Original subtitles

You should erase the labels that you've given us and the names that you

called us.

All those people who said we were thugs, vicious.

If you're winning, you're going to affect people's emotions.

Let's face it, most people care what everyone else thinks about them.

Are you from Chicago?

I'm from Chicago.

Okay, fine. Get the hell out of here then. People really don't want to give

us any credit.

Most people want everyone else to like them.

To the people that say we're thugs and goons, I say kiss my entire... Somebody

has to wear the black hat, but we embraced it. We didn't run from it. But

what if your job isn't about everybody liking it?

It's about beating the guys that everybody else loves.

We were the most devastating in the most devastating era.

This is the story of a team that a few of us loved, and the rest of you

couldn't stand.

This is the story of one of the best teams in basketball history.

You got a problem with me saying that?

Well, get comfortable.

There's one thing that we always say.

The film don't lie.

We've been

called

the bad boys of basketball.

We're nice guys really.

Welcome to Detroit, Michigan.

Once upon a time, the richest city in America.

There's a lot of history here.

But let's start out about a half century ago, at the height of the 60s, when it

looked like everything in America might explode.

And in Detroit, it got real hot.

When the 67 riots happened, it was basically on my doorstep.

There was a glow about our neighborhood.

The buildings that you grew up in were gone. The neighborhoods that you loved

were gone.

And to me, that's when life changed.

It just sort of changed the psyche of everyone.

Suddenly everybody was scared and concerned about what was going on

downtown, and then people sort of stopped going down here, and it became a

place you didn't go. So the city changed dramatically from that point on. So 67

was really the point of demarcation.

A lot of people started heading to the suburbs after that, and our basketball

team followed them out.

In 1978, the Pistons moved to Pontiac, Michigan, and the 80,000-seat

Silverdome.

Imagine how empty the place felt when they were on their way to winning just

16 games in the entire 1979-80 season.

It was a way station for a lot of players.

Your goal once you got to Detroit in those days was to get out of Detroit.

There was no culture, and ownership decided that they definitely needed a

change. But it wasn't necessarily in the coaching as much as it was who was going

to be running the show, and that's when Jack McCloskey first came in.

When I got the job, I offered every guy on our team for Magic Johnson.

I said some of them were pretty good.

I was lying.

All of us in the organization sort of looked at it and said, boy, this is

dangerous. I mean, what are we getting here?

When the Pistons owner Bill Davidson hired him, Jack McCloskey had never been

a general manager before, only a coach.

But he wasn't afraid of pressure.

As a 19-year-old, he fought in the South Pacific in World War II as one of the

youngest skippers in the Navy.

There were times you had to make a decision on things that could depend on

life or death.

And you've got to be able to do it and not be holding back until chaos

comes.

At the 1981 NBA draft, It didn't look like McCloskey had a hard decision to

make. The Pistons had the second pick.

In high scoring, Mark Aguirre was going to go first to the Mavericks, which left

a sophomore point guard who just led Indiana to the national title up next.

His name was Isaiah Thomas.

Detroit picked second. Nets picked third.

Do you want to go Detroit, New Jersey? What do you think?

It don't matter to me. I'll play anywhere.

He's going to be diplomatic.

It was the right thing to say.

But Isaiah wanted no part in Detroit.

He wanted to go back to Chicago in the Bulls.

I was trying to drop in a draft.

I remember my interview. I remember I was sitting with Jack McCloskey, and

every question he asked me, I intentionally answered it wrong.

And finally, he said, you know what?

I don't care what you do in this interview. If you're there at number

two, I'm drafting you.

Isaiah was amazing.

His first game was just sort of magical. And he gets 31, and we win the game.

Game one, right? But we haven't won in a long time.

Game two, we go down to Chicago.

Isaiah, back home in Chicago, where they love him.

He goes for 28, and we win that game. Isaiah to the hoop. He hits it!

And you're going, my gosh, 19 years old. We have found somebody.

Quickly to Isaiah.

The kid is really going to be a great ball player in this league.

About game five, you know, team kind of goes back to where it was. He goes into

the locker room and ripped everybody a new one.

That heart was his biggest thing.

His toughness, his aggressiveness.

And I loved him for it.

Even though Isaiah and the Pistons could score a lot of points, they were soft in

the middle.

I was at a game in Cleveland.

And I kept looking at this big guy, this Lambert.

They were 20 down, and he still competed the entire game. I said, God, I

got to get this guy.

Technical file has been called on Bill Lambert.

Traitor Jack got Bill Lambert in 1982.

He had just as much fire as Isaiah Thomas, and he even lived in Chicago as

a kid, too.

But the similarities ended there.

The neighborhood I grew up in when I first started in Chicago was brand

spanking new. I mean, trees were just planted, and it was just their own

little neighborhood and their own little school district, and that was the extent

of what I knew.

What are you doing, Lonnie? What are you doing? It was nice and stable and secure

and no hassles.

Well, I don't recall there being a fight growing up.

My dad was president of a large conglomerate, and I never thought about

money when I was growing up.

My first year in Cleveland, I was drafted. My dad made more money than I

did.

I grew up on the west side of Chicago, and you woke up every day wondering

where were you going to get your next meal.

We had to fight for food.

This one kid was bigger than me, and he was beating me up every day.

I remember running into the house one day, expecting to get some sympathy from

my mother, and she said, you got to go back out there and fight them.

At that time, heroin went off in our community like a bomb, and my brothers

fell victim to it.

One died of a...

HIV, AIDS, and my other brother drank himself to death.

They would always say, you know, they were putting a spike in their arm.

Even though you're watching me do this, don't you ever do it.

They might have come to Detroit telling totally different stories, but Isaiah

and Lambeer wanted the exact same thing.

It doesn't matter how you arrive there.

One could be out of hunger, one could be out of wanting to keep what you got,

but... Being competitive is a singular trait, and those two guys had it in

spades.

Hated to lose.

That's the one thing they both had in common.

Both of them hated to lose.

Myself and Isaiah, we like to call it an obsession.

I drive off of fear of failure.

He does too.

It's just like a wall goes up. I mean, it's all about winning.

Isaiah dumps it off the lambeer. They say opposites attract.

We saw the game the same way.

Isaiah's in heavy traffic.

Holy moly. It was chess moves out on the floor.

Boy, they just poured it on. Great pass from Isaiah that time.

I'm one step ahead on the basketball court. He was always two steps ahead.

Isaiah still has a dribble right side.

If you get the ball, then you control the movement of nine other people.

They have to move to the ball. So when the defender is approaching

You size them up basically like a fight

Isaiah

was

he was it he was the one you know at least the one in my lifetime of anybody

that i could see that hitch my wagon to and make sure that he was successful

that would make us successful for the first time they had a face that married

the community and he was going to lead us to success and he was determined to

and he was charismatic nobody could do an interview like isaiah if somebody

would ask me isaiah what would you want your life to be like this would be it

He had a smile that would light up a room. You just had to like him, and

everybody did. He shakes, bakes, hipsy-do, put in the hoop, shoot the

jumper, play defense.

He was the smaller version of Magic. He was this cherubic type of leader, a

great player, but also kind of a mature diplomat.

Don't let that smile fool you. There was a very, very tough take-no-prisoners

personality.

behind that beautiful smile.

In 1984, the Pistons won 49 games, and Isaiah was first team All-NBA,

leading the league in assists.

And he had made it in more ways than one.

Isaiah bought his mom a house directly across the street where I used to live.

It has been a revival season for the Detroit Pistons.

We have about 20,000 people in here, and that's a far cry from the way it used to

be. In the first round of the 84 playoffs against the Knicks, Isaiah was

unstoppable.

In Game 5, after

dueling with Bernard King all night long, Thomas scored 16 points in the

last 94 seconds of the fourth quarter.

The Pistons lost in overtime, but that night, the NBA was put on notice.

Yeah, we used to be a laughingstock, but we're not anymore.

And you knew Isaiah was going to lead this team to something special.

The 83-84 season was also the first for the team under coach Chuck Daly.

McCloskey had hired him even though Daly had only run an NBA team once before.

and won just nine games in half a season.

As Bill Kreifeld said, the basketball is in your hands.

The fact that he lost in Cleveland wasn't because of him.

They didn't have any players.

I knew his temperament, too.

