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These articles are from Microsoft Complete Basketball, 1994/95 Edition. First, a recap of the 1988 Finals.
1988 - NBA Finals
Riley Guarantees A Repeat
To repeat: that was Pat Riley’s obsession. Soon after the Lakers had wrapped up their 1987 title, someone got around to asking their coach if the team could repeat as champions. “I guarantee it,” he said flatly.
Nineteen seasons had passed since the Celtics had won consecutive championships in 1968 and 1969. Obviously, the feat had become difficult to accomplish in the modern NBA, but Riley rejected the notion that it was impossible. He believed that winning and winning again was a test of will, that greatness was available to the team that had the mental toughness to fight for it. He knew that the Lakers were a team of mentally strong individuals. They just needed someone to drive them to greatness. And he was that person.
Beginning with training camp and throughout the season, he pushed them like a man obsessed. He was Captain Ahab, and the repeat championship was the elusive great whale. On occasion the crew came close to mutiny, but somehow Riley knew when to lighten up just enough to keep them going.
The Lakers’ “Showtime” image—Magic’s smile and the electraglide fast break, the run and gun and fun—was a bit misleading. All in all they were a serious lot. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, and A. C. Green were as businesslike as accountants. Magic had his fun face, but he had hardly been frivolous in his pursuit of basketball excellence over his career.
As a unit, they practiced as hard as a Marine drill team. Detail mattered. Distraction wasn’t tolerated. They had to be tough. They had to work. They didn’t slip often, but when they did, Riley was there to remind them, to irritate them with his professional tone and his mind games. In retrospect, Riley probably burned out his relationships with his players during the 1987–88 season, which led to his leaving the Lakers after the 1990 playoffs. But the coach knew that was the price he might have to pay to get that second consecutive title, and he was willing to pay it.
Detroit’s Little Big Man
In the end, the Lakers’ intensity became a way of life, one the Boston Celtics couldn’t match. But there was another team in the Eastern Conference that could. The Detroit Pistons were driven by obsessions of their own. They, too, were a collection of mentally strong individuals who, like the Lakers, were led by a point guard with a beaming smile. But where Magic Johnson was 6-foot-9, the Pistons’ Isiah Lord Thomas II was a mere 6-foot-1, a little man capable of dominating a big man’s game. He was quick, he could leap, he could handle the ball like a showman, and he had taught himself to shoot well. But it was his mental approach to the game, not his physical talents, that set Isiah Thomas apart.
Whereas the other Pistons merely wanted an NBA Championship, Thomas was obsessed by the notion. He had spent his NBA career studying the people who won championships. He wanted to know what they knew, and he had turned this study into a mystical quest. He revered winners, particularly his good friend Magic Johnson.
He would pick Magic’s brain in late-night phone calls to the West Coast. They would spend hours talking about what it took to win a championship. “I hate that I taught him,” Magic would say later. “That’s the only thing. I should go back and kick myself.”
For the most part, it was only knowledge. The real wisdom Thomas would have to earn himself, the hard way. Which he gladly did, pushing himself and his teammates, night in and night out.
Why did Isiah Thomas want a championship so badly? Some observers have concluded that his drive came from his meager beginnings in a Chicago ghetto. But while many youngsters have come out of the inner city playing basketball, few have driven themselves to the point of exhaustion to win a championship. Thomas had first shown this singular desire at Indiana University, where as a sophomore he had led the Hoosiers to the NCAA title.
After that championship season he entered the 1981 NBA Draft, and the Pistons made him the second overall pick in the field. He really didn’t have to prove anything. He was a bright young guard who showed offensive brilliance. But he was only 6-foot-1, and Detroit was a terrible team. Nobody really expected him to be dominant. He could have had a lot of fun and made great money just being Isiah, the kid with the million-dollar smile. But he wanted to be more than that. He wanted, more than anything, to be a champion. So he did what Pat Riley and Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and Bill Russell had all done: he played the mind game.
James Worthy: Speed On The Wing
James Worthy was the Lamborghini in the Lakers’ Rolls Royce motorcade. At 6-foot-9, he was incredibly quick and swift. No man his size in the league could stay with him. Without a doubt, Magic was the guard who drove the Showtime machine, but Worthy was the forward who made it go.
“Earvin can push the ball upcourt at an incredible tempo,” Riley explained. “But he needs someone even faster than himself to break for the wing and fly upcourt. James is the fastest man of his size in the NBA. In terms of finishing the fast break creatively and swiftly and deceptively, no one else compares.”
And when the game slowed down a bit, Magic particularly enjoyed getting the ball to Worthy in the low post. Then, Magic said with a smile, it would be over in a matter of seconds. “His first step is awesome,” marveled longtime NBA forward Maurice Lucas.
Worthy developed an array of moves, a repertoire of head fakes and twitches and shifts that he used to reduce his defenders to nervous wrecks. “He’ll give a guy two or three fakes, step through, then throw up the turnaround,” Riley said. “It’s not planned. It’s all just happening.”
Worthy had begun compiling this arsenal as a youngster in Gastonia, North Carolina. He would go to nearby Charlotte or Greensboro to catch Carolina Cougars games in the American Basketball Association. His favorite player was Julius Erving, but Worthy studied them all. He was especially good at picking up their moves, then emulating what he had seen, practicing the steps and fakes over and over again before a mirror at home.
