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Tuesday, April 25
This isn't the year Grant gets over the Hill

By Mitch Lawrence
Special to ESPN.com

MIAMI -- More than anything else, Grant Hill wanted to be a Knick. Well, he wanted to be like a Knick, to be more exact. Going into these playoffs, Hill talked about how he and his Detroit teammates were "inspired" by what the Knicks had done last spring.


	Hill was no match for anyone in Game 1, as Alonzo Mourning showed when he dunked over him.

"You had to be impressed how far they went, when nobody expected them to get out of the East," he said. "Then to see them go all the way to the Finals, I was like, that could have been us. That's what I was looking for this time. I've never had the feeling of what it's like to advance and keep playing."

It doesn't look like he'll have it this year, either.

Hill, one of the classiest stars in the NBA, stands only two more losses from his fourth first-round exit in four playoff tries. Actually, he's more like teetering. After reaggravating his left ankle sprain/bruise in the Pistons' 10-point loss to the Heat in Game 1, he says he's far less than 100 percent and won't even try to lead Detroit in scoring when the series resumes Tuesday night in American Airlines Arena.

"My focus will be different," he said. "I will not try to score 30 to 38 points. I'll try to prevent my man from scoring."

If he can even do that. If Hill can't get 25 points, you know what that probably means. Another early exit. Another long summer.

"He's got to be healthy for us to win," Jerry Stackhouse said, stating the obvious. "He's that important to this team. We've got to get offense and output from Grant. It's tough because he wants to do it. To be limited now has to be very frustrating for him."

Stackhouse can only imagine.

Hill went into the Miami series thinking he and Stackhouse could copy what New York did in '99 and lead the Pistons to a first-round upset. He saw the Pistons with too much quickness on the wings for Pat Riley's team. He thought Detroit could get out and run. He believed that Miami would be extremely vulnerable, having to open the series, and play perhaps the first two or three games, without the injured Tim Hardaway and with a rookie, Anthony Carter, at the point.

Not that he had visions of winning the title, mind you.

"To win it all and be successful, you have to have awesome personnel," he said. "We've had to compensate for that for a while. We've been a marginal team, an average team, in the regular-season, where we can win 40-to-45 games. But this time, we can win this series. And if we get out of the first round, look out. We'll be riding high, just like New York was last year."

But with his ankle preventing him from doing what he normally does -- his 13 points in Game 1 was half his season's average and 16 less than what Jamal Mashburn went for against him -- the Pistons are on another postseason downer. When they lost Game 1, their record with Hill in the postseason fell to 4-10. Of those 10 losses, eight have been by at least 10 points.

Not even the made-for-TV schedule where they've stretched out the first round can help him. The ankle probably needs a few weeks of inactivity to completely heal.

And to think, only a week ago Hill had more confidence than ever about finally getting out of the first round.

"To keep playing in the playoffs," he said, "that has to be the ultimate feeling."

Looks like he'll have to wait 'til next year to find out.

Rim Shots I
You've seen how ridiculous the spacing out of first-round games are. In the Seattle-Utah series, for instance, Game 2 was Monday. But Game 3 isn't until Saturday, giving both teams four days off.

The last time the Jazz had four days off in the first round was in 1992. How far back was that? Their opponent was the Clippers, whose coach was Larry Brown.

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The last time the Sonics had such a big layoff in the first round? Since the league went to the current best-of-five setup in 1984, they've never had more than three days of rest.

"I don't really like all this time off," said Miami's P.J. Brown, who will have to wait three days to play Game 3 against Detroit after playing the Pistons Tuesday. "It's too much of a gap. I'd rather keep playing and keep going. You get too much time off and a team can become lackadaisical, lose its rhythm and lose its momentum. We're a team that doesn't want too much time off."

Because who knows what kind of practice torture Pat Riley might come up with in the extra days off. The Heat's coach is even more vociferous in his opposition to the schedule.

"We're subject to the gods of television, but to stretch this out over two weeks is absolutely insane," he said. "It's losing its competitive edge. It's allowing guys to have more preparation. It's allowing people to almost get bored.

"Having two or three days off allows a player to become a person," he added. "During the playoffs, you don't want your players to become people."

Rim Shots II

One of Michael Jordan's North Carolina cronies says if Jordan promised Golden State assistant Rod Higgins the Wizards head coaching job earlier this season, Higgins will get the post. Jordan wanted Higgins to come in when he took over as team president in January, only to back off when the Warriors demanded compensation. "Michael's tremendously loyal," the Carolina connection said. "When he makes a promise, he keeps it." Jordan's friend also pooh-poohs rumors about Jordan having interest in St. John's coach Mike Jarvis. "Michael knows it takes a college guy a year or two to learn the NBA," he said. "I'd be shocked if he went that way." Jarvis is doing a good job of keeping his name out there for all available openings, though.

When Gary Payton and Vernon Maxwell had their infamous locker room battle late in the season, they weren't merely throwing weights and TV remote controls at each other. At one point, Payton picked up a TV set and chucked it at his teammate.

The GM grapevine reports that Eddie Jones would love to bolt Charlotte for Miami, but knows that a sign-and-trade deal with the Heat is nearly impossible. Also, latest on Tracy McGrady is that he's all but out of Toronto, to relocate to Orlando.

Don't be surprised if Don Nelson returns to the Mavs' bench to coach one more season. As one of Nellie's friends put it: "(Owner) Mark Cuban talks with money, and those are the words Nellie loves to hear."

Mitch Lawrence, who covers the NBA for the New York Daily News, writes a regular NBA column for ESPN.com.


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