I looked through story after story yesterday morning, searching for the missing quote from Larry Brown.

Oh, the papers had plenty of comments from the Pistons’ coach after Detroit’s 92-86 Game 2 loss to Miami on Wednesday. And they all were technically true.

“All the things we did right down the stretch in Game 1, they reversed in this one,” Brown said. Can’t disagree with that. Miami broke open a tied game with a 7-0 run at the four-minute mark to provide the winning margin.

“We allowed them to get out in transition, especially early, and that’s something they didn’t do in the first game. “Yep, that’s somewhat true, too. Miami had 16 fast break points in Game 2 after garnering 11 in the opener.

The one post-game quote I didn’t see, however, is the one that would most accurately have summed it up. It would have gone something like this:

“I cost us the game in the second quarter. Because of my irrational insistence on yanking any starter who has two fouls for the rest of the half, I played virtually the entire quarter without Rasheed Wallace and Tayshaun Prince. For half the quarter, Elden Campbell was my center – even the Nets didn’t have a spot for him. No wonder my team only scored 13 points.”

In the first, third, and fourth quarters of Game 2, the Pistons outscored the Heat by a combined 83-79. They only lost the game because of a horrendous output in the second quarter – an output directly related to two of their best players being stuck on the bench.

Prince picked up his second foul toward the end of the first quarter and Brown kept him on the pine for the entire second frame as punishment. This forced Detroit to fill the backcourt with Lindsey Hunter and Carlos Arroyo, neither of whom are ready for prime time.

But things really got ugly when Wallace picked up his second foul with 9:36 remaining in the half and proceeded to watch from the sidelines until the third quarter began. At first, Antonio McDyess replaced him, which wasn’t a big downgrade. But a mere 40 seconds later, McDyess picked up his second foul, and Brown inexplicably sat him, too. In came Elden Campbell. And up went Miami’s lead.

Late in the quarter, Brown relented and allowed McDyess to re-enter the game, which at least stopped some of the bleeding. But by then it was too late – the Heat had piled up a double-digit lead and went into the break with an 11-point cushion. Detroit staged a valiant rally in the second half to make a game of it, but ultimately it was too great a deficit to overcome.

It was all because Brown was so terrified of his players getting into foul trouble that he let the scrubs have the court in the second quarter. I suppose you can say it “worked,” since none of his players fouled out, or even came close. But as a result of Brown’s strategy, the Pistons still had several unused bullets in the chamber when the game ended.

Rasheed Wallace played only 29 minutes, while Prince reached 36 only by playing the entire second half. Each finished with four fouls, so they were never in danger of fouling out. McDyess, the Pistons’ best sub, played a measly 17 minutes – and had only two fouls to his name when the game ended. In other words, Brown easily could have enabled his team to stay close by playing Prince, Wallace, and especially McDyess in that fateful second quarter.

For a reality check, look at how Miami coach Stan Van Gundy handled the same situation. Shaquille O’Neal picked up his second foul and left the game with 10 minutes left in the second quarter, but he returned at the 6:50 mark. It wasn’t until Shaq got tagged with no. 3 at the 3:51 mark that Van Gundy got worried and sat him for the rest of the half. He handled Alonzo Mourning the same way, yanking ‘Zo with 1:51 to go in the half after the backup center picked up a third foul. Michael Doleac finished up the half at center, but they only needed him for two minutes.

Now imagine Brown coaching the Heat in the same scenario. When Mourning picked up his second foul at the 6:56 mark, Brown would have had him sitting next to Shaq on the bench. Doleac would have played the final seven minutes of the half, and it would have been completely unnecessary. Neither Shaq nor Mourning fouled out of the game, and Van Gundy got a healthy 55 combined minutes from them. By comparison, Wallace and McDyess played just 46.

So even though Shaq and Mourning were “in foul trouble” and Wallace and McDyess “avoided foul trouble,” which team suffered more? Isn’t it “trouble” because it keeps a player off the court? Larry Brown evidently doesn’t think so. His cure is worse than the disease.

In the big picture, the Pistons missed out on a great chance to mortally wound the Heat. Had Detroit won a second straight game on Miami’s home court, the Heat’s odds of advancing to the NBA Finals would have been virtually nil. Instead, we’re deadlocked at a game apiece, and now the Pistons need to hold serve at the Palace this weekend to maintain the upper hand in the series.

It’s so shocking to see Detroit throw away this opportunity considering that Brown is, in most respects, a fantastic coach. His team’s defensive intensity is amazing, his players always share the ball, and he’s among the best ever at designing plays out of a timeout.

That’s also what makes Brown’s insistence on implementing this misguided strategy so maddening. If it were somebody like Tim Floyd or John Lucas doing this, we would just write it off to the coach being a knucklehead and move on. But what do you say when one of the greatest coaches of all time is doing it? It’s like a giant blind spot of irrationality embedded in an otherwise exceptional coaching mind.

If I were Stan Van Gundy, here’s what I’d do in Game 3: As soon as a Pistons starter picked up a foul, I’d run every play at him until he picked up his second. Can you imagine how this strategy would play out if Ben Wallace or Chauncey Billups picked up a second foul three minutes into the first quarter? One has to think Van Gundy will try real hard to find out.

The Pistons still have the advantage in this series by virtue of their Game 1 win. But they’ll find it difficult to defend their home court in Games 3 and 4. Shaq has three days off to rest his injured thigh, and it appeared as though Dwyane Wade had figured out Detroit’s defense by the end of Game 2. So if Detroit does end up being dethroned by the Heat, the shenanigans in the second quarter of Game 2 will loom large as a reason why.