He grew and became adept enough with the moves to attract scholarship offers from colleges across the country. He flirted with the idea of joining Magic at Michigan State, but his heart was true Carolina blue. He opted to play at Chapel Hill for Dean Smith. Some observers have pointed out that Smith’s controlled system kept Worthy’s offensive potential tightly leashed, but James had no complaints. Smith turned the force loose just enough to allow Worthy to lead the Tar Heels to the 1982 NCAA Championship. He was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, and from there it just got better.
Worthy entered the draft as a junior that summer, and the Lakers snatched him up with the top pick. To the pro game, Worthy brought the same strong sense of security that had served him well at Carolina. He was coachable and patient and eager to learn. His physical skills and serious approach to the game made him an immediate fit in Los Angeles.
He soon established a reputation for raising his level of play in the big games. Over his first five years in the league, he came to be known for his quiet excellence. “I’ve always been the type of person who just wanted to play my own game,” he explained.
The Trade That Wasn’t
It was a storybook tale, but not without complications. In January of his freshman year as a Tar Heel, he shattered his ankle on a drive to the basket, and the injury required several operations and a determined rehabilitation. Then a similar injury sidetracked him as an NBA rookie, when he broke his leg just before the 1983 playoffs. He returned with a strong season in 1983–84 only to throw the bad pass in Game 2 of the Finals that allowed the Celtics to avert disaster. But the worst turn came against the Houston Rockets in the 1986 playoffs when his sub-par performance left Lakers owner Jerry Buss pondering a trade that would have sent Worthy to the Dallas Mavericks for Mark Aguirre.
Los Angeles General Manager Jerry West interceded and talked Buss out of that deal. Worthy was simply too good to trade, said West. The Lakers’ 1987 championship season only confirmed that. As time passed, it became more apparent that the Lakers would need Worthy’s low-post game if Riley’s obsession with repeating was to be realized. During the 1987–88 season, Abdul-Jabbar would be 41, and while he was still a presence in the Lakers’ half-court game, he simply couldn’t carry the load that he once had. Much of that burden would fall on the shoulders of James Ager Worthy.
Other people stepped forward to do their parts as well. Byron Scott began to realize his potential at shooting guard. He hadn’t played well during the 1987 Finals, but the 1987–88 season brought new confidence. He led Los Angeles in scoring, averaging 21.7 points over the regular season while shooting .527 from the field. Also vital was the development of A. C. Green at power forward. He didn’t shoot much, but his shot selection and accuracy were outstanding. He rebounded well and continued to learn the intricacies of low-post defense.
Magic once again played brilliantly, although he missed 10 games at midseason due to a groin injury. If there was a problem for the Lakers, it was Abdul-Jabbar’s age. His decline was apparent throughout the season, but Mychal Thompson’s presence off the bench provided just enough patchwork to keep the Lakers effective in the post.
The Lakers started the season with an 8-0 run, the finest opening in their history, and despite a series of ups and downs, they claimed the league’s best regular-season record at 62-20. “Guaranteeing a championship was the best thing Pat ever did,” Scott said as the schedule drew to a close. “It set the stage in our mind. Work harder, be better. That’s the only way we could repeat. We came into camp with the idea we were going to win it again, and that’s the idea we have now.”
The Isiah Thomas Show Gets A Supporting Act
The Celtics posted the best regular-season record in the Eastern Conference at 57-25, but they ran into trouble in the playoffs. After a first-round dismissal of the New York Knicks, they tangled with the Atlanta Hawks and Dominique Wilkins in a wild and wooly seven-game series. Boston barely survived, only to face their annual test by Thomas and his persistent band of Pistons. Detroit had claimed the Central Division title with a club-record 54 wins.
The Pistons had been Isiah Thomas’s show for most of the past seven years, but slowly but surely General Manager Jack McCloskey had worked the additional pieces into place. Thomas had been the singular talent around which the other components were added. “It’s much easier now because we have an array of talent, people who can go out and do other things,” Thomas explained. “I’m not the guy who always has to deliver the basketball, and it takes a lot of pressure off me.”
The team came together under the guidance of Coach Chuck Daly. A Pennsylvania native, Daly had spent years working his way through the coaching ranks, from high school to college assistant to college head coach. From there, he moved to the pros as an assistant to Philadelphia 76ers Coach Billy Cunningham. After that came a brief midseason stint as the coach of the woeful Cleveland Cavaliers. He was fired there and wound up back in Philadelphia broadcasting Sixers games.
It was there in 1983 that McCloskey approached Daly, who jumped at the chance to help turn Detroit around. By the spring of 1988, Daly was 57 years old and every bit as hungry as Riley for a championship. But where Riley was intense and professorial, Daly was subdued and fatherly. He flashed his anger when necessary, but he also gave his players, particularly Thomas, plenty of room to breathe.
The same couldn’t be said for the Pistons themselves. They gave opponents no room for anything. Their signature was their defense. Daly liked it physical and aggressive, which brought a lot of attention from the officials. The league took to fining them frequently for altercations, and before long the Pistons had acquired the nickname “Bad Boys.” They fancied themselves the “Raiders of the NBA,” which pleased Al Davis, managing general partner of the Los Angeles Raiders. During the season, he sent the Pistons sweaters and various gifts displaying the Raiders’ silver and black logo.
