<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Larry Brown is always going someplace. If you need to find him, just follow the crumbs of chaos. Nine months after hoisting the NBA championship trophy for the first time, Brown has overseen two of the more unseemly chapters in American basketball: the brawl in Detroit and the crumbling of a dynasty in Athens. Recently, he was vilified for calling the Knicks a "dream job," a harmless comment if not for Brown's notorious wanderlust and how bad his own team happened to be playing at the time. And here he is again, perched in first place, from celebrated to scorned and back again. "Winning heals everything," Pistons star Ben Wallace said. The Pistons' steady ascension has cast a new light on the upcoming postseason. The defending champions will not go down easily and may yet be the team to beat. Along the way, they are providing the only sense of order in the utterly bizarre Eastern Conference. By NBA rules, a team is guaranteed a playoff spot by winning its division. But it does not guarantee home-court advantage in the first round. Hence, the No. 3 seed in the East - likely the Atlantic Division champion - could open on the road against the No. 6 seed. "You know what that means?" said a member of the NBA coaching fraternity. "You'll get teams jostling for that sixth seed. You'll have teams trying to lose on purpose in order to play the No. 3 seed. Think about it. Near the end of the season, you might see a game end 0-0." David Stern, beware. "The thing that's weird is you might get a team that wins the division (in the Eastern Conference) with less than a .500 record, and have a team out here with a .500 record that doesn't make the playoffs," Brown said. "That's the thing that's strange. But it's been fun."</div> Source
