Many said that the best chance that the Pistons had to get a game on the Cavaliers was on Friday night at the Palace of Auburn Hills. For the Cavaliers, they wanted to make sure that they kept their foot on the throat of Detroit with a win to make it 3-0 in the best of seven series. Consider it mission accomplished for the team from Cleveland, who did exactly what they had to do, leaving Auburn Hills with a physical, hard fought 79-68 win.

The victory means for all intensive purposes that the Cavs will be moving on in the 2009 NBA Playoffs, as no team in the history of the league has ever come back from a 0-3 deficit. The game had a much different tempo than games one and two, as both teams played much more physical defense, to the point where the Cavs only managed 9 third quarter points.

LeBron James led the way with 25 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists. As he usually does against the Pistons on the road, he was aggressive and took it to the hoop early and often. Zydrunas Ilgauskas added 13 points, but the key player other than LeBron was Joe Smith, who was an impressive 6-for-8 from the field and had 19 points. He also added 10 rebounds, showing just why the Cavs made the move to grab him at the deadline.

The Cavs led by 7 at the half after an 18 all tie after the first quarter, but Detroit came back with a big third quarter, making it a tie game after outscoring Cleveland 16-9. With it being crunch time, the Cavs leaned on who they always go to – James.

LeBron was a key as he had 11 fourth quarter points, two of which started the fourth quarter with a turnaround jump shot, and later on in the quarter he had a big dunk that gave the Cavs a commanding 73-60 lead with 5:04 remaining. Ilgauskas hit a three on the next Cavs possession to make sure that Detroit had no chance to come back, as it made it 76-60 with 4:26 to play.

The Pistons played their best game of the series by far, but it was still no match for the Cavs, as now Cleveland can really start to set their sights on either the Hawks or Heat in the second round. Rip Hamilton had a team-high 15 for the Pistons. Game four of the series will be Sunday at Auburn Hills at 3pm Eastern.