This style suited the Pistons’ personnel, particularly Bill Laimbeer, a role-playing center from Notre Dame often described as the most disliked man in the league. A tough-minded rebounder who wasn’t opposed to giving hard fouls on defense, the 6-foot-11 Laimbeer had arrived in a 1982 trade with Cleveland. In Detroit he had worked to expand his skills and became an excellent defensive rebounder and a fine perimeter shooter, which made him a difficult matchup for opposing centers.
The other major role in the Bad Boys’ routine was played by power forward Rick Mahorn. He had been acquired from the Washington Bullets, where he was known as a physical player. In Detroit he expanded that reputation, but he also lost weight and developed his overall game. As Detroit gained momentum, Mahorn’s style became increasingly controversial. Some saw him as one of the game’s best low-post defenders. Others considered him a thug. Regardless, he was immensely popular with Detroit fans.
Guard Trio Powers Pistons
To go with this muscle, the Pistons developed one of the best backcourts in the history of the game. Joe Dumars, an unselfish, well-rounded player drafted out of McNeese State in 1985, gave them the best big defensive guard in pro basketball. In time, he would also come to be known for his offensive brilliance, although the team already had plenty of that. The Pistons’ firepower began with Thomas, and when he grew weary of scoring, there was always Vinnie “the Microwave” Johnson, the veteran shooter so nicknamed by Boston’s Danny Ainge because he heated up so quickly off the bench.
The team’s leading scorer was another veteran, forward Adrian Dantley, a legitimate superstar brought in from the Utah Jazz during the 1986–87 season. He was well-traveled, having also done stints with the Los Angeles Lakers and the Buffalo Braves, and although there were reports of conflicts with Thomas and Daly, he gave Detroit the one thing it didn’t have—low-post scoring. Although barely 6-foot-5 and hardly a leaper, Dantley had refined a unique ability to score inside. He had a scorer’s ego and wanted the ball. While he wasn’t exactly negligent on defense, he also never really warmed to the task.
When Daly needed a stopper in the frontcourt, he often went to his bench, which was young and enthusiastic. The ’86 draft had brought John Salley out of Georgia Tech and Dennis Rodman from Southeastern Oklahoma. After playing through rough spots as rookies, both developed into floor-running forwards. Together, the eight-man rotation allowed Daly to deploy a variety of looks. Mostly he went for patient offense and brutally stifling defense. It proved to be a winning formula.
As if this lineup weren’t strong enough, the Pistons then got a midseason gift from the Phoenix Suns—7-foot center-forward James Edwards—in a trade for Ron Moore and a 1991 second-round draft choice. A veteran with dependable offensive ability, Edwards gave Daly yet another option, a big man who could score down low.
Across the league, opponents realized that a force was building in Detroit. In the first round of the playoffs, the Pistons struggled through a best-of-five series with the Bullets before winning the fifth game, 99-78. Next came the Chicago Bulls and league MVP Michael Jordan, but Detroit snuffed that threat with defense, four games to one.
Bad Boys Hit Beantown
At last the Pistons came to the Eastern Finals and their much-awaited showdown with Boston. Bird and the Celtics had escaped the Atlanta Hawks in a classic Boston Garden showdown, and three days later the Pistons were in town with a week’s rest and an issue or two to settle.
Much of the pregame hype centered on the fact that Detroit hadn’t beaten the Celtics in the Garden in 21 straight games dating back to December 19, 1982, Thomas’s first season in the league. Beyond that, there were the memories of the painful 1987 playoff loss to Boston. Much was made of the Celtics’ mystique, but the Pistons were determined not to be sidetracked.
“I don’t care if we have to play the Little Sisters of the Poor to get to the Finals,” said Thomas. “That’s what it’s all about.”
In reality, the Bad Boys wanted Boston in the worst way. That became evident when they promptly won the first game in the Garden and nearly took the second. The Celtics, though, fought for a win in Detroit and tied the series at two games apiece. With Game 5 in Boston, it appeared that the Celtics had again escaped. But the Pistons worked a big second-half comeback and then finished off the Celtics back in the Silverdome, four games to two. In the hours leading up to Game 6, Daly had said that the Celtics were like a snake—you had to sever their heads to make sure they were dead. To emphasize that line, Laimbeer showed up for the Friday night practice before the Saturday game with a sickle. The next day, the Bad Boys delivered the final cut, 95-90, to advance to the Finals.
Despite their newfound toughness, the Pistons weren’t projected as much of a problem for the Lakers. Magic and the boys were a bit winded, having wrestled first Utah then Dallas through seven-game series. But their determination was convincing. Maybe the series would go six games, figured the experts. Maybe it wouldn’t.
Championship Rivalry Sealed With A Kiss
As the Finals opened at the Forum on June 7, Magic again made known his determination to win consecutive titles. Thomas allowed that he, too, was determined to win a championship. Yet all this was tempered a bit by the sight of Magic and Isiah kissing before the tip-off of Game 1. It was a display of brotherly love, they explained, one which wore a bit thin as the series intensified.
Detroit wasted little time casting doubt on Los Angeles’s repeat plans. Adrian Dantley went to work, making 14 of 16 shots from the floor. Despite his best defensive efforts, A. C. Green watched helplessly as Dantley worked his peculiar offense. “It’s so slow, you almost fall asleep,” Green said of Dantley’s shot. “He’s got a slow release on it. You don’t expect him to shoot it because of the timing, he’s out of rhythm. You expect him to pass. And he has it back far enough, so it’s difficult to reach.”