McCloskey and Daly went back years.

They'd each had great runs as coaches at the University of Pennsylvania.

And the Pistons' GM had a feeling his old friend was the perfect leader for

the team he was building.

Call them out. Call them out. Call them out.

Execute the screens.

It's a young club, one of the youngest clubs in all of the NBA.

Beyond that, it's quite a challenge.

People have to remember that at that time, there was basically coastal

royalty.

There was the East Coast team and the West Coast team, and that was all there

was.

Larry Bird and Magic Johnson had turned the NBA into must-see TV.

Look at Magic. Magic gets another assist.

Is he turning him on here?

They might have been the two biggest stars in sports. And together, their

teams had won four championships in five years.

It was sort of a joint monarchy.

Bird sat on one throne and Magic sat on the other.

And the reigning kings of basketball had exactly what Isaiah Thomas wanted.

He was friends with Magic Johnson, and he was a rival with Larry Bird, and

suddenly he was the guy in the middle that didn't have what these two guys

had. Isaiah got his first shot at Bird in the Celtics in the playoffs in 1985.

Bird, three-pointer, put it down.

Every time Bird touched the ball, we were scared.

That's Bird at his best.

My mother-in-law nicknamed his jump shot Silent Death.

Isaiah and the Pistons fought hard, but ultimately the Celtics were too good,

winning the series in six games on their way to another matchup with the Lakers

in the finals.

McCloskey knew he still had a lot of work to do.

The Celtics were the number one team that you focused on and says, we have

got to get enough talent and the toughness to defeat them.

Number 18 pick belongs to Detroit. Here's David Stern.

The Detroit Pistons select Joe Dumars of McNeese State.

It wasn't much of a reaction, but Joe Dumars III had quietly become the 11th

leading scorer in all of NCAA history.

Then again, the kid did pretty much everything quietly.

I'm looking forward to getting a chance to play with Isaiah.

He's a great guy, and I think there's a lot that I can learn from him.

When I was a freshman in college, I had a poster of Isaiah Thomas in my dorm

room.

Never thinking in a million years I'd ever play with it.

Now, Dumars was playing right next to his idol on the court, but his down-home

Louisiana humility came from another hero.

My dad was a World War II veteran, drove an 18-wheeler, and when I first moved

here, he said, keep that job. I'm like, I think I will, Pop.

The day before drafting Dumars, McCloskey also traded for some muscle,

and there was nothing quiet about this guy.

Oh, my God.

Cheek's got sunscreen.

He's flat on the floor.

It's a legal play, and it's a play that's used in the league all the time.

I'll tell you, there's probably nobody more effective at doing it.

Rick Mahorn was blue-collar, diesel-fueled, and had his own

philosophy on how to play the game.

It's just like speeding.

You're going to go five miles over, as long as you can get away with it. But

then you're going to get caught sometimes, but the majority of the time

you're going to speed.

So when I would take a little love tap here and get them out of the game,

that's good for us.

And it's slammed through by Mahorn.

I ain't like nobody.

Every time I saw Isaiah smile, I was like, oh, I'm about to get that smile.

You know, you see the smile, and I didn't like Isaiah.

I didn't like Lambert.

I couldn't stand Detroit.

I didn't want to come, so I didn't work out the whole summer.

Rick Mahorn, acquired from the Bullets in the offseason and about the size of

your average freeway overpass, has had problems.

He was fat and out of shape.

We told him in certain terms that that's not how we do business here.

He said, your job, telling me my job is to rebound and play defense, and I'm

sitting there looking at you.

People would come into our team, I'd set them straight, here's how we do

business, here's what's expected of you.

And if you don't, we got a problem, we're getting fights.

After losing in the first round of the playoffs in 86, the Pistons knew they

still needed more defense and more scoring down low.

And trainer Jack got both in one player.

Future Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley. It was a high-risk, high-reward move.

Things were written and said about you, like you couldn't play with Isaiah and

all you wanted to do was shoot the ball.

I knew I was going to a team where Isaiah Thomas ran the show.

So I was always wondering how that would work out.

My personality, I'm reserved.

Some people say stoic.

Don't trust people.

Always wondering what their agenda is.

But the two-time scoring champ was also just what the Pistons needed.

Dantley will be given the green light for this Pistons team.

Adrian was a great benefit to us.

He brought a professionalism, discipline, and he was big from that

standpoint. A.D., when you're shooting a free throw, what is it that you mumble

to yourself?

Talk to us, A.D.

It felt good. We had a good blend of personalities on the team.

I was a little bit more quiet.

Joe was a little bit more quiet.

To me, he completed us.

We needed somebody to be able to throw the ball to and go get a basket.

The Pistons' bread and butter is spelled A.D. We took a jump and became truly

contenders then.

The Pistons won 52 games in 87 and their first two playoff series, setting them

up for another crack at the Celtics. And they're on their way to the Eastern

Conference Finals.

But Adrian Dantley wasn't the only reason.

Joe Dumars went from idolizing Isaiah to becoming his perfect partner.

Vinnie Johnson, the microwave, always seemed to heat up just like that. Vinnie

with a follow at the home.

It goes.

Vinnie Johnson has won the game.

Rick Mahorn has slumped down.

and even made a new best friend, Bill Lambert.

And then, there were two other big factors no one saw coming.

Two guys who are unlike anyone else on the team.

Is my shirt too light? No?

I had three shirts, and I said, I didn't know what, when they said a warehouse, I

didn't know if I wore a lighter shirt, it would lighten my face or not.

How's it look?

Bad boys, John Sally, take one.

Long before he was Detroit's first round draft pick in 1986, John Sally was a kid

in Brooklyn going door to door as a Jehovah's Witness.

I'm trying to hang out with my boys and be like, you know, we're from Brooklyn.

But on a Saturday, I'm like, hi, I'm John Sally from the Watchtower and Track

Society.

I learned how to deal with, no, I'm going to sit the dog on you.

But you can diffuse a lot of things, too, coming in with a smile and a joke.

Sally was a lot different than Lambeer in Mohorn.

He was 6'11". He could run the floor like a don.

And then there was that personality.

This is Big Bad Bill.

Ladies and gentlemen, he's not that bad.

I did get in a fight with Bill Lambeer, but who doesn't?

Who doesn't want to kick his ass?

Not going to be able to, but... This was a complete adult team. I had to grow up

extra fast on this squad.

Growing up fast was something that Piston's second round pick in 86 knew

plenty about.

Well, me and my mother didn't really have the greatest relationship.

She never even came close to saying, I love you.

She couldn't show up because all she knew was abuse.

I've seen my mother been beaten. I've seen my mother been dragged across the

front lawn, and this guy was trying to run over with a lawnmower.

We saw it so much, we were so used to it.

She would come home mad sometimes, and if we'd do anything wrong, she would

really just... She would really try to just sort of whoop our ass.

It's very easy.

We didn't understand why, but it's like, okay, you know what?

Whatever, man.

There was no direction for me.

What I want to do in life? Well, I had nothing.

When he finished high school, Dennis Rodman went to work as an airport

janitor in Dallas.

And then he grew seven inches.

I played basketball like eight, nine hours a day.

All day long, man.

All day long. Didn't know what the hell I was doing. I was just playing.

Being six foot seven was enough to get on the team at Southeastern Oklahoma

State, an NAIA school.

Rodman was a 22-year-old freshman.

It's like it just came natural to me when I got tall just came, you know all

that noise In college if I like 2,000 people they were trying to do anything

I do like this I Was so happy just to be there People would get pissed like I'm

not trying to show you off. It's just so happy so excited My life was changing

When Dennis came in it was second-round pick second-round picks, okay big deal

But there was definitely something special about him. He had a year of

speed that nobody's ever seen before in the NBA.

He played basketball like

he was trying to get away from something that he never wanted to go back to. He

rebounded with a ferocity that just didn't make any sense.

Charles Barkley with the drive against the Triple-T block.

Look at Rodman. Where did he come from?

Rodman blocked it out of bounds.

Holy cow.

How about that?

All I want to do is watch and make people happy and just have a good time.

I didn't know anything but playing basketball. I didn't know anything about

life. Imagine this.

I was the crazy one with Dennis Rodman. And he was the quiet, sane.

Demure, great little kid that everyone loved.

