Chauncey Billups is 6-3, an All-Star guard for the Detroit Pistons. One of his nicknames is “Smooth.”

Kendrick Perkins is 6-10 and 280 pounds of hulking, plodding center for the Boston Celtics. He’s not a bad player, but he’s so nondescript he has no nickname, other than “Perk.” He’s such a banger that it might as well be “Tree” or “Oak.”

So when a defensive mix-up left Perkins covering Billups in the open court of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals Saturday, you could feel confident that Billups would cross up Perkins on a dribble and whip right past him.

It should happen 100 out of 100 times, even with Billups’ hamstring bothering him. At least if Billups is paying attention.

Naturally, he wasn’t, and Perkins, a man who is averaging 0.3 steals a game in his career, took the ball mid-dribble.

He stole it from Billups like he knew what he was doing. Of course, he didn’t really know what he was doing, evident when Perkins tried to dribble up court only to bounce the ball off his knee and get his feet tangled up like a center is supposed to in the open court.