Dantley’s confidence was enough to lead the Pistons to a shocking 105-93 win and a one-game lead in the series. Suddenly, the Los Angeles press noticed that the Lakers bore a striking resemblance to the Celtics: i.e., old and tired. Riley agreed with the writers that it would be difficult to stop Dantley through the rest of the series. “Adrian seems so committed,” Riley said, “so dedicated to a mission. That’s the beauty of players who have been on struggling teams. When they see a chance to be a champion, they get that special commitment.”
Dantley took immediate offense at that notion. Just because he had played for weaker teams before coming to the Pistons didn’t mean that he hadn’t given 100 percent. “Everybody talks about the playoffs being the time to turn it up a notch,” Dantley said. “Not me. I’m already full-force.”
Magic Gets Through “Hope Game”
As the shock of the loss wore off, the Lakers felt humiliation. Like the Bulls and Celtics before them, the Lakers had gotten a taste of Detroit’s defense. Much of the credit belonged to Assistant Coach Ron Rothstein, who would leave the Pistons after the season to become head coach of the Miami Heat. But the last thing he wanted to do was start crowing.
“To say I am the architect of the defense…is a misnomer,” Rothstein said. “There is nothing tricky about it, absolutely nothing. We have not written the book on it. It’s been done before and it’ll be done again. Good defense requires that you defend off the dribble, defend low-post people and help each other, and what nobody talks about is we are an excellent defensive rebounding team. But you’re only as good as your people, and you’re only as good as your people want to work at it.”
The Detroit staff immediately sensed the danger of false security. “The onslaught will be unbelievable,” Daly said before Game 2. “They’ll attack in every way. Usually, when something like this happens, Pat comes up with some big move or something unusual. So we spent all night trying to figure it out. Nothing came to mind.”
Actually, things looked bad for the Lakers. They were tired and down a game to a confident, eager opponent. To make things worse, Magic came down with the flu. He played anyway and scored 23 points in Game 2. Worthy scored 26 and Scott had 24, and as Daly had feared, the Lakers charged back and evened the series with a 108-96 win. “I don’t think there’s any doubt Earvin Johnson showed the heart of a champion,” Riley said. “He was weak, very weak. But this is what I call a hope game—you hope you get through it—and we got through it.”
Dantley led the Pistons in Game 3 with just 19 points, and Thomas finished with 13 after spending much of the game on the bench in foul trouble. “I’d like to say I’m satisfied with a split,” said Daly, “but I’m not really. We had a chance to win the basketball game. Now we’ve got three at home. It’ll be interesting to see if we can hold serve in our home territory.”
Hammer Time
It was interesting. Game 3 would bring the Finals to the Pontiac Silverdome, where crowds of 40,000 or more were expected. On Sunday, June 12, the Lakers broke the Pistons’ serve with a 99-86 victory. The main damage was done in the third period, when Los Angeles shot 64 percent and outscored Detroit, 31-14, to break open a one-point game.
The Pistons realized that they had finally met the real Lakers, the defending NBA champions. “Today’s the first time in a long time that we felt we were beaten.” Laimbeer said. “In all the Boston series, we felt we won all six games. And we felt we outplayed the Lakers in the first two games of the series even though we lost Game 2. This is the first time since Game 2 against Chicago we felt someone beat us rather than us just blowing it.”
Once again, Magic had shone despite his illness. His 18 points, 14 assists, and 6 rebounds had pushed the Lakers right along. They also got a solid inside game from Green, who pulled down 8 rebounds and scored 21 points by hitting 9-of-11 from the field. He also held Dantley to only 14 points, including just 2 in the second half. “They just whipped us,” Dantley said. “They were just better than us today. I know one thing: I got hammered today, and I only went to the free-throw line once.”
Rodman Erases Magic Smile
The Pistons, though, had more to worry about than free throws. Thomas had sustained a lower back bruise trying to block a Mychal Thompson shot. He spent the hours before Game 4 in bed or in a hot tub. “He wasn’t going to miss a championship game,” John Salley said later. “I kept whispering in his ear, ‘You’ve never felt better, you’ve never felt better,’ and he said, ‘You’re right.’”
Thomas made the lineup, and the Pistons came right back to take the game, 111-86, as the love affair between Isiah and Magic turned into a scrap. Daly had been concerned that Johnson’s smiling demeanor was stripping his players of some of their intensity. Those worries departed as the Pistons focused their efforts on shutting down the Lakers’ point guard.
The main assignment went to Dennis Rodman, whose annoying defense wore Johnson down and erased his perpetual smile. “Magic is tough because he likes to penetrate,” explained Rodman. “But I try to distract him, and hopefully he won’t be able to look up the court and make one of those great passes.”
Of the added defensive attention, Magic would only say, “[Rodman] doesn’t frustrate me. I don’t get frustrated. He creates some problems for me, but not a lot.” Yet anyone who witnessed the runaway fourth quarter had to disagree with Magic. At one point, he knocked Thomas to the floor with an elbow, and Thomas leaped back up in his face. Afterward, the press wanted to know if the friendship was off. “It was nothing personal—just business,” Thomas replied. “That’s all it is,” agreed Magic. “It’s business.” Would it be forgotten? “It’s forgotten until Thursday,” Magic said.
The Pistons also aimed their offense at Magic and drove him to the bench early in the second half with foul trouble. “We looked to go inside very strong and try to get fouled,” Salley explained. “It put Magic on the bench.” With him out of the game, the Pistons built a substantial lead. During the timeouts, Bill Laimbeer was almost frantic. He kept saying, “No letup! We don’t let up!” They didn’t, and blew out the defending NBA champions by 25 points.
