Bullies no match for Bulls
Originally published May 29, 1991.
There was no sympathy for the twotime defending champion Detroit Pistons on Tuesday, a day after the Bulls swept them out of the Eastern Conference finals.
A lot of basketball people are glad to see the Pistons out.
“I’m glad that cheap stuff is over with,” said Doug Collins, former NBA player and ex- Bulls coach who’s currently a TNT analyst, referring to the Pistons’ sometimes violent play.
So is Phoenix Suns president Jerry Colangelo.
“The real physical play in the league that takes place in the playoffs has always been a problem for me,” Colangelo said. “I don’t appreciate that kind of basketball. But the fact of the matter is it’s been allowed over the years, and it’s not a pretty kind of basketball.”
Collins was a critic of the Pistons’ “bullyball” when he coached the Bulls, and he was slammed against a scorer’s table by former Piston Rick Mahorn two years ago when he protested Detroit’s rough stuff.
“I never was an advocate of that pushing and shoving and grind- it- out kind of basketball,” Collins said. “I do not like basketball when the pushing and the shoving take away from the skill level of the game. It is a game of skill.
“When you’re a team with [ the Pistons’] talent, and you start playing and winning, the referees get caught up in it, and they allow you to get away with more of it. But as the Pistons declined, the referees didn’t let them play that way. Suddenly, when it’s perceived that the Bulls are the better team, that stuff stops.”
One reason is because the Pistons got progressively more aggressive to mask their deteriorating skills.
“I don’t want to hit a team when it’s down,” Denver Nuggets general manager Bernie Bickerstaff said. “I guess the Pistons were simply playing the kind of ball that suited their personnel.”
‘‘ I never was an advocate of that pushing and shoving and grind- it- out kind of basketball. i do not like basketball when the pushing and the shoving take away from the skill level of the game. It is a game of skill.’’ Doug Collins