FanHouse JohnKuester

The Pistons' head coaching search has narrowed, with the former favorite to secure the job now apparently out of the running.

Avery Johnson was perceived as the leading candidate for the position, considering the fact that Joe Dumars had said that after the Michael Curry debacle, he wanted someone with more experience to run the team this time around. But after two days of negotiations, ESPN is reporting that contract talks have broken off, and now two assistant coaches are believed to be the front-runners for the job in Detroit.

The Cavaliers have only played a single playoff game but they're already picking up the hardware: Mike Brown presented with the Red Auerbach Award honoring him as the NBA's coach of the year at a press conference in Cleveland earlier this afternoon.

FanHouse previews the first round of the NBA Playoffs.

The Pistons and Cavs have a lot of history together, which is fortunate, because that's the only thing that makes this series the least bit compelling. The Cavs finished the season as the most dominant team in the NBA, leading the league with a franchise record 66 wins and terrorizing opponents with an 8.9 point differential. The Pistons, on the other hand, posted their first losing record since 2001, winning just 18 times in their last 50 games. This could get ugly.

The Rotation is a weekly study on the NBA by one of our All-Star voices. In rotation this week is Tom Ziller.

An annual tradition regular as daybreak, as the season ends a pack of coaches are mercilessly hacked to pieces by fans, media and often their own bosses. A parade of potential replacements jumps aboard the carousel. They dance, they preen ... one of them wins. A year or two or (fingers crossed) three later, said doll gets torn apart. The cycle continues.

There was a switch this season, though: the bloodletting happened during the season, as a record eight coaches met the iron maiden between opening night and Valentine's Day. Is there anyone left to execute at season's end?

Well ... yes. Of course there is. After the jump, we tell you whom and guess their replacements.

The Magic and Cavs couldn't have picked a better time to play each other for the first time this season than last night. As if a game between a pair of teams with two of the top four records in the NBA wasn't enough, there was also the individual matchup between Orlando's Jameer Nelson and Cleveland's Mo Williams, two point guards vying for one spot on the Eastern All-Star bench.

The All-Star reserves were officially announced shortly before tip-off, and despite Williams' initial attempts to congratulate Nelson, Williams clearly felt the coaches got the vote wrong.