Although Thomas scored only 10 points on 2-of-7 shooting from the floor, he ignored the back pain and turned in an excellent performance, with 12 assists and a game-high 9 rebounds. “I think my presence, just my being out on the court, was really all we needed,” he said. “I think I was a threat. The Lakers always had to be conscious of me.”
If anything, his injury disrupted the Lakers by shifting his focus from scoring to passing. Thomas had 6 assists in the first quarter alone. “I was at home the last two nights and I was looking at the tapes, seeing the kind of defense the Lakers were playing,” he said. “I knew we could take advantage of a lot of traps they were using. It was a matter of us handling the ball and getting it in the right position.”
Adrian Dantley was the major beneficiary of this development. Left open by the trapping Lakers defense, he led the team with 27 points. Vinnie Johnson came off the bench to add 16 while James Edwards had 14 points and 5 rebounds.
Chuck Daly was probably as pleased as he’d ever been with a Pistons effort. “It’s not just the talent on this team—we’ve got a lot of pride and determination,” he said. “Our guys gave us a big effort. They’ve been doing it all year when we’ve had our backs to the wall. Now my only concern is they don’t go back to prosperity in the next game.”
Lakers Encounter Too Much “D” In Detroit
Game 5 would be the Pistons’ last in the Silverdome. After a decade in the indoor football stadium, they would move to their new home, the Palace of Auburn Hills, for the 1988–89 season. As a result, there was plenty of reminiscing about the good old days when Pistons teams struggled in the giant arena before tiny crowds. The building had seen the club’s transformation from a cellar dweller into a championship contender.
The Lakers opened Game 5 with a fury of physical intimidation, scoring the game’s first 12 points. But that approach soon backfired. “It seemed to me [the Lakers] were trying to be physical,” Dantley said later. “They made fouls they didn’t have to make. It seemed they were trying to say, ‘Hey, we can play physical.’ Then they had all their big guys on the bench.”
Dantley played a major role in this turnaround, scoring 25 points, 19 of them in the first half, to rally the Pistons to a 59-50 halftime lead. “A. C. and the guys played him hard, as hard as they could,” Magic said of Dantley. “Give him credit…he made the fallaway jumpers.” Daly also turned the full heat of the Pistons’ bench on the Lakers early. Vinnie Johnson scored 12 of his 16 points in the first half to keep Detroit moving.
It was just another example of Detroit relying upon its “D’s”—defense, depth, Dantley, Dumars (19 points on 9-of-13 shooting from the floor), and of course, Daly. The depth received extra emphasis. “They [the Lakers] played great in spots,” Vinnie said, “but we had fresher guys: myself, Salley, Rodman, and Edwards. When you’re playing against fresh guys, it’s tough to hang in there.”
The Lakers had gotten away from what they did best—rebounding and running. “We couldn’t contain anyone on the boards,” Riley said. “We had 2 defensive boards in the fourth quarter and they had 10 offensive boards. You’re not going to beat anyone with that.”
The Pistons’ 104-94 victory was a perfect farewell to the Silverdome. “I told Joe Dumars with a minute left in the game to look around and enjoy this because you’ll never see anything like it again,” Laimbeer said. “Forty-one thousand people waving towels and standing…it was awesome.”
“A Minute Is A Long Time”
Detroit held a three-games-to-two lead, but the Pistons would have to claim the championship in the Forum, and that wouldn’t be a cakewalk. The series had come down to a classic confrontation, and both sides responded appropriately.
The Pistons were down, 56-48, early in the third quarter of Game 6 when Thomas scored the next 14 points in trance-like fashion—two free throws after a drive in the lane, then a 5-footer off an offensive rebound, followed by four jumpers, a bank shot, and a layup.
Then, with a little more than four minutes to go in the period, Thomas landed on Michael Cooper’s foot and had to be helped from the floor. Despite a severely sprained ankle, Thomas returned 35 seconds later and continued the offensive assault. By the end of the quarter, he had hit 11 of 13 shots from the floor for 25 points, setting an NBA Finals record for points in a quarter. Better yet, he had single-handedly given his team an 81-79 lead.
That momentum stayed with the Pistons, and with a minute left in the game, they held a 102-99 edge. They were a mere 60 seconds from an NBA title, the franchise’s first ever. The league trophy was wheeled into the Pistons’ locker room. Iced champagne was brought in. CBS requested the presence of team owner Bill Davidson to receive the trophy. Moments later, those preparations would be rapidly disassembled, and the trophy taken away before Davidson could touch it. “A minute is a long time,” Magic would say later. “A long time. It’s just two scores and two stops and you’re ahead.”
The Lakers’ first score came on Byron Scott’s 14-foot jumper with 52 seconds left, which brought Los Angeles to within one at 102-101. Detroit struggled for the right shot on its possession and failed when Thomas missed an 18-footer. With 14 seconds left Kareem Abdul-Jabbar set up for his sky hook from the baseline, and Bill Laimbeer was whistled for a foul. The Lakers’ captain made both free throws, giving the Lakers a 103-102 lead.
Although they had lost their lead, the Pistons were in a good position to regain it. They had the ball and a chance to win. With eight seconds left, Joe Dumars took the shot for Detroit, a double pump from 6 feet away. The shot missed, and the rebound slipped through Dennis Rodman’s frantic hands. Byron Scott controlled the loose ball, the series was tied, and the Lakers were smug again. The dream ending had quickly become a nightmare for Detroit. They now faced Game 7 in enemy territory with Thomas’s status in deep doubt.
