Ahh, those good ol’ lackadaisical Pistons are back, chiming in like clockwork- and just in time for the playoffs!

“We’ve been here before. A lot of guys on that team, it’s their first time.”

“We’re going to be all right. We have been here before.”

“I thought the mood was good today.”

All prime examples of what Pistons fans have had to listen to for the last three postseasons.

Well maybe the mood shouldn’t be good.  We got showed-up, at home, on national TV, tisk tisk.

And yes, I fully understand that the Pistons’ way of dealing with stress is to reminisce upon all the times they’ve been in a hole before.

This just in: you were in a hole last year in Cleveland.  Did you get out?  No.  You got manhandled in front of a gleaming sports world that was already opening its arms for a LeBron James bear-hug.

Maybe it would help if a Pistons’ press conference went like this:

“We’ve been here before.  Yeah, we blew it last year when we let our guard down, but we learned from our mistakes.  We’ll try to bring a playoff intensity as well as a respect for our opponent’s abilities in Game 2.”

Barring the presence of a “superstar” that takes 30 shots each game, the Sixers bear one too many similarities to the ‘07 Cavs.  No, there’s no Gibson, Gooden, or Pavlovic.  But there is Evans, Young, and Green, seemingly evolving before our eyes.

Is it going to take a team-dismantling, sending half the team their seperate ways, to get the Pistons to realize that the lull of the regular season is over?

No more blowouts, no more easy wins. This is real.  They knew it in ‘04, they knew it in ‘05, what happened?  Now they reminisce.  They reminisce like old men playing shuffleboard at a country club reminisce about their glory days on the front lines.

Wake up, Pistons.  I don’t want another LeBron James or Daniel Gibson coming out of the woodwork.  Put the past behind you, because if this series turns out like last year’s Eastern Conference Finals, you’re in for a long summer.