to start the 2005-06 season. Four of their five starters flew to H-Town for the '06 mid-season classic, even putting their stamp on a 122-120 East win. But that respect brought about a certain arrogance that wasn't there before.

Rasheed "T" Wallace and crew continuously b&tch#d and moaned about foul calls. Arms flailed and groans were heard after every whistle. The defense went down a  few notches-which I refuse to put on new coach Flip Saunders. They struggled to outlast a young, non-playoff tested Cleveland team in the East semis. Then Miami ran roughshod over them in the conference finals.

The bad vibes continued as Wallace was wooed away by the Windy City Bulls.

$60 million over four years. Yea, Detroit offered $48 mil; and, yea, Big Ben was the King of Motown. But, you work hard early to get paid later on. And that's what Wallace did. As Mike Epps says, "Get ya money, mane." That's what Wallace did.

Pistons point man and Finals MVP Chauncey Billups appears to be on his way to doing the same thing. Billups is reportedly being courted by the Bucks and his hometown Nuggets. But he and his mates are playing far from wanting to get paid.

Detroit went 1-3 on its recent Western swing. The only close game was a two-point loss at Utah. They lost in Arco by 15 and 111-79 to the Warriors. The team that played 81 of 82 games last season with the same starting line-up has already played a game without two-guard Rip Hamilton (22 ppg) who is nursing an elbow injury.

Things are bad right now in Detroit.

If the playoffs started today, The Pistons would be on the outside looking in. People are even beginning to call them Etroit, as in "no D." But things could be on the upswing. Eight of Detroit's next 11 games are against 2006 lottery teams, with the remaining being against Miami and two with Washington.

The 3-4 Pistons could be 12-5 before the first real snowfall. But judging by body language and play on the court, they're more inclined to finish the swing at 10-7 or 9-8. I figured they wouldn't be able to duplicate their 64-win total from a season ago, but, damn, I didn't see this happening.

It's still early, but maybe Chauncey and his mates need to put an APB out on those chips.