Battered Thomas Gains Respect
“His ankle is pretty swollen,” said Daly. “We got a miraculous game from Isiah, as hurt as he was. He got us back in the game. On offense, we didn’t give him as much support as I would like. We were 45 seconds away from an NBA Championship. What can I say?” Thomas had finished the game with a jammed left pinkie, a poked eye, a scratched face, a ballooned ankle, 43 points, 8 assists, 6 steals, and enough respect to last a lifetime.
“What Isiah Thomas did in the second half was just incredible,” said Riley. Magic added: “I think he was just unconscious. I think he said, ‘Okay, I’m going to take this game over.’ I’ve seen him do that before. He was in his rhythm. When he starts skipping and hopping, that means he’s in his rhythm. That means he’s ready.”
“No one said it would be easy,” said Thomas. “I’m not devastated. I want to win this championship. I’m willing to pay whatever it takes. My ankle’s hurting, but this game and this series means too much not to be playing. I’m playing—period.”
Looking For A Miracle
The team trainers had 48 hours to try to work a miracle. But nature needed more time. The ankle took Thomas to the third quarter but no further. Despite limping badly in warmups, he scored 10 points in the first half on the way to leading the Pistons to a 52-47 lead at intermission. But the time between halves brought on stiffness, and he was no longer effective.
The Lakers, meanwhile, got going behind Worthy’s low-post scoring and raced to a seemingly insurmountable 90-75 lead in the fourth quarter. But just when Riley could taste the reality of his repeat fantasy, the Lakers let up. Somehow the Pistons found a way back. Daly went with a pressure lineup of Vinnie Johnson, Joe Dumars, John Salley, Dennis Rodman, and Bill Laimbeer, and they ate up the Lakers’ lead in big gulps. At 3:52 Salley knocked in two free throws to close the gap to 98-92, and the Lakers were in an obvious panic.
At 1:17, Dumars, who led the Pistons with 25 points, hit a jumper to make it 102-100. But Magic scored a free throw off a Rodman foul, stretching it to 103-100. Detroit then had its best opportunity, but Rodman took an ill-advised jumper at 39 seconds. Scott rebounded and was fouled. His two free throws pushed the lead to 105-100. After Dumars made a layup, Worthy hit a free throw and Laimbeer canned a trey, pushing the score to 106-105 with six seconds showing. Green completed the scoring with a layup, making it 108-105, and although the Pistons got the ball to Thomas at midcourt with a second remaining, he fell without getting off a shot.
The furious rally made it hard for Daly, even in all his disappointment, not to feel good. “I love the way we fought back,” he said. “Storm back from 15 down against the world champions? You have to love it. You have to love them. I can’t say enough about my club. I had doubts, but this team just wouldn’t quit. And they had every reason to quit.”
Rodman was despondent about taking and missing the jump shot with 39 seconds left. “I don’t know why,” he said. “I’m not a jump shooter. I don’t know what clicked in me. Why couldn’t I have just taken it to the rim and torn it down?”
“Three-peat”?
Riley could only give thanks. “It was a nightmare to the very end,” he said. “I kept saying, ‘Please don’t let this end in a nightmare.’ We were a great team trying to hold on. Hey, they just put on one of the greatest comebacks in the history of this game and they have nothing to be ashamed of. We’re a great team and they had us hanging on at the end. We were able to do it because of who we are, but they gave us all we could handle.”
Worthy had racked up a monster triple-double: 36 points, 16 rebounds, and 10 assists. For that and his earlier efforts in the series, he was named the Finals MVP. Self-effacing as usual, Worthy said he would have voted for Magic.
The league had another repeat champion at last. The Lakers had realized their greatness. They were all relieved. And to make sure Riley had no more wise ideas about the future, Abdul-Jabbar kept his eye on the coach during the post-game interviews. It did little good, though. Riley already was working on a name for the next chapter of the Lakers’ adventure.
He planned to call it “Three-peat.”
(c)1994 NBA Properties, Inc. and/or Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
A recap of the 1989 Finals, and the Pistons' 1988/89 season.
1989 - NBA Finals
Pistons Trade The “Teacher” But Still School Opponents
The Detroit Pistons opened their training camp in the fall of 1988 with an air of impatience. As Isiah Thomas explained, they didn’t want to fool with the 1988–89 regular season; they just wanted to go directly to the Finals again where they could correct their mistakes.
But there were distractions. A rift had begun to develop on the team during the 1988 Finals. Before Game 6, with the Pistons holding a one-game lead, Thomas and center Bill Laimbeer had agreed that if either won the MVP Award, the winner would split the $35,000 prize money among his teammates. Adrian Dantley, however, had said he would do no such thing. The irritation at this attitude worsened when Detroit ultimately lost, and no Piston won the award.
Also, Dantley had sat on the bench during the Game 7 comeback against the Lakers and was sulking about it. Although he admitted to wondering about it privately, he said he had never questioned Coach Chuck Daly about keeping him on the bench in the last minutes while Dennis Rodman played. For his part, Daly said he didn’t care what Dantley thought of Game 7. Daly said he had gone with a quick lineup that had almost wiped out the Lakers’ big lead and pulled off a miracle.
