They were the answer to a question the league had not been asking. In an era of one-superstar dominance, Detroit assembled five All-Stars and no superstar — and beat the Lakers in five.
Chauncey Billups was Mr. Big Shot because every shot he took late in a game was big. Rip Hamilton ran around screens until the defense was tired and then ran around two more. Tayshaun Prince had the longest arms in the league and used all of them to chase down Reggie Miller's layup, the play that pulled them through the gate to a title.
Rasheed Wallace arrived in February of 2004 and changed the math. He could guard fives, shoot threes, and ball was always lying when he said it had been. Ben Wallace anchored everything from the inside. He won Defensive Player of the Year four times. He deserved a fifth.
Larry Brown, who had been everywhere, said this was the team that played the right way. They denied the strong-side. They closed out. They cut. They moved without the ball. They guarded everyone on the floor and were genuinely surprised when an opposing offense scored.
They won the 2004 title in a five-game annihilation of a Lakers team featuring Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone, and Gary Payton. The series was not close. It only looked close because Detroit, which never ran up scores, had no need to.
They went to six straight conference finals — 2003 through 2008 — which sounds like the dynasty it nearly was. They did not win another title. The 2005 Finals against San Antonio is on the short list of seven-game series that should have ended differently.
The lesson is the lesson Detroit teams keep teaching: a roster that can defend, pass, and trust each other can beat anybody once. To beat them twice in a row, you have to dismantle the building blocks of a city.