He was really lucky to have Chuck as his coach because he encouraged him to be

who he was. And a lot of people wanted to tame him down. He's wild, he's this,

he's that.

And Chuck said, let him go.

Rodman's a free spirit.

Doesn't know anything except playing hard. I hope no one ever tells him.

My father looked upon him as someone that he could sort of put his arm

around, and their relationship and their bond just grew from there.

He used to tell me all the time, Dennis, I love you so much because you just, you

know, he says that you're just so full of life.

Chuck Daly might have become the father Rodman never had, but to everyone

else... He was just Daddy Rich.

This is Daddy Rich, better known as Chuck Daly, the man of the hour, too

sweet to be sour, a whole bunch of names to go along with.

John Sally said it best. Our coach dresses like a millionaire. We call him

Daddy Rich.

He was debonair, hot color. It was all about dressing with Chuck, and Daddy

Rich would look so clean.

I kept looking at Chuck's hair going, why couldn't that be my hair? Why

couldn't that be my hair?

The hair is always perfect.

And it would always be.

His cool, daddy-rich demeanor belied how competitive he was.

He wanted to win as badly as anybody.

Listen, here's what we want. Why? Listen, listen, get in there.

Chuck Daly was a master at the mental edge of getting guys to play.

It's a constant selling job.

I gotta have the defense.

They all have their own ideas what's good for them.

and you have to sell the idea of what's good for everyone.

He goes, I'm going to ask you a question. I want you to think long and

hard about it.

Do you want to win or do you want to have fun?

If you lose two in a row, I got to trade somebody, he would say. He would say,

Sal, don't make me leave you in Milwaukee.

There's no nightclubs you like going to in Milwaukee.

He didn't care what it took to motivate a guy as long as it worked to get him to

play better.

One of Chuck's favorite expressions was, I'm a second banana.

I'm lucky to be here. I'm just a guy from Punxsutawney. What am I doing here?

What am I doing? But privately, when he coached that team, he made them feel,

hey, we're as good as anybody here.

Well, get to church, pray a lot. We're facing Boston, first two games there.

They're one of the great teams of all time.

They've got everything going for them. But, hey, we're so happy to be there,

but we want to go at them.

There was the Boston Garden.

Where the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals were starting.

And where the home team always seemed to pull something out of its head.

It was that damn leprechaun.

That little leprechaun that was on the court.

The Celtics' 16th NBA championship had come the previous year.

Their 86 team is probably the best team ever.

Those are the guys that we were trying to beat.

And in the first two games, it didn't look too promising.

Dennis Rodman just went to Larry Bird University.

Whoa!

Starting to become a nightmare for Detroit.

Whoa!

Dennis Rodman just shot two air balls.

The Celtics are heading for Detroit up two. And the Pistons are going to have

to do some serious soul searching between now and Saturday afternoon.

Bill,

say look.

We got to go out there and set the tone.

Listen to this slap.

We may lose the game, but we ain't going to lose the fight.

I'd like to have a mental edge with their best player. That was Bird.

If you could break him, you could break their whole unit.

Now it goes to Bird in the corner.

And we're starting to see the bang-bang stuff now. Rodman is all over Bird. He

goes baseline, goes underneath.

Dishes off now to Bird.

There is a smiling, smiling knockdown by Lambert.

Oh, my.

A completely unnecessary foul by Lambert, and he pulled Byrne to the

ground. He slammed him to the ground.

The yellow gutless way they do things here. Now Isaiah Thomas is coming over.

You can see I was already up in the air, and I was coming down. I was going to

hammer him.

Lambert just takes him down.

And down we went.

Oh, well, it happens.

Bird is gone.

Lane Beer is gone.

The next afternoon, in game four, the Pistons continued the punishment.

Bird.

Lane Beer.

Here's the break.

Dantley.

The lead is 21.

20 for Dantley.

Bird right tackle by Lane Beer.

He gets the rebound.

Detroit get two more and a foul.

The Pistons' 145 points were the most ever in a playoff game against any

Celtics team in the franchise's storied history.

Bill, do you feel you've proved a point now by beating the Celtics twice in a

row here?

Well, we're a very competent basketball team.

You know, all we've got to do now is figure out a way to win on the Boston

Garden. That's the most important thing in our minds.

We go back to game five, we realize we can beat the Celtics.

We can steal one. This is our mentality. We can steal one in the garden.

We're hanging with the NBA's best, the Boston Celtics, and they're looking at

us real hard.

That was always the one that came out first, and there's always a leprechaun

out on the floor. I'd go out and spit right on the leprechaun, rub my foot in

it, and then go down and make a big dunk.

Away we went.

But in game five, Celtics had a message of their own from Lambert.

And there's a war going on between Lambert and Parrish. Nice play by Darren

Day. It doesn't fall. It's tipped by Parrish. He can't get it to fall, and

Parrish takes Lambert to the ground with a right forearm.

Well, they had said it was only a matter of time until somebody did this.

Lambert, they had it coming.

That's, you know.

He had it coming. And Parrish said, I had enough for you, Lambeer, and he just

let him have it. It was retaliation for what happened in the other game with

Larry Bird, but it wasn't going to stop me from playing.

Lambeer's on the ground, and Mike Abdenauer runs out and hits him with the

smelling salts.

And you know what the first thing Lambeer said was?

He went, they throw him out?

There were no ejections this time, but in the game's final minute...

The Pistons had a chance to get out of Boston with what they came for.

36 seconds to go. We're down one.

And I know it's coming to me.

Rebound Lambeer gets it off quickly to Isaiah.

Seasting bumps him a couple of times.

Isaiah nails it top of the key with 17 seconds to go. And the Celtics call

time. Thomas with a very big bucket.

I'm excited.

You know, our whole team's excited. We go to the bench. We know it's going to

Larry.

Detroit by one, 17 seconds. So Boston goes for the final shot.

EJ, left side bird.

Eyeball to eyeball with Mahorn. Goes baseline.

Nobody home. Rodman the block.

Out of bounds. Who's got it? Detroit ball with five seconds to go.

Now the play's over. We're celebrating, you know.

We won. We won.

Got him.

Got him.

Got him. We're going back to Detroit.

Five seconds to go.

Thomas wants to get it in quickly.

Everybody's looking around like, what do we do?

I look over and I see the official holding a basketball.

I run over and I panicked.

Bird comes out of nowhere.

I mean, it was like a streak of lightning.

They're going to give the ball to Detroit. Bird steals it.

Johnson, layup Boston, one second left.

It was over just like that.

At that point, did you want to call a timeout with five seconds left or just

get it over? No, I would have personally liked to have had a timeout, but we

didn't get it.

Were you aware they had a timeout left? Coach said he wanted to get a timeout.

I was aware we had a timeout left, but I didn't see anybody signaling for a

while, and I didn't think about the signal for a while. Excuse me.

Even though the Pistons would win in Detroit to force a Game 7, Their best

chance to win at the Garden had already been taken away.

And the focus was about to shift for Isaiah, the Pistons, and the sport to a

totally different issue.

and nine assists.

The Pistons had lost to the Celtics in seven games in the 1987 Eastern

Conference Finals.

And in Detroit's locker room afterwards, the questions were about the superstar

who dominated them again.

And then things got complicated.

It starts because an unsophisticated Dennis Rodman is asked about

Larry Bird, and let's be real.

It's probably the first time in Dennis Rodman's life that a white guy tuned him

up on the basketball court. Dennis Rodman just went to Larry Bird

University. Larry Bird was the god in the NBA.

You know, he's like the great white hope.

And I said, if Larry Bird was a black guy, he just would be a regular old

basketball player.

And I didn't realize what I said, you know.

And someone ran over with that comment and asked Isaiah Thomas, your teammate.

said something. Do you agree with it?

A very, very good basketball player.

I think he's an exceptional talent.

But I'd have to agree with Rodman.

If he was black, he'd be just another good guy.

Isaiah, who clearly had the sophistication, picked the wrong...

white guy to make his point.

Because Larry was the baddest boy on the planet.

If he was black, he'd be just another good guy.

All hell broke loose after that. And all the ire was focused on Isaiah.

That turned into reverse racism, racism. Everybody jumped on that.

Following Larry's statements, he's going to take off. He's got the game tonight,

and Isaiah will stay for questions.

It got so controversial that Bird and Isaiah held a press conference during

the finals between the Celtics and the Lakers to try to clear the air.

You know, just walking in this room and seeing everybody, it must have touched a

lot of people, and that's why we're here. We're trying to cover up for each

other. I think all of you who know me, who has ever interviewed me before,

Know that I joke and kid a lot so if you can

Was

a chance to be a statesman There was a chance to do

the right thing or the wrong thing Isaiah took course B. We lost

the game.

I got accused of being a racist and

I'm a bad guy now.

Isaiah tried to start digging himself out of the hole.

I even looked up the word racist.

Do you know the definition of that word?

All he was trying to do at that point was get away from this as quickly as

possible. And in his retreat, it got more confusing and more people piled on

him. And it just turned into one really big mess.

Isaiah, tell me about the laugh. Now, is that a sarcastic laugh or is that a

laugh of someone who's saying, you know exactly what I mean?

No, it's a very sarcastic laugh. I think anybody who knows me well... Do you

regret the comment?

I never made the comment.

Do you regret picking back on Dennis' comment?

I regret not being smart enough to never repeat someone else's

quote.

The comments' effect on Isaiah and his image was undeniable.

But for the team, the impact was totally different.

That was a turning point.

Isaiah really came to my rescue.

That right there was a telling moment for me and for the team that we would do

anything for each other. And the team really gelled together quickly.

You were either all in...

or you are out. There was no in-between.

No one liked me. No one likes Rick. People were starting to dislike Isaiah

more and more.

Okay, well then, use it to our advantage.

Nice guys finish last.

You know, sometimes the villain wins, and hey, it's kind of fun being a

villain.

Bill Lambert and Rick Mahorn became a WWE tag team.

There was a saying that we used to have called tap-tap.

When you say tap, tap, that means no layups.

Watch the drive. Mahorn just gives him a shove and knocks him out of the way. I

don't like that play.

I bumped into them, hit them, stopped them any way I could.

Players don't like that at all.

Ewing and foul hard.

With Mahorn, Lambert. I hated both of them. And there are no touch fouls at

all by these two guys.

You name it, they did it.

Illegal screens,

holes, scratch, elbow.

When Mahorn and Lambert were out there, your head was on a swivel because you

didn't know where it was coming from. You knew it was coming.

Wilkins picks it up on the baseline.

Lambert took him down hard.

Lambert, he didn't care what you thought when he hit you. I got knocked to the

floor, and Dantley extended his hand to help me up.

He slapped his hand away.

I take great pride in winning the mental battle. That's what all games are about.

You're so mad at him that you're off your game.

People hated his tactics.

But Lambert, he loved the booze. He loves the animosity.

That's what got him going.

Everything Lambert did was calculated.

It wasn't just, I'm just going to be a jerk because that's the way I am. And he

said, here's what I'm doing.

I'm taking pressure off the rest of those guys. I can take being hated.

Somebody has to wear the black hat.

Not everybody can be the best player, which I was not. But I could be the best

person on the basketball court that day because I outfought the other player.

The Pistons' style hadn't changed overnight, but becoming a title

contender had shined the light a whole lot brighter.

When you're the new guys coming up, quite naturally you're going to get the

label as being the rebel or the bad guys or whatever because you're trying to

dethrone Celtics or Lakers.

And then there was the guy who'd become the league's best individual player,

Michael Jordan of the Bulls.

When the Pistons went to Chicago midway through the 87-88 season, they decided

to send a message to him, too.

Michael Jordan comes to the hole. I follow.

All of a sudden, you got Oakley coming through.

We didn't get in a fight with the Bulls. Rick Mahorn got in a fight with the

entire Bull organization.

We were reading the paper, and they were talking about how, you know, we're

trying to hurt people, and Jordan had accused Mahorn of trying to end his

career and everything.

The media started getting on our case about we were too physical, and we were

destroying the way basketball was played.

They called us thugs, and this isn't good for the game, this isn't good for

the league.

We were being labeled as bad guys.

There's two ways you can react to the stereotypes.

Either we can use it to our advantage, or it's going to hinder us severely.

And we have been trying to fight it for so long.

Finally, we embrace it. Okay, we'll be like the Oakland Raiders.

You know, the old Oakland Raiders.

All of a sudden, these half a dozen boxes show up to the Silverdome.

We had to have that chip on our shoulder.

It was us against the league.

Either you love us or you hate us.

Every great team needs an identity.

You can't be great in this league and have zero identity.

Not only did we want to dominate you physically,

But we wanted to crush you mentally.

Nice look for Sally, got the bucket and drew a foul.

We wanted your whole city to shake when we walked through the door.

That's how tough that Detroit defense is. We wanted the fans to feel fear. The

story of this game, the Detroit defense.

Yeah, defense did it tonight.

We wanted them to be afraid of us because we were getting ready to destroy

their team.

And our motto was, okay, say hello to the bad boy.

Detroit loved them because they were Detroits.

From a fan standpoint, they were saying, I don't care if you're a miserable,

dirty, low-down dog, just as long as you're my miserable, low-down dog.

All the other teams are scared of them, and when they go up, they say, hey,

we're going up against Ricky, we're going to get hit. They're scared about

it, and then Ricky gives it to them, and the Pistons are number one, and they're

going all the way.

It caught on so quick.

There was something incredibly blue-collar about it. There was

something Detroit about it.

And transcended race and color.

Detroit just put their arms around it and said, I like this.

For the first time, you actually had an identity here.

In the 1988 playoffs, the Pistons would face Jordan in the Bulls in the second

round. The bad boys against the scoring champ and league MVP.

Look at the air. Look at the hang time. Look at the flying motion.

Not to mention, a guy doing it right down the street from where Isaiah Thomas

had grown up.

Isaiah was probably one of the most popular athletes in Chicago.

Jordan took Chicago away from him almost immediately.

He's being booed just like Bill Lambert in his old hometown.

Family and friends would just be straight up with you like, I want the

Bulls to win.

And, you know, your job was to...

Basically break everybody's heart the Pistons dropped Jordan in the Bulls in

five quick games and Up next was another shot at the Celtics we

became obsessed with how do we beat them and No matter what was going on through

the season We were keeping an eye on Boston to see what they were doing you

play the Celtics They bring out the best in you and the worst in you and make you

a better person and a better player if you're going to go through them.

The team split the first four games, and again, the Pistons came back to the

garden looking to grab the edge.

This time, not just with more experience, but more confidence.

Game five in Boston, I remember all of our guys saying,

blank the leprechaun, we're winning this series.

Isaiah sideline, left pocket, four and a half, three. Tries for a dribble.

It's through!

The Pistons grab game five, and they grab the home court advantage from the

Boston Celtics.

Now, up 3-2 in the series, the Pistons had a chance to close it out in their

24th game against Boston in just two years.

Game six in Detroit, Chuck erases everything on the board, and he went, if

you don't know this stuff right now, what are we doing here?

The Celtics with Ainge pushing it up. Goes the distance. Blocked by Rodgers.

And a four-on-two for Detroit.

Dumars makes a cup shot. Great play by Dumars.

Bird against Danley.

Blocked by Sally.

All of us really felt good. The place was going crazy that night.

There was no question defense was the difference.

Here's a steal by Thomas. He stripped Danny Ainge.

Boston scored 14 fewer points a game than the previous year.

The Celtics dynasty was over.

McHale and Thomas.

What a picture that is.

This was the passing of a torch thing. It really was.

Most of the players walked off. They just left the building.

And that was okay because we finally got past them suckers.

The Celtics starters are leaving the floor now.

When they was finally like leaving, you were like, we might win.

but she still wasn't sure.

They have beaten the Boston Celtics in six.

They taught us a lot about mental toughness and how to win, and it was

good to vanquish them.

That stranglehold that they had had on the NBA for many years was broken.

The Pistons are on their way to the NBA Finals.

Oh, you want to have a contest?

John Sally always talks about how Arsenio Hall is his best friend, but

when he said he was going on the show, all he was in the stands.

The win over the Celtics had even put Bill Lambert in a joking mood.

Everybody was really focused on being loose.

When that was our attitude... Are you still following me?

We did well.

The Pistons' opponent in the finals was the team that had co-owned the NBA with

the Celtics in the 80s, the defending champion, L.A. Lakers.

We know they were a good team, very physical team, but Bad Boys was

something that, nah, they didn't get much respect from us.

Playing against the Celtics, it didn't get any tougher.

No one got any badder. You could call the Celtics Bad Boys back in the early

80s.

Detroit and L.A. had played each other only four times over the previous two

years, which meant this matchup had a different tone, at least at the

beginning.

Magic was...

Probably one of the closest people to me.

No question about it.

Once we showed up in the finals, things changed.

That friendship stuff went out the window.

Thomas. And Magic went after him there with a forearm.

I'm going down to the cup, and all of a sudden, he comes and knocks me out of

the air.

They started with a kiss, and now they're elbows.

I get up as if to say, what very unusual for magic to be acting the way he is on

the court if he's coming in there i got to put him down like i did you know it's

just that way now when magic did it it was god i love magic man

he'll do anything to win but when isaiah did the exact same thing it was oh he's

a phony look at him he smiles when you know when in front of the camera but

he'll slice you with a knife after taking game five in detroit again by

thomas isaiah and the pistons took a 3-2 lead back to la for game six needing

just one more win to be champions isaiah thomas is hurt down on the court

underneath the basket i couldn't tell what happened isaiah started to get up

he got up and then went down on the floor it's a fast break situation i

stepped on michael cooper's ankle turned my ankle and pain shot through my body

that i had never felt before

Mike Abdenauer, the trainer, is with him, and this one is a tough one.

He can't put any weight on this thing.

It's like, okay, now what do we do?

It's like, bam.

I saw his ankle.

I saw how big it was, and I'm looking at him thinking, how are you going to get

your shoe on?

He shuts his eyes, locks into whatever zone he got into, and said, okay.

I can do this.

And then something happened that I can't even describe.

Thomas with a looper, scores.

Yeah, but he's limping noticeably right now.

Thomas, off balance. Basket counts and a foul as he goes into the first row and

he is still limping.

It has not been another performance like Isaiah Thomas.

Playing on one ankle.

and giving them the business.

Thomas goes for three and hits it. What a third quarter for Isaiah Thomas.

I don't know what came over him.

He just hypnotized himself.

Come on, Isaiah, take it over, baby.

I just can't imagine one player being able to carry a team in a game that

means so much.

He's hobbling, he's limping, and not only is he killing us, but he's

inspiring them.

Who was it, baby?

We won!

Two on one, Thomas goes up. And Isaiah Thomas having an incredible period.

He is just showing so much heart and determination.

Got to be one of the top five offensive performances that there ever was.

25 points in the third quarter.

It's still a finals record.

I couldn't miss.

People ask me to this day, how did I do it? I don't know.

Isaiah's will will carry him to heights that nobody would ever imagine.

That's what made him so great.

That game just kind of added to the legend of Isaiah.

The Pistons were up a point with 27 seconds left.

All they needed for the championship was one more stop on defense.

We were prepared.

We were very confident, especially at that time in the game.

Kareem.

The man goes up and misses the shot, but goes to the line with 14 seconds to go

and a chance to give the Lakers the lead.

Fans will talk about that call for a long time.

We got hosed.

Oh, my God.

It wasn't even a foul.

I mean, it's not even close of being a foul.

Oh, yeah, he fouled him.

The referee called it.

I watched that tape all the time, and I tried to find out where the foul was.

Even though he didn't push Kareem that time, he got the call because he had

pushed 2,000 guys before.

Kareem sank both free throws, giving the Lakers a one-point win.

Isaiah's performance might have been unforgettable, but it didn't have a

happy ending.

That close.

We was that close. I mean, literally that close.

I ran off court into the locker room.

They were pushing the champagne out of our room.

I feel robbed.

The whole team feels robbed.

You worked so hard for so long all those years, and now you're denied again

through adversity again?

Isaiah tried to play on one foot again in game seven, but the beating his ankle

had taken in game six was too much.

He was ineffective.

and had to watch Magic win his fifth title. The game ends.

The Lakers have won it again.

We genuinely had paid the price.

We genuinely had made all the sacrifices.

And we sat in the locker room.

The Pistons had spent almost a decade climbing up the NBA ladder.

But in back-to-back years, their seasons had ended in brutal ways.

They'd opened the 1988-89 season with a lot of people picking the bad boys to

take the final step forward, playing in a brand new arena, the Palace in Auburn

Hills.

But halfway through the year, they didn't look like title contenders at

all.

We were trying to win a championship.

And at that time, we were six games behind Cleveland, and we were

struggling.

It was supposed to be the bad boys against the world, but the problem was

inside, at the team's core.

Dantley didn't like the fact that Rodman was taking away his minutes.

We had this emerging star in Dennis Rodman, and Chuck wanted him on the

floor in the fourth quarter because he stopped people.

Dan Lee is on the bench. No longer the big cheese as he was in Utah.

And he's had to adjust here in Detroit.

This is a guy that was the leading scorer in the NBA.

Wasn't sitting well with him. I think minutes and shots were something that

was concerning to him.

Chuck, he didn't call my plays yesterday like he'd done the previous five games.

Maybe because Isaiah got on the rope.

Coach would always call their plays.

And then when I would look at him, you know, give him that look, it was about

time for me to get the ball. That was the look.

We were playing up in Boston on a Sunday afternoon.

Rodman gets instructions from Chuck Daly.

Chuck went to take Dantley out of the game, and he wouldn't come out of the

game.

And Rodman needed to come out of the game.

Chuck said something to Dantley.

Dantley walked over and started yelling at him.

It was the worst.

verbal fight I've ever seen in the NBA.

It was so intense and so angry at one another that I felt like turning away.

After the game, we flew back to Detroit, and Chuck met with Dantley behind closed

doors. We heard them yelling for about a half hour.

Coach Daley came to me, and he said, Jack, we're breaking up. We're not...

the team we were.

Jack asked me, are we all right as a team?

And I said, no, we're struggling. This is a spin that I don't think we're going

to come out of.

You have to close ranks.

It's like a spring.

Every year, the spring comes tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter, and

eventually it's going to explode.

We had a meeting, and Isaiah's getting on every player, saying what they need

to do.

I said, ho, ho, ho, ho.

what about you what you have to do he wanted to be his team and i wouldn't go

along with it it's going to be isaiah's team it wasn't going to be adrian's team

and everybody do that i mean everybody in the world knew that we're at the

palace was after a practice and uh i get the finger wag like this from ad

so you know what's wrong around here i'm like nice i thought everything was cool

he said you pointed over there And he pointed right at Isaiah Thomas.

Isaiah didn't like me and I didn't like him.

And he went up to the management and said, hey, let's get rid of A.D. That's

what happened.

No.

Never. Never.

Never what?

Never did Isaiah come to me and say, okay, we got to do this or do that.

When we made the Dantley trade, Isaiah was not even a part of it.

Adrian Dantley was gone.

But the guy they brought in didn't exactly come with a spotless reputation

either.

A reputation that had been following him since his very first day in the NBA with

the Dallas Mavericks. I know the whole thing that people always bring up is the

rap about the bad attitude.

What are you going to say to people about that?

Well, I just would like to ask people in Dallas just judge me by what they see.

Don't judge me by what anyone says.

Mark Aguirre had been the one player drafted ahead of Isaiah Thomas in 1981.

He was a three-time All-Star with the Mavs, but he also had his problems with

teammates. Mark didn't want to be here.

It wasn't anything like it was a trade where he wanted to stay and he was

thinking about behaving himself and coming around. He just didn't want to be

here, and it made life around here a little bit miserable for us.

Wow, we made this kind of trade in the middle of a season going for a

championship? I was a little worried.

Once that trade was made, I think a lot of people said, you know what, they're

not going to win the title this year.

And there was a lot of anger in the city.

The papers are going crazy, Jim. Why would they upset the chemistry of the

team and bring a possible bad guy to a championship team?

All this is going on in the press, and my wife and I were stopped at a red

light.

And there's two guys that pull up, and they recognize me.

they go and that's how they felt about adrian's tray

but there was one thing that made mark aguirre a lot different than dantley

he'd grown up on the west side of chicago right next to isaiah thomas his

best friend i wasn't one of his boys that's all that was they had nothing to

do with basketball ability i'm better than ad period

Player to player.

Ain't no comparison.

Team chemistry was the reason the Pistons had put themselves in a hole.

So Isaiah set up a meeting to give his old friend a chance to meet the guys.

I said, hey, look, you're not going to come in here and screw this thing up. We

have a very good situation.

You got to play defense. We don't need all that offense. This is how we play.

You know, Mark, I've never been a fan of you, but Isaiah vouches for you. So here

are the rules and here's how we do business.

Okay, you're pissed and all of that. Man, look, throw the balls out. Let's do

what we gotta do.

That's all I'm here for, winning the title. That's it.

1989, that's my boy. I'm not a son of a... Sound of the funky drummer. Music

in your heart calling. I know you got soul.

Hey, person that you're missing, y'all.

Swing it while I'm singing.

Hey, give it what you're getting. No one knowing.

While the black band's sweating. In the rhythm I'm rolling. Got to give us what

we want.

Got to give us what we need.

Hey, our freedom of speech is freedom of death. We got to fight the powers that

be. Fight the power.

Fight the power.

Fight the power.

Fight the power.

Fight the power.

Here come the Pistons and make it 18 straight as a panel.

We're going to fight the power of that beat. Come on.

The bad boys finished the season on a 30-4 run, giving them the best record in

the league.

But there were a few costs to the way they went about it.

In those days, we didn't have flagrant foul rules, so most of the fines had to

do with fighting.

The game was played at that time in a very, very physical manner,

and we allowed stuff that we don't allow today.

If I had it to do over again, we would be more aggressive in

regulating, shall we say, that style of play.

because it led to our game becoming much more physical.

We would be in other cities, and the headlines are, we're not afraid of the

Pistons, we'll fight them if we have to.

You read that kind of stuff and you go, okay, game's over, because they're not

thinking about playing a game.

In the 89 playoffs, the Pistons didn't lose a game on their way to the

conference finals, and that brought them face-to-face again.

with michael jordan jordan and the bulls won a game in detroit and then he looked

practically invincible in chicago and with seconds

left in game three the ball was in his hands with a chance to go up to the room

five seconds to go jordan off the glass

it's over chicago wins

That was get the ball, Michael.

Everybody get out of the way.

Blow the basket.

Talked to Isaiah later that night. He said he went out by Michigan Avenue on

the water out there. He said he sat out there for like four or five hours.

Dumars and I were on the phone for hours talking about 23 and Red.

It's 2 o'clock in the morning.

And I get a phone call.

And it's Isaiah.

And he says, I finally figured out what we need to do to stop Jordan.

Jordan has not been an offensive force in this game.

We are playing them entirely different today. More double teams in different

positions. And we're much more aggressive.

Here's his best player in the league. And here's his bunch of role players.

How are they doing it? They must have some trick.

Oh, it's the Jordan rules. They've got this.

Secret Jordan rules. The Jordan rules. Is that something you guys made up?

Jordan rule?

No, I don't know what that is.

It was like the Finji code, the formula to Coca-Cola, and the Jordan rules.

You're not going to give your game plan away on television, man. This is the

Jordan rules. If Michael was isolated, We forced him to dribble the ball to the

middle of the floor.

If he was in the middle of the floor, we forced him left. The nearest defender

would run and double-team him.

Hit him on screens every time to wear him down. Every time he drove, you sent

three or four people at him.

Every time he came in that lane, he was boom.

And that's what we're talking about when the Pistons want to make Jordan pay

whenever he gets in the paint.

Every time you look around.

You see Michael Jordan on the ground getting up like, oh, man.

Physically, I wasn't ready.

And I didn't have the energy to go against that.

Anybody but him. He was not going to beat us. That was the Jordan rules.

We didn't even think about Scottie Pippen.

It was Michael Jordan and the Jordanaires.

And you can't win championships like that with only one player.

The Pistons won the next three games to close out the Bulls in six.

The 1989 NBA Finals would be a

rematch. The Pistons and the Lakers again.

The years of

perseverance.

The years of disappointment.

Look at it, look at it, look at it.

The years of fighting the two best franchises ever.

Here's MVP against us last year. MVP.

Even though we had ascended to competitive balance, we needed to win.

The more you know about him, the better chance you have to win the NBA title.

The more you know about him. I'll give my right leg and also...

My future son's right leg, you know, in order to win it. You know, it's that

type of thing.

The Detroit Piston defense still has not given up 100 points in a single playoff

game this season so far.

Their D led the way again to win game one.

And then in game two, the Lakers began to crack.

If we push them and push them and push them, they were old and they were going

to fold.

Whoever Magic was guarding, that's who we wanted to go at. And Dumars had the

matchup with Magic.

Go to Joe's side. Dribble Joe down.

I know who's got the hot hand.

Dumars flips it up, fills it up.

We had a play we ran 10, 12 times in a row and scored every time.

Dumars working on Magic.

He sticks it.

What a shot by Dumars.

The biggest problem was Detroit Pistons. They kicked their ass.

And Magic Johnson had pulled a hamstring late in game two, pretty much ending his

series. So the Pistons headed to L.A. two wins away.

And now the target was James Worthy. Now here we have one of the great offensive

players in this league going against the toughest defensive guy.

Dennis was the best athlete I've ever played against. And to make things

worse, he knew how to get in your head.

Dennis would squeeze your butt.

And, like, for three quarters, you'd be looking at this guy like, what's wrong

with him?

Yeah, I think Rick Mahorn taught me that one.

Yo, next time down, Warren, you take Worthy, you take Worthy.

After Rodman guarded Worthy in Detroit's Game 3 win, in Game 4, the master took

his turn as the Pistons went for the sweep.

Rick Mahorn came in and nitpicked and nitpicked and nitpicked.

until James Worthy broke down and yelled at the ref. I'm putting

up with this all four games, you know, and we just smiled and we knew we won

the game right there.

This time around, there wasn't going to be a steal, a

sprained ankle or anything else.

Detroit swept the Lakers.

ending another dynasty.

The bad boys were NBA champions.

When that last second went off the clock, reality never set in.

It gives me goosebumps now. It was like, we're the

champs? We're the world champs? And next thing you know, you go like, we're the

champs!

The 1989 finals are history. Hail the new champions, the Detroit Pistons.

I needed to come over to Isaiah and champion him.

Somebody needed to put him up on a pedestal.

It wasn't about Larry. It wasn't about Magic.

He finally was a champion.

I can speak for myself only, but I think Isaiah probably feels the same way.

It's exhilaration, you won the championship, I know what a great

feeling it is, but actually, it's relief.

We beat them.

It was the best night of my life.

I just remember calling back and talking to my dad and him being like, man, you

guys did it.

When you have that feeling of being the absolute best at

what you do, and there's nobody else in the world that's

better.

That feeling is so intoxicating, so indescribable. It's like, you know.

It feels like heaven.

Like the Ohio player said, heaven must be like this. Heaven must be like this.

In 1967, race riots have torn apart downtown Detroit.

Now, 22 years later, on Woodward Avenue, the whole city came out for the Bad

Boys. No doubt about it, what a great day to be in Detroit.

The greatest basketball fans in the world and a super, super basketball

team.

It was a true celebration of greatness.

The Bad Boys did it.

I remember driving downtown.

riding with some friends, and everybody was parked on the freeway. We were just

dancing.

All they chanted the whole time was, bad boys.

I mean, it was just, it was insane, dude.

Are these guys bad or what, huh?

How about you people? Are you bad fans or what?

It was the gradual chopping away at the powers that be in the NBA and eventually

getting Boston and eventually getting L.A. that made that first year winning

so sweet in this town. And that parade was huge.

We're at the parade and everything was glorious, except

we had to move a player.

While Detroit was celebrating.

The NBA was already getting on with new business, namely an expansion draft for

the two new franchises coming into the league.

Each club could only protect eight players, which was a problem for the

Pistons because they went 10 deep.

Everybody calls us the bad boys.

I call ourselves world champions.

I'd like to thank you, Jack McCluskey, for helping me with my weight problem.

I want to thank everybody on this team.

for allowing me to love basketball again.

There was no Twitter. There was no Facebook.

There was no cell phones and people calling you.

So bring us in the locker room.