Although the Pistons were winning their way through the regular season, it soon became obvious that they weren’t playing all that well together. Thomas speculated that the team was struggling offensively because it was playing so well defensively. He wanted to pick up the tempo, an obvious solution to the doldrums, but that would take the team further away from Dantley’s half-court post game. The team split on this issue, headed in two different directions.
It seemed that one event after another added to the turmoil. First, Assistant Coach Dick Versace, who communicated well with Dantley, left to become head coach of the Indiana Pacers. Then, on January 11, Joe Dumars broke a bone in his left hand during a 100-93 loss to the New York Knicks in the Palace. The injury sidelined him for a month and added to Detroit’s offensive woes. Over the first 27 days of January, the Pistons went 6-6.
Finally, Dantley was traded to the Dallas Mavericks for Mark Aguirre, a childhood friend of Thomas’s. The night before the trade, the Pistons took it to the defending NBA-champion Lakers in the Forum, 111-103. Dumars had returned from injury, and the team’s spirits had buoyed.
Which explains why Dantley was caught off-guard by the news. He balked, and at first refused to report to Dallas. Aguirre, for his part, was elated. The No. 1 pick ahead of Thomas in the 1981 draft, he had played well for Dallas for seven seasons yet had acquired a tarnished image at the same time. Some of his teammates said he was selfish, that he didn’t always play hard. The expectations in Dallas had been unrealistic, claimed Aguirre. “The offense is not as much concentrated on me,” he said of his new team, “but I am able to contribute to a better team and that makes me happy.”
Dantley was anything but happy, and the same went for Dumars, his closest friend on the team. Like Dumars, Dantley was a quiet man, with a modest, conservative approach to life. With a dozen pro seasons under his belt, Dantley’s nickname of “Teacher” was apt. There was much he had taught the younger Dumars about coping with the pro lifestyle.
Dumars The Quiet Eye Of Pistons’ Storm
Throughout his career, Dumars, the youngest of seven children of a Louisiana trucker, had quietly amazed the sportswriters covering the Pistons. But never more so than in the aftermath of the trade. Although deeply hurt by his friend’s trade, Dumars never allowed so much as a ripple to enter his businesslike approach to the game.
Detroit had given the 33-year-old Dantley plus the next year’s first-round draft pick for the 29-year-old Aguirre. Was the trade good or bad? The players were very similar, both post-up small forwards, both used to getting the ball. Would Aguirre show the spoiled act that had turned off some fans in Dallas? Would he agree to share playing time with the incredible rebounding and defensive machine, Dennis Rodman?
The answer was yes. Aguirre wanted to fit in, and Detroit was deep enough to allow him to be introduced slowly. Besides, they were winning. As tumultous as February had been, the Pistons finished the month 8-3. By mid-March, Daly was witnessing the transformation. “I see more signs of unselfishness,” the coach said. “We’re definitely more cohesive offensively. We’re moving the ball more quickly, making that extra pass.”
Aguirre had speeded up the offense, and it was something the players noticed almost immediately. Thomas, who had never played organized basketball with Aguirre before, was as surprised as the rest. Rather than waiting for Dantley to work his unique offensive style, the Pistons found themselves benefitting from Aguirre’s passing. Eager to fit in, the 6-foot-6 forward was the offensive threat Detroit needed inside to force the double-team. As soon as the second defender arrived, Aguirre dumped off the ball and the Pistons’ perimeter game did the rest.
“We’re going in as a unit,” Aguirre said proudly as the playoffs began, “and to go in as a unit, you’re a lot stronger.” NBA beat writers began exchanging puzzled glances. Is this the same Mark Aguirre they knew from Dallas? “Yes,” Aguirre said, smiling. “I just shoot less.”
The Pistons closed out March at 16-1, and Daly was named Coach of the Month. At the end of February, they had languished five games behind Cleveland in the Central Division standings. But two weeks later, the Pistons had taken the lead. They closed out the schedule with the league’s best record, 63-19, which gave them the home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.
Mentally-Tough Pistons Look To End Long Drought
The regular-season showing had been particularly satisfying to Bill Laimbeer, who with Thomas had been with the team throughout most of the 1980s. Asked the difference between this team and its competition, the center replied, “We have an unusually large number of mentally strong players on this ball club. Make no mistake, we did learn from Boston the last few years about how far mental toughness can carry you. They were the champions of that department every year.”
The Pistons had never before entered the playoffs as the dominant team in basketball. Then again, no other team had been in the league so long without winning a title. Fred Zollner had founded the club in 1941 to play in the old National Basketball League in Fort Wayne, Indiana, naming the team for his product. The Fort Wayne Pistons won a series of titles in the old league in the early 1940s, then joined the NBA for 1947–48. In 1955 and again in 1956 the Pistons went to the NBA Finals, but they lost both times. They moved to Detroit in 1957 but generated little forward momentum. For the next 25 years the Pistons didn’t even make the playoffs.
But by 1987 that had changed. The rivalry with the Boston Celtics, for example, had grown to the point that 61,983 fans filled the Silverdome for a regular-season meeting in 1987–88. The Pistons set an NBA attendance record that season and gained the distinction of being the first team in NBA history to draw one million fans in a season.
But even with all those people in the Silverdome, it simply wasn’t a basketball facility. So owner William Davidson and a group of partners acquired land in Auburn Hills, north of Detroit and just beyond the Silverdome, and built the Palace, a state-of-the-art sports facility. So the sense of momentum went beyond mere basketball in the spring of 1989. Hopes were high heading into the playoffs that the Pistons could do something they had never done before.
