When the Spurs sweep the Cavaliers tonight, the biggest loser of the series might not be the Cleveland Cavaliers, or even anyone who had to sit through all four games. It is Flip Saunders. It has become glaringly obvious that the Pistons absolutely blew the Eastern Conference Finals and the blame HAS to fall squarely on Flips Saunders’ shoulders. The media was so focused on Lebron’s unbelievable game 5 as well as The Chosen One fulfilling his prophecy to become the face of the league, Flip only got mildly criticized for egregious coaching mistakes. Everyone was so giddy about Lebron, they just chalked up the Pistons collapse to the genius of Boy Wonder. The hype saved Flip from serious criticism, but as everyone watches this horrible mismatched finals, it’s painfully clear Flip absolutely butchered that Cavs series as well as cost the league a much more competitive and entertaining finals.

Game 5 of the conference finals really needs to be looked at again. Lebron was, of course, “a raging inferno”, as Charles Barkley put it, making every conceivable fade away jump shot and drive to the lane. But the telling plays came with less than a minute left when Cleveland was down and with the ball. Lebron easily blew by Taysoun Prince two times in a row and threw down power dunks. I mean this is the Eastern Conference Finals! Game 5 with less than a minute to go and you give up back to back dunks!?! This has probably never happened in the history of the NBA. In between being giddy about what they had just seen TNT analysts Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley kept repeating to Reggie Miller, “you need to double or triple team,” with Reggie saying there’s no way to stop him. But watch exactly how easy it was for him:

Let’s not forget last year the major contention between Ben Wallace and Flip Saunders was defense. Everyone talked about how Ben Wallace was upset he wasn’t included very much in the offense, but the only time he ever said anything publicly about the coach was when they were about to lose to the Heat in the Conference Finals, “We’re not focusing on defense enough.” He claimed they spent all practice working on offensive plays and not worrying about defensive schemes and rotations.

Now cut back to these NBA Finals. The Spurs have held Lebron to 22-61 and he has yet to take over a game, but most importantly there have been ZERO dunks in the lane. Besides those two famous throw downs in the final minute of game 5, Lebron had posterized the whole Pistons team for the entire series. Almost every game he had a rim rattling dunk in the lane over Tayshwun or rasheed Wallace. The Spurs simply took away the lane by having a second or third defender anchored there every time he gets by the first guy. Obviously it’s not easy to stop Lebron James, but his team is so weak, it’s not exactly rocket science either. Now watch how much trouble Lebron has every time he drives to the lane against the Spurs. It is like night and day.

The Spurs may be the best defensive team in the league, but Detroit is no slouch. They got to back to back finals on defensive principles used by players who know how to play defense. The players are there, but it’s the coaching that’s missing.

Now go back to the pistons series and compare the lineups side by side.

PISTONS                                            CAVS
G Richard Hamilton                              G Larry Hughes
G Chauncey Billups                               G Sasha Pavlovic
F Tayshaun Prince                                F LeBron James
F Rasheed Wallace                                F Drew Gooden
C Chris Webber/Antonio McDyess    C Z. Ilgauskas/A. Varejao

It’s almost a joke. The pistons have a DISTINCT advantage at 4 out of 5 positions. The only better player the cavs have is LeBron and he is going up against Tayshaun Prince, a premier defender and automatic mismatch where ever he goes. With his extreme length, one could make the argument he’s the best matchup defensively against LeBron in the league. Regardless, even if Tayshaun was the worst player on the floor, is there ever a scenario when one team has 4 out of the 5 best players on the floor should ever lose a playoff series? I can’t think of one.

Flip Saunders has always had the label of not being a good playoff coach, but here was always an excuse. Never had the players (first few Minnesota years), got unlucky (ran into shaq on both the Lakers and Heat), plus he’s gotten to the conference finals twice before this year. But he put the nail in the coffin by not even coming close to finding an answer for James. To lose four games in a row in the conference finals to a team that starts Larry Hughes and Sasha Pavlovic against Billups and Hamilton is a disgrace. Sportscenter has a nice cover story because LeBron won, but we were deprived of a much more entertaining finals because of Flip Saunders.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer