Bad guys

Their trademark was defense and readiness for all moves to win. They beat up and provoked and created enemies on all sides, but at the same time they were an outsider team.

"Bad Boys" reunited 10 days ago in Detroit, and a documentary will be broadcast tomorrow on a much-needed unique team.

A center that thrashes the threes and does not know how to play back on the basket. Backs that mostly play on half-Jews. A low wing that only plays the back and only occasionally opens for a shot from the distance. The whistle that jumps in the defense and plays defense. Rotation of 10 players. Rhythm control and offensive leap. Faulics even after the judge has heard. Confusion. Shots in the face. Elbows in ribs. Hitting hooks. Provoking. All these were Detroit Pistons in the late 80's ...

Pistons were the first team in modern basketball that you could not describe through statistics.

A look at the list of archers was not offered the answer why they won. Up until then, the eyes were trained to search for two, possibly three, who scored from 20 to 30 points. We were used to the head of the station and the auxiliary staff. Detroit changed that. Pistons were the first team in which the "bearers" of the game sacrificed their minutes and the number of shots in favor of the rest of the team. The attack was threatened by 10 players and that team became the percussion of strange statistics where everyone will score from 5 to 18 points and the victory in the end will be expressed with 20 differences, although the record does not offer anyone who jumps or is especially in the shot.

"Bad Boys" was out of the field by an ingenious manager of the team, Jack McClosky, who in the mid-'80s could not make a mistake when choosing a player. In the field, Isiah Thomas was in charge of their mentality with Bill Laimbeer's "little" support.

My best friend was the Pistons fan and especially Isiah Thomass. From Trieste he received a pair of Detroit Pistons T-shirts dominated by Thomas's head. So we began to notice Thomas next to Magick, Birda and Jordan. Later, we also got a video tape on which Isiah explains the secrets of his dribbling. I do not need to mention that his arsenal of dribbling was perfect. We tried to mimic it with the obligatory rumor of the commentator "Thomas's promises !!" while Isiah throws another beech onto the parquet floor ....

"Thomase !!! You are a desperate player !! The next day comes Dan Dakich. Remember that name !!! It's twice as good as you !!!"

So Isiaha formed Bobby Knight at college. It does not matter what Isiah was destroying all opponents and that Dan Dakich in any universe could not carry his bag. Knight was a basketball perfectionist whose very often even maestral performance by his player was not good enough. It could always have been better for Bobby.

Isiah Thomas had a spirit of competition very similar to the Jordan. In the sense that any opponent on the field would kill if it meant a victory for his team. Thomas, many say, was ready to sell the soul to the devil just to be a champion. In the end, he became, but he lost a lot of comrades on his way to the title.

Thomas Pistons survived two heavy knocks until the final title winner. There are a few teams that would stay behind after all. Defeat by Celtics in the final of East 1987. Fifth game in Boston. Pistons had a point advantage over five seconds to the end and the ball. Thomas's addition to Laimbeer crossed Bird and assisted Dennis Johnson for the winning basket. Pistons dropped in seven games. Boston went to the finals.

A year later Detroit reached the finals. They had a 3-2 lead and two games in Los Angeles to try to win the championship title. Isiah severely injured the hocks, but refused to step out of the game in one of the darkest moves ever. He jumped on one leg and scored 25 points only in the third quarter, 43 in total for the match. Pistons had a title in their hands for 45 seconds until the end of the match. They did not endure. Loss 103: 102. They lost the finals in seven games.

Thomas looked at the game for the first time only 15 years later. He just could not. And he cried in tears as he watched the sword. He was the one who pinched the desire for victory. He was the one who raised their aggressiveness to the extent of contempt that felt towards them the rest of the league. Isiah's tears 15 years later, because of the defeat and sacrifice he and his teammates speak about the desire of one man and one team to be the best ... at any cost ...

The title was the driving force of the entire Pistons team. They were so blinded by winning the trophy that they went to the extreme.

However, one can never deny one thing to them. They were really the team's definition. Much more than any basketball team I know in the last 30 years. The unselfishness of this team was unreal. Almost altruistic. They were ready to kill each other on the ground. Whoever did not think so had nothing to look for in that dressing room. Thomas consciously sacrificed his minutes for Dumars and Vinnie Johnson. He consciously sacrificed his number of shots. An example was followed by others. MahoHe made room for Salley, Laimbeer James Edwards. Only Adrian Dantley was angry because he had to give up his minutes in favor of Dennis Rodman. Rodman defended all positions and jumped like crazy. Dantley with 194cm was a low-post doctor with his huge butt and a series of finti with which he threw out 10 free throws per match. Dantley wanted to play. Isiah started the exchange with GM Jack McCloskey, who brought Thomas's second child from Marcus Aguirre to Pistons while Dantley was sent to Dallas, who never forgot Thomas (Dantley, during the first match of Detroit and Dallas on the back, told Thomas: "Gnjido I know you did this. I'll never forgive you. ")

Aguirre had similar qualities as Dantley, a great back-to-back game. But he was ready to leave his place to Rodman without anger and not harm the harmony in the dressing room.

Isiah Thomas was the one who introduced the Jordan Rule, stopping the best player of the league at all costs. Shots, provocations, fouls after a referee whistle, and intimidation of the rest of the team. Thomas led the departure from the field without any greetings after the Bulls took Detroit. Jordan, like Dantley, never forgave Thomas, but he was only a little more influential, so he personally made sure that Thomas was not selected for the original Dream Team. The support was surprisingly given to Magico Johnson (Although he and Thomas were great friends Magic, after being infected with HIV, found out that Isiah was rumored to be Johnson's homosexual. This was a hangover for some time.)

Pistons in their hall removed the protection from the part of the rim that touches the board on the side in front of their bench. It was extremely difficult to hit the ring. Thus, the Pistons when attacking that side must have had together in five of Salley and Rodman as the best jumps in the attack. The defense on this side played mainly in the second half where most of the minutes would get Laimbeer and Mahorn who greatly built the racket after the failure of the opponent. Pump the ball to teams that play fast? no problem. Pistons did the same with the house. Lakerse always awaited such a ball so that they could not develop their fast counter-attack game. With a blown ball, the game slows down, and that's what Pistons responds to completely. Control the jump, and therefore control the pace of the game. Long attacks, matches on fewer points. Their chances grew dramatically in these conditions ....

The other most famous faces of these Pistons were Bill Laimbeer.

We met him at the match Serbia - China in the Belgrade Arena before the 2010 World Cup. The three of us and Bill's snout on a joint photo. And after all these years, Bill has some kind of crap in his eyes as if he were going to kick you with his elbow while standing next to him at the store. Laimbeer was probably the most boring player in the history of the league. Nobody placed more bumps and fell from more glances. Laimbeera was baked by Barkley and Parish. They threatened him with homicide off the field several times.

He is so disliked that even after two championship titles, or four All Star performances, he can not get coaching engagement in the NBA. Laimbeer was already veteran at the end of his career, while NBA legend Mossey Malonea pulled out for protective goggles during the nagging and then released them ... In order to motivate teammates before the third game of the final in Portland, the exit from the tunnel deliberately overtook the photojournalist. He regularly beat Michael Jordan, Magick, Kareem, Larry Birda, McHale, Parish and all the best players of the opposing teams. Bill was one of the biggest provocateurs in the league. As soon as the judge turned his back, Laimbeer would look at how to disperse his opponent at least by hand, if the answer followed, Bill would have fallen off like a mournful (as a famous moment when Cartwright struck Bill with his elbow in his chest, and this one grabbed his face and climbed to the floor with his 130kg ).

Laimbeer came to the basket from a multi millionaire family, but he played every game as if his life depended on her. He was a great hitter for his height and one of the first centers that regularly hit the triples, and in the period 1982-90, probably the best jumper in the NBA defense. Bill started a blunder, and the fight was mostly ended by Rick Mahorn. Mahorn and Jeff Ruland carried the Washington shirt jersey so much into the racket that they got nicknames MacFly and McPadley. Mahorn was the player behind where the rest of the team was hiding when they were overweight. Off the field, known for its healthy sense of humor, in the field, Mahorn compensated for the lack of basketball skills by using martial arts.

After winning the first title, Mahorn had to be sent to the Minnesota expansion draft, even though McClosky's top manager struggled with all his might. Mahorne was told to go from Pistons during the championship parade ... "Then I realized that there was no emotion in this business. What we went through together was he was fired before the championship parade," said John Salley, whom Mahorn taught all the tricks under basket.

Salley was a kind of Robert Horry for that Pistons. The player who regularly played better than the game was more important. During the playoffs each year, Salley was incomparably better than during the season. Salley played hard, but he was not a dirty player. Over the course of the season, he was mostly run by women and probably the only coach he worked hard for was Chuck Daly who would always tell him when he sees that he is dragging himself to the dressing room .. "John, do not disappoint me" ... The greatest compliment came from the biggest porn star of today's Lisa Ann who once said: "John Salley? He is the greatest ..."

When we are near the biggest ... The biggest gentleman on the team was unquestionably Joe Dumars. A phenomenal defender and a shotgun. Joe, like Scottie Pippen, came from poverty, but he was an extraordinary worker who, despite his calm behavior and silent speech burning on the ground. Dumars played a fantastic and clean defense against Jordan. He was a merciless shooter with poludistance (he later developed a three-point shot).

Joe came from the south, from a small McNeese State University. It was dug up by Jack McClosky on the 1985 draft. Dumars has been a brutal professional since his first year and has mostly watched his business. When he broke his leg, he refused to put a plaster over him. With his methods he returned to the field for six weeks at full speed. During the final against Portland in 1990, Dumars' father was seriously ill. He asked before the match to say nothing about this matter and let him play. The father died shortly before the start of the match, which was announced to him at the end. Dumars, whose father was a lifeline, played all of the finals ...

The role of the sixth man was reserved for Vinnie Johnson, the man to whom Danny Ainge gave the nickname Microwave, microwave because he was able to put over 20 points in a small minute using mostly his straight-through kick with poludistance. With his 92:90 win, he won the second title of Detroit. Today he is a successful businessman. Dennis Rodman? We have already presented him in detail in this column. It is enough to say that at the 25th anniversary of the celebration the title did not appear because it was wrapped in a wedding dress in Buenos Aires.

The then owner of Bill Davidson and legendary trainer Chuck Daly are no longer alive. Davidson was the first owner of the NBA team to buy a private plane for his players, and thus introduced a trend that made it easy for everyone in the NBA to make it easy for a season full of difficult and long journeys.

Daly is probably one of the best coaches in the history of the NBA. A person whose personality outside of the field was never able to connect with the way Pistons played. Later, it turned out that the game was largely dominated by Isiah Thomas with whom Daly consulted on a daily basis. And Daly became aware that such a game is the only way Pistons can be successful. The very fact that Jordan had immensely respected him irrespective of the pure hostility that prevailed between the Bulls and Pistons speaks of everything. When all the NBA passed away, the trainers wore a badge with his initials.

The end of the era of Bad Boys came in 1991. Chicago Bulls beat them in the finals of the East. Before the end of the fourth game, Thomas and Laimbeer led the departure from the field without a greetings with Bulls. Jack McClosky, an architect of the team, greeted them in front of the tunnel and wept at each player individually, aware that the era was over.