They told us that Rick was picked up in the expansion draft.

To have Rick have to go through it on that day, have us have to go through it

on that day, that was awful.

It was the highest of the high and the lowest of the lows.

It hurts even talking about it a little bit because, you know, I wanted to be

that person to protect it.

But, you know... Excuse me.

We are the truest sense of a basketball team.

And as you know, one of our members of this basketball team was taken in the

expansion draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves.

So this was the bad boys.

There can only be one bad boy basketball team. And this was it. And there'll

never be another one.

As the 1989-90 season began, the loss of Rick Mahorn wasn't easy to shake.

Opponents were pushing back more than ever.

And the team looked out of sorts. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the world

champions. And it was Mark Aguirre who figured out what to change.

I remember Mark saying, I'm going to ask Chuck to take me out of the starting

lineup.

And so I asked him, I said, what, you punking out? What, you can't take it?

Dennis was very unique because of his defensibility and his rebound ability.

And I could not be the one that...

held something that unique down.

The problem was convincing Dennis.

When he first came over, I was shocked. I was so used to being the sixth man.

I don't think he knew

exactly what he was.

My role was being the dirty workman, and people in Detroit loved that because I

wasn't about trying to score and be flashy.

Whatever I can do for this team and for this city, I'm doing it.

He said he would only start if we said it was okay, and change was made.

Put home by Rodman. Got blocked by Rodman, and the crowd roars.

When Dennis Rodman was inserted into the starting lineup, all of a sudden, boom.

You know, you let the jack-in-the-box out of the box. Rodman has been a

sensational rebounding and defensive star for Detroit's victory.

If I can go out there and break an arm to help this team win, hey, I'm going to

do it.

We needed some life, and Dennis was perfect timing.

I don't know if there's anyone more active in the game.

The Pistons won 25 of their first 26 games with their new starting lineup to

finish on top of the Eastern Conference again.

They were the NBA's top defensive team. And Dice Rock was voted Defensive Player

of the Year.

He'd come a long way from mopping floors in an air balloon.

I was so happy to win that award because I was like, oh my God, you know.

I knew what it meant to work hard and get the satisfaction that people

actually appreciated it.

I don't know. We have a lot of valuable players. I don't know if we have a more

valuable player than Dennis Rodman.

They could have gave me a lollipop for the award. I didn't care.

I didn't care. I just thought, oh, my God, they have one subject in the NBA.

I wanted this award so bad.

It was just so overwhelming, the fact that I said, wow it's just

and i owe it all to my teammates pretty much to chuck down or everybody in that

organization everybody we were the closest thing to family and structure

that he had that type of warmth that type of family unit that we had

was ideal for him in a time that he really needed it

The Pistons might have been looking a little more sentimental in 1990, but

when another matchup with the Bulls in the conference finals approached, there

was one man who had prepared for the same old bad boys.

In 89, when we lost to Detroit, I was beat down because of the physicality of

what was happening within the game.

And I didn't have the energy to go against that.

That summer was when I really started to physically build my body up.

and gear myself up for that type of beating that was the year michael jordan

felt this is our moment we're going to win it they would have three of the

most physical guys ever at the basket waiting for jordan

you had to be mentally tough and physically tough

to beat him here's jordan on the drive against lambier jordan rules tonight

The Jordan rules no longer worked because Michael had some help.

Scottie Pippen had come into his own as an all-star, and the sidekick had to be

dealt with.

This is how the Pistons thought back then.

Michael's going to do his thing, but we can't let Scottie have any confidence.

They will get into his head as much as possible.

I couldn't stand Bill Lambert. I couldn't stand Isaiah.

I hated him to death.

That series was evil because the Pistons were not willing to give up

the belt.

The Pistons have felt they could take Pippen out of this game with rough play.

So now you have these two titans colliding with each other.

And, you know, it went to a seventh game.

But even before game seven started.

The damage had already been done.

The morning that I woke up, I was starting to feel it coming on.

I had never experienced a migraine headache in my life.

Scotty Pippen spent some of the first half of the game with an ice bag on the

back of his neck. The reason for this was that he was suffering from migraine

headaches, causing his vision to blur.

Maybe it was the pressure of the game. As the pressure grew, the pounding grew.

I wasn't myself out on the basketball court.

Scotty Pippen has not been any factor.

I wasn't able to answer the bell.

I can't speak for Scotty Pippen. I can only talk from the Detroit Pistons, and

unless you can't physically walk or you get carried off the court, you're

playing basketball.

Small forward.

Walked by Isaiah Thomas. Here's Dubard.

The Pistons return to...

I don't think the migraine incident had any bearing on the outcome of the

series. The game was in our building.

They didn't know how to win.

We wanted to do something that only the Lakers had done.

Even the Celtics hadn't won back-to-back championships in that era.

If we don't win it again, somehow we won't be validated.

We absolutely felt it was imperative to win it again.

This time, it was the Trail Blazers in their way, a team the Pistons hadn't

beaten in Portland in 17 seasons.

And when the Blazers won game two in Detroit, they were feeling great about

their chances heading home. For the first time in the playoffs, the Detroit

Pistons have lost at the Palace.

The Blazers were very cocky after winning that second game.

Terry Porter ran off the court saying, we're going to the crib and we ain't

coming back.

I remember asking, Lambert,

the obvious question. You haven't won there in forever.

And Lambert, you know, Lambert sitting back in his imperious way and kind of

going, yeah, like, we remember those things that happened like 17 years ago.

We remember all the moments that we can rub somebody's face in.

And Portland was one of them.

What he did to their back line, I mean, he had them all messed up.

Lambert completely took him out of the series.

They didn't want any part of him.

Porter against Lambert.

Duckworth.

And an offensive foul will be charged to Kevin Duckworth. This was a team that

was befuddled by Lambert.

Duckworth.

That's the second time he's traveled inside.

Duckworth's too concerned about Bill Lambert's presence on the floor.

Their players thought that they could be physical. They didn't know how to be

physical with us.

Some of our guys, you know, you hit me, I'm going to hit you back.

Obviously, they got in foul trouble real quick. They would take advantage of

that. All three guards always had mismatches.

And Dumars got into such a great shooting rhythm, and he just rode it.

Joe was just... He was magnificent.

Hey, what you been, what, 20 years?

17 years, 20 games. 17 years, 20 games?

We just broke the streak.

We're up 2-1 in the series now, and everybody is going crazy.

Chuck grabs me, said, hey, I need you to step outside for a second.

And Isaiah walks right behind me.

And everybody's just kind of walking quiet.

We get to this room, and Jack says, you need to take this phone call.

Your wife is on the phone.

She said, your dad died right before tip-off.

I know a lot of you are probably expecting to see Joe.

But his father passed away this afternoon, and he didn't know anything

about it.

That morning, I get a call from Joe's mom and Chuck Daly.

And they wanted to let me know that Joe's dad had passed away, but the

family wanted him to play the game first.

I knew how proud my father was, and he knew how I felt about him.

And there were a couple plays that happened that were just kind of

miraculous plays.

And how did that happen? There's no way that should have went in.

He went down the lane and tossed one up, and it almost touched the top of the

Coliseum. He kind of looked at me like, I was lucky to make that one.

And I looked at him, and I thought, you know, yeah, you...

Your dad made that one. That was a gift from heaven.

The Pistons just had too many weapons for the trailblazers, and they won three

straight in Portland, capped off with a game winner by the microwave.

Benny Johnson with one second to go. He's shot. It's good.

The Pistons are winners and still champions of the world.

The Pistons repeat, and the Motor City still reigns supreme.

No one else was embracing us to win those championships.

It was us against the world.

And so it was a tremendous close family bond.

Back then, our family was second.

We lived and breathed each other.

I thought that is the biggest crock ever to talk about a family when you talk

about professional sports.

And then I had to readjust myself because we're a family.

We would say to each other, I love you as brothers.

And no matter what, you know that if it really came down to it, this guy can

depend on.

Look at the years and years that you put in with people.

In a high intensity, very physical environment, all these factors just come

together to create a bond to begin with. And to win a championships together,

that'll never be forgotten.

Yo, can't touch this.

How'd I do?

