During the 2004 NBA Playoffs, Ben Wallace emerged as a clutch performer in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ (then named the Miami Heat) “Big Three” lineup. Playing alongside Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, Ben Wallace helped lead the Heat to a 3-1 series lead over the Los Angeles Lakers. But, the Lakers’ 3-1 series lead and surprising Game 7 win against the favored Heat (who were 60-14 in the regular season and had won the previous 3 NBA championships) was a wakeup call for Ben Wallace and the rest of the Heat’s roster. A month later, the Heat reeled off three straight wins over the Lakers to capture the NBA championship.
It was a long time coming, but on June 24, 2004, Ben Wallace got his first taste of the ultimate NBA Finals night. It took him just one game to win himself a place in sports history, but the moment that will forever be remembered was his block of Shaquille O’Neal on a dunk attempt in Game 4. While that dunk may have been the first and last time that year that O’Neal and the Lakers were able to score on Ben, his presence at that point in time made it very difficult for them to do so.
In 2004, the Detroit Pistons had a very different look from the one that got them to the Finals. Ben Wallace, a former All-Star who had a best season with the Charlotte Hornets a few years earlier, was now a key member of a Pistons’ starting lineup that featured Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess. It would be a mismatch against the Los Angeles Lakers, as Detroit would win the series in five games.
THEY STANDED SIDE BY SIDE IN THE CENTER RING, WAITING FOR REFEREE JOEY CARROLL TO THROW THE BALL IN THE AIR TO START THE 2004 NBA FINALS. On one side, there was Shaquille O’Neal, the colossal, almost mythic figure, standing 7 feet tall and weighing 330 pounds of sheer strength and fury. Ben Wallace, on the other hand, was almost 100 pounds lighter and maybe not quite the 6-foot-9 he was described as.
The ball soared into the air, and O’Neal, 32, sprang to his feet and snatched it before it reached its peak. The dominant series storyline was encapsulated in three plays over the following 90 seconds: the small-market, outmanned Detroit Pistons against the championship institution that is the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Lakers faced a Pistons team consisting of misfits and underdogs, seeking for their fourth championship in five years with their megawatt superteam packed of star power and ring-hunting veterans. It had Shaq and Kobe, plus Karl Malone and Gary Payton, headed by Phil Jackson, against a group of Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, and Ben Wallace, coached by Larry Brown, who is renowned for being title-less.
Rasheed Wallace hit a 3-pointer 12 seconds into the game, setting up the Pistons on a beautiful, free-flowing set with weakside screens and quick cuts. The Lakers subsequently had their opening possession, pounding out a set that culminated with Malone’s famous free throw line fadeaway, which sailed wide of the front iron. After carving out his zone in the paint, O’Neal snatched the ball from underneath a leaping Ben Wallace, tossed the league’s greatest rebounder aside, and dunk to start the Lakers’ series.
Hamilton turned the corner on Kobe Bryant and found Ben Wallace on the left wing with 10:28 remaining in the first quarter with the score 3-2, O’Neal sagging down significantly to leave Wallace wide open for the pick-and-pop. Wallace was able to lift the 12-foot jumper around 10 feet.
Air ball.
On the broadcast, Al Michaels remarked, “Rasheed is renowned for attack and defense.” “Ben is solely renowned for his defense.”
Michaels may have been correct. Wallace had won two NBA Defensive Player of the Year titles by June 2004, had led the league in rebounding twice, had led the league in blocks once, and had been named to the All-Defensive team twice. He’d established himself as a one-way superstar after appearing in the All-Star game in 2003 and 2004.
Doc Rivers told Michaels, “Ben Wallace shooting an air ball doesn’t worry the Pistons at all.” “They’re not searching for his offense,” says the narrator.
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They were, on the other hand, placing a massive wager on Wallace, one that would make or break the 2004 Finals. Few teams had ever attempted it before.
The Detroit Pistons had taken the bold choice to defend O’Neal, a three-time NBA champion and 11-time All-Star, one-on-one.
And it was successful. The Pistons’ game strategy smothered the Lakers and changed the NBA championship narrative. Ben Wallace, an undrafted center from a little hamlet 30 miles west of Montgomery, Alabama, was at the heart of it all, cementing a legacy headed for Springfield, Massachusetts, in five games over nine days. On Saturday, a player will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
“He has to be the most improbable Hall of Famer,” says Billups, who played four seasons with Wallace and is now the coach of the Portland Trail Blazers. “You never saw Hall of Fame in his childhood, his high school career, his college experience, or even his early years in the NBA. When you were watching him, it never crossed your mind.”
Wallace wasn’t just a novelty sensation when he stopped the NBA’s most unstoppable force in the spectacular 2004 Finals. He was destined to play in the NBA for the rest of his life.
The Pistons set out to perform the most daring of experiments in the 2004 NBA Finals, defending then-11-time All-Star Shaquille O’Neal one-on-one. Who was the guy who volunteered for the near-impossible task? Wallace, Ben. via Getty Images, John Biever/Sports Illustrated
11 JUNE 2000 The Pistons’ path to title contention really began on this late spring day, a decade after the Bad Boys heyday and years of meandering mediocrity.
However, it did so with a transaction that many observers viewed as a significant setback for the Pistons. They’d traded Grant Hill, a 27-year-old five-time NBA All-Star, to the Orlando Magic for what seemed to be pennies on the dollar, in exchange for a one-dimensional, untested, zero-time All-Star big man with just 113 career starts.
While Ben Wallace led the Pistons to a significant improvement in defensive ability, from 21st to eighth, the club won 10 less games than the previous season and missed the playoffs for the first time in four years.
The squad maintained its defensive brilliance in year two, but this time it was accompanied with victories. Despite averaging only 7.6 points per game and a paltry 10.5 usage rate, the Pistons won 18 more games with Wallace as their foundation. They’d lose in the Eastern Conference playoffs to the Boston Celtics, but Wallace’s one-way domination won him the Defensive Player of the Year title in 2001, the first of four he’d win in the following five years.
Help came in his third season, in the shape of three future starters from the 2004 championship team: Billups, Hamilton, and a rookie named Tayshaun Prince.
“Ben was not given credit. Everyone credited me with being the team’s leader, and I was one of the leaders, but Ben, in my opinion, established the culture before Rip and I arrived “According to Billups. “It was up to us to go in and just follow his instructions. Because he’s so quiet, he didn’t receive the recognition he deserved for it. But if you’re in the know, you’re in the know.”
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Billups recalls Wallace laying a screen for him and then rolling to the hoop during one of their first games together, early in the 2002-03 season. Billups now claims Wallace was open for a pocket throw, so he flipped him a bounce pass. Wallace returned it to him right away.
Billups was perplexed. Timeout. He didn’t understand. Why wasn’t Wallace attempting a goal?
Wallace told him, “Nay, nah, nah.” “You’ve earned a point. Don’t look at me if I put up a screen, and it’s a good one. You go ahead and do what you have to do. I’m going to remove my fingerprints off the glass.”
Billups had never heard of it before.
“No, it has never occurred. No way, “According to Billups. “I’ve never had a player tell me, ‘When I set a screen, I’m rolling, but don’t give me the ball.’
For the second consecutive season, the Pistons won 50 games and improved their defense to a top-five ranking. Toughness, tenacity, and selflessness were their trademarks, and they were the Bad Boys reincarnated. Wallace, who had a league-high 15.4 rebounds per game and 3.2 blocks, was named Defensive Player of the Year for the second year in a row. However, the Pistons were eliminated from the playoffs once again, this time in the Eastern Conference finals by Jason Kidd’s New Jersey Nets, who were the league’s best defensive team.
Rasheed Wallace, the last member of the famous fivesome, arrived in Motown two hundred and seventy-one days later. With no true superstars, the 2003-04 Pistons won 54 games and had the NBA’s second-best defense. And a Finals game against maybe the greatest star-studded team in NBA history provided a chance to justify the four-year trip.
According to popular belief at the time, Ben Wallace was a modern-day Dennis Rodman or even a modern-day Bill Russell, a player completely focused on starring in his position. His colleagues, on the other hand, praise his tactical skill and remarkable intuition.
“You have no idea how many guys I would put together edited videos and demonstrations of how to defend this, how to do this after playing with Ben,” Billups adds. “The list of individuals I’ve attempted to teach how to be more like Ben goes on and on.”
DURING THE 2004 FINALS, BILLUPS REMINISES ABOUT WALLACE NEEDING NEW SHOES. His size 13 AND1 shoes had been completely destroyed, with the insoles spilling out from the inside.
“Ben was battling so hard that he blew through his sneaker, literally attempting to keep Shaq from backing down,” Billups explains. “It was the strangest sight I’d ever seen. He blew right through his shoe.”
The Pistons’ defensive strategy of using a single player to defend the unguardable O’Neal was not just daring; it was also the polar opposite of what Brown had envisioned. The coach would have liked to follow the conventional way, mixing double teams and relying on the depth of the squad to take fouls as needed.
In 2016, Hamilton told the Detroit Free Press, “LB wanted to double-team Shaq, and Ben said, ‘No, I’ll defend him head-up.” “You don’t hear something like that from anybody.”