The Detroit Pistons had played in three straight NBA finals.

and won two championship rings but the grind had taken a toll and as the 1991

playoff started something felt different for many years isaiah thomas told me

that the pistons were this tightly wound ball of yarn you could never get the end

of it and start pulling on it but we knew that in 1991 the strands were

unwinding age caught up to detroit pistons in some ways

Injuries, it gets tiring.

87, 88, 89, 90, 91, like five straight years you're playing until at least

early June.

It was just mental fatigue, physical fatigue.

We had had a long run, and a lot of the things came crumbling down on us at that

point. They managed to get back to the conference finals.

And one more time, the Bulls were waiting.

What time is it? Game time!

Jordan was Jordan.

He the best player on the planet.

He just needed some help.

And that 91 series, Scottie Pippen grew up.

We had no answer for Michael or Scottie. I knew that we couldn't beat the Bulls.

We couldn't beat them at all, no matter what we did.

Beautiful backdoor pass for Pippen, and he is walloped. And that will be a

flagrant foul.

We were so much more mentally strong.

We were so much more physically ready for any challenges that they threw at

us. They weren't a fragile, mental weak team anymore.

You couldn't mentally fatigue them.

They were obsessed with winning at that point. What it made me think about was

us with Boston.

I looked at them and said, they're us.

The Bulls won the first three games.

and weren't shy about letting the press know how they felt about the bad boys.

Today, Michael Jordan claims that the whole league will rejoice over the

demise of the so-called bad boys. Strong words from Michael.

I had never seen a team speak about a champion that

they were getting ready to dethrone that way.

When Michael Jordan said the Pistons were bad for basketball, they were poor

champions.

That struck the Pistons in the heart, struck Detroit in the heart.

Isaiah Thomas is coming out of the game.

Phil Lane-Beer ran off the bench to hug the teammate.

When the run's over, you know it's over.

And it was over for us.

A new basketball king will be crowned.

What we were doing was just giving respect to each other.

As a brother who's been down with me in this struggle, in this battle, thank

you. This is a very touching scene.

They're almost breathing, I guess, a sigh of relief, carrying a heavy burden

all season long.

It's 112-89, Chicago with a minute left in the Pistons' season.

Our interest was really heightened in what was going on around the benches.

That story was more important than anything was going to be going up and

down that court.

Everybody was waiting for the possibility of a true passing of the

torch.

And what they got was nothing like that at all.

When the Pistons began to walk off the court, there was one problem.

There was still time left on the clock.

They left the bench, although there's 7 and 9 tenths seconds remaining.

The Pistons just left.

And the cameras were following them the whole way.

Bill and Ben's walking all up like this, and Isaiah just dips around them. But

the way it looked, it looked like Isaiah was trying not to be seen.

Watching them walk by our bench and... not even have the dignity to raise their

head up.

I don't even know if I'd have shook their hands anyway.

Great champions usually do the right thing.

And these guys conducted themselves like street yard bullies.

Those who look at the Pistons as villains, seeing it the correct end for

a villain.

The villain goes down.

See, we never liked them and looked.

When they don't win, look how they behave.

The Pistons' reputation was cemented when they walked past them in

1991.

Do you stand behind your statement then, Michael, that people around the league

will rejoice that this is the end of dirty basketball?

I hope so, except for Detroit. I mean, you saw what type of class they had in

terms of walking off the court in defeat.

That's them. That's their nature. We expected it.

In the beginning of this series, if it said 8014 straight, nobody here would

have believed that.

They won.

What did they do differently?

They won.

You knew someday it was going to come to an end. Did you think it would feel this

way when you did? I mean, is this the way it's supposed to feel when you...

They won.

I'm not giving the Bullets no credit.

They won, so hey. You know, we wanted three.

We wanted three titles. Okay.

No,

there's no regrets.

What this team accomplished was history. It cost him.

It cost him that he wasn't a beloved character in the history of the National

Basketball Association. He should have been.

The following summer, when the Dream Team dominated the Barcelona Olympics,

Isaiah Thomas was left off the roster.

And more than 20 years later, no one's forgotten what was seen as his final

act. In my mind, the walk-off against Chicago Bulls was Isaiah Thomas' idea.

It was engineered by Isaiah.

Whose idea was it?

Oh, yeah, I was the one that was the instigator of walking off the court.

Did it feel good doing that? Did it feel good for me?

Absolutely.

To me, it's not important whose idea it was.

We were a team, and

that's what we did.

And looking back on it, was it the right thing to do?

Should we had been bigger?

Yeah.

The walk-off may have been controversial, but what wasn't up for

debate was this. It was the end of the bad boys.

You're up on top.

Eventually, you're going to go down. But they were great soldiers.

It had taken Jack McCloskey 10 years and 38 trades to build a championship team.

After the 1991 season, the demolition began.

If the rise was ugly, the breakup had to be ugly too. There was just no pretty

way to say goodbye to the bad boys.

Over the next few years, the team's aging veterans were dealt away.

And Chuck Daly, Trader Jack himself, had it out the door as well.

Everything was falling apart.

I built my life here in Detroit. I built my life with this team and Chuck Daly.

Once I knew that was gone, I pretty much just went rebellious quick.

Rodman, of course, had a second NBA life ahead of him in Chicago, of all places.

As in the heart and soul of the Badlands, the end of their story was two

things. I set a big hard screen on Isaiah in practice, and he didn't like

it, and he ended up taking a swing and hitting me in the head. It broke his

hand, unfortunately, for the team.

But that just was another example of how the time had passed.

And it was time to go and move on.

I

had

zero left to give.

Mind, body, spirit, soul.

I felt like I had given everything that...

That I could give, and I didn't have anything left.

Joe Dumar stuck around the longest, till 1999, which meant he was around to watch

Jordan and the Bulls win all six of their titles. Jordan to drive, hangs,

fires, scores!

He scores!

Guess what, people?

The Michael Jordan that we know,

the exalted ruler of the NBA, he wouldn't have happened if not for the

Pistons.

You can't carry that type of anger or grudge for the rest of your life.

And the team pushed us to a certain level. I don't think we would have won

those six championships without getting over that hump of Detroit.

A lot of time has passed since the bad boys ruled the NBA, but Detroit is never

going to forget any of them.

especially the Hall of Fame coach who passed away in 2009 at the age of 78.

Still, when you open the history books, there's no way you can miss them.

Many people call that the golden era for the NBA, Magic Bird Michael, all in the

NBA at the same time. And for two brief, shining years, there was a team that was

a team.

from a most unlikely city with a most unlikely cast that interrupted the

glamour party that was going on in the NBA during those years.

And they did it in a tough way that made people uncomfortable.

We can't make people uncomfortable anymore.

But back then, they didn't care.

This is who we are. You take us or leave us.

Through it all, being remembered never seemed a matter to them.

Only winning did.

But that doesn't mean they didn't change the game.

arguably the best defense we have ever seen in the National Basketball

Association, the Detroit Pistons.

Defense, teamwork, rules, the basketball world looked at all of them differently

after these guys.

It would be hard to find a march to a title that was tougher, more painful,

and more rewarding.

It would be hard to find a team that was bonded so tightly together.

But more than anything else, There's one thing you have to remember about the bad

boys. If you still can't stand them, still don't respect them, well, guess

what?

They don't give a- 1989!

Another son of a- Get down!

The sound of the funky drummer is getting your heart cold. I know you got

soul.

Hey, Harrison, if you're missing, y'all, swing it while I'm singing. Hey, give it

what you're getting. No one going while the black band's sweating. In the rhythm

line, rolling. Got to give us what we want.

Got to give us what we need. Hey, our freedom of speech is freedom of death.

We got to fight the powers that be.

Fight the power.

Fight the power.

fight the power fight the power fight the power

fight the power fight the power We got the bike, the power, that

beat. We have the rhythm designed to bounce. We're counseling back the rhyme.

Designed to fill your mind. And it's a real live. The pride, the vibe. We got

the bump, the stuff, the make, the pop. We're the artists that start the work of

art. Through evolution, I make a trade. Nothing strange.

People, people, we are the same. No, we're not the same. If we don't know the

game, what we need is awareness.

We can't get careless.

You say, what is this?

My beloved.

Let's get down to business, business, self-defense and fitness.

One wrestler show.

We got to go for what we know.

I'll make everybody see. In order to fight the powers that be. Let me hear

you say, fight the power.