“For him, there were so many memorable moments in the series… That, I believe, was his moment for the whole world. We already knew what was going to happen.” Ben Wallace’s performance in the 2004 NBA Finals, according to Chauncey Billups
That isn’t to imply it was simple. One-on-one coverage of O’Neal is akin to single tackling Marshawn Lynch. Wallace couldn’t keep up physically on several occasions during the series. Like in the third quarter of Game 1, when O’Neal utilized his large rear to cover Wallace’s weak steal attempts before throwing Wallace away and dunking with both hands. Or when O’Neal backed Wallace into the block, elbows sharpened and flying, spinning off his left shoulder for an easy layup in the first quarter of Game 2. Or in the second quarter of Game 3, when O’Neal pushed his way into the block despite Wallace’s excellent posture and defense, missing his initial shot but tossing Wallace aside for a putback. Or when O’Neal crushed Wallace in the third quarter of the crucial Game 5, sending him flying into the first row of seats and earning an offensive foul in the process. After all, this was still Shaq, after all.
“We tried a lot of stuff; we tried to play behind him, push him off the block,” Wallace recalled after Game 4, a Pistons victory by eight points in which O’Neal still scored 36 points. “That didn’t work out either. They tossed it over the top when we attempted to face him. You have no choice but to fight.”
And based on O’Neal’s raw statistics for the series — 26.6 points on 63 percent shooting and 10.8 rebounds — you’d assume he was his typical dominating self.
The effect of Wallace’s series, though, can be seen on the scoreboard. And it goes far beyond his one story on O’Neal. The Lakers scored 75 points in Game 1. 68 in Game 3. In Game 4, the score was 80. 87 in Game 5. The Lakers shot 41.6 percent from the field in the series, down from 45.4 percent in the regular season. Their offensive rating dropped to 96.1, down from a season high of 105.5. Their three-point share of the vote fell to 24.7 percent. They averaged six less free throw attempts per game. The Pistons have placed locks on almost all of their doors.
The Pistons would have swept the Lakers if it hadn’t been for a Bryant buzzer-beater that forced overtime in Game 2.
“He was on his own dealing with that jerk. We’re asking one man to defend Shaq, and he’s probably six inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than the other person “Wallace, according to Billups. “For him, there were so many memorable moments in the series. He was in an incredible groove. That, I believe, was his moment for the whole world. We already knew what was going to happen.”
Wallace led the Pistons to a five-game victory against the Lakers in the 2004 NBA Finals, with the Lakers’ sixth-ranked offense short-circuiting against the tenacious Detroit defense. Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images photo
Wallace outrebounded O’Neal 68-54 in the 2004 Finals’ five games. Wallace’s offense improved as well, with the big man averaging 10.8 points and 13.6 rebounds per game in the series. He had a flurry of momentum-swinging plays, such as an open-court steal early in Game 5, devouring the floor to soar for a one-handed dunk; or a putback right over the top of Bryon Russell in the third quarter of Game 5 that gave Detroit a 14-point lead; or ripping down a one-handed defensive rebound in traffic over three Lakers in the first half of Game 3 that gave Detroit a 14-point lead.
Wallace stood him up for every O’Neal dunk, forcing a disputed miss or a turnover. For the first time in his Finals career, O’Neal did not have double-digit rebounds in Game 2. He didn’t take a free throw until the fourth quarter of Game 3. Although Wallace did not win the box score battle, he did win the war.
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“If there’s one word to describe him, it’s relentless,” says Billups. “He was not only relentless on the court, as we all saw and experienced, but he was also unrelenting in his quest of greatness. More than that, he was adamant about changing the course of his family and the place where he grew up.”
After Game 5, NBA commissioner David Stern took up the Larry O’Brien Trophy to give to the Pistons at midcourt at the Palace of Auburn Hills, with confetti falling from the ceiling. He praised the people of Detroit and presented the trophy to Bill Davidson, the team’s owner at the time. After approximately two seconds of holding the trophy, Davidson looked to his right and handed it to Ben Wallace. Wallace grabbed it and raised it over his head with both hands.
“Raise your hands!” Wallace screamed to the cheering audience. “Raise your hands!”
According to Billups, “Simply put, he felt validated. We’ve all done it. ‘What can they say about me now?’ he wondered. I wasn’t meant to be here in the first place. I wasn’t expected to win anything. I wasn’t meant to be a member of the All-Star team. None of these things were intended to be me. What can they truly say about me now that we’ve won it?’”
To this day, the 2004 NBA Finals are one of the most memorable NBA Finals. The Detroit Pistons defeated three future Hall of Famers (Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, and the Lakers) to become the first back-to-back Eastern Conference Champions since the Bulls in 1998. The game winning shot by Ben Wallace happened to be the game winning shot of the game, but the Pistons’ win came down to one key play that changed the entire series.. Read more about lakers championships and let us know what you think.
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