“The Sequel”
The Los Angeles Lakers, of course, had even bigger dreams. They had finished the regular season at 57-25, and Head Coach Pat Riley had gone so far as to patent his “Three-peat” slogan in hopes of cashing in on the souvenir market. His prospects for big royalties seemed to improve with each round of the playoffs.
In the NBA Playoffs, 1989 was the Year of the Broom. The Knicks swept the Philadelphia 76ers in three close first-round games, and in a fit of youthful excess, some New York players grabbed brooms from the custodial staff in Philadelphia and began doing the floor. The Chicago Bulls, led by the amazing Michael Jordan, upset New York in the next round in a hard-fought six-game series.
For better or worse, the tone had been set for the playoffs. Detroit made a sweep of its first two rounds. In Boston, Larry Bird had spent virtually the entire season on the sidelines after undergoing heel surgery in November. As a result, the Celtics went three-and-out against the Pistons in the first round. Detroit then swept the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round. Only Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls interrupted this trend by winning a pair of games before falling in six to the determined Pistons. The Lakers had taken the sweep concept to even greater lengths, going on an unprecedented 11-0 run to the Finals. Portland, Seattle, and Phoenix—each had gone out with the dustpan. The wins meant that Riley needed only one more victory to become the winningest coach in playoff history. It seemed like a lock.
The Detroit papers had fun with the Pistons–Lakers rematch in the Finals, calling it “the Sequel.” As things turned out, it certainly had the properties of one—big on staging, hype, and promotion, and plenty of talent.
“In training camp,” Laimbeer said, “we knew that we wanted to get back to the Finals. We wanted to win a championship. And we set about a game plan where we had to do A, B, C, and D to get back there. We’ve done A, B, C, and D. Now comes the E part.”
The E didn’t stand for easy. After all, the Pistons were facing Magic Johnson, who had a real shot at staking out a piece of basketball history by claiming three consecutive titles. To a man, the Pistons knew Magic and Company would be dangerous.
“I understand the Lakers as a basketball team,” said Isiah. “But more importantly, I understand them as people. In order to beat the opponent you’ve got to understand the people that you’re playing against. Because in a playoff, plays don’t beat you, passing and all that. What beats you in the playoffs is people, individual people digging deep down within themselves and deciding that they’re going to win a basketball game. That’s what beats you.”
“L.A. has our rings from last year and we want our own ring,” Laimbeer said. “That’s enough incentive right there.”
Lakers Look To Ring Out The Old
At the outset, the potential for drama seemed high. The 42-year-old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had announced his retirement effective at the close of the season. The Lakers hoped to send him out with another ring. It wasn’t hard to imagine Los Angeles stealing a third title and the “Bad Boys” condemned to the role of the perpetual bridesmaid. But just before Game 1 in Detroit, Byron Scott suffered a severe hamstring injury in practice. He would miss at least the first two games.
What did the loss of Scott mean to the Lakers? a writer asked Isiah Thomas. “I don’t know what it means to them and I don’t care,” he retorted. “They didn’t care about me last year when I was hurt.”
The Pistons further emphasized this by smoking the Lakers in Game 1, with the Pistons’ guards popping from every place on the floor. Thomas had 24 points, Joe Dumars 22, and Vinnie Johnson 19. Coach Daly was ecstatic; during the Chicago series, the backcourt had shot less than 40 percent from the field. With six minutes left, Detroit led, 97-79, and the final score was 109-97. “We played probably our best playoff game,” Daly said afterward. “We were aggressive offensively and defensively, particularly on offense.”
“It’s nice,” agreed Thomas, “but we know from experience that it takes four. We have one win and there are six games left.” Once bitten, twice shy, the Pistons weren’t about to let their spirits soar just because of an opening home-court win, no matter how much the Lakers’ offense had struggled. The big effort had come from Rick Mahorn, who harassed James Worthy into 6-for-18 shooting.
Ouch! Lakers Lose Magic, Then Game
As Daly had expected, the Lakers snapped right back in Game 2, pounding the boards and taking a strong first-quarter lead. But Dumars got hot with 24 points in the first half (he would finish with 33) to keep Detroit close. Los Angeles held a 62-56 lead at intermission; Michael Cooper, Scott’s backup, was hitting, and Magic had that look in his eye. But events turned in the third quarter. With about four minutes left, a John Salley block of a Mychal Thompson shot started a Detroit fast break. Magic dropped back to play defense, and in so doing, pulled his hamstring. He sensed immediately that the injury was serious and flailed at the air in frustration. He hobbled off the court and did not return.
The Pistons had made the bucket on the break to tie the game at 75, but the Lakers charged to a 90-81 lead late in the third quarter. But Detroit had owned the fourth through most of the playoffs, and Game 2 was no different. The Lakers opened the period with three missed baskets and an offensive foul as Detroit first tied the game, then went up, 102-95.
Next it was the Pistons’ turn to miss and mess up, as Thompson led a Los Angeles comeback. The final snafu came with a 24-second violation by Detroit, giving the Lakers the ball with eight seconds left. Down 106-104, they had a chance to tie or win it. The tie seemed a cinch when Worthy was fouled and went to the line.
There, however, the exhaustion caught up with the MVP of the previous year’s Finals. He missed the first and made the second, leaving the Lakers short at 106-105. Thomas then hit two free throws with a second remaining for the final 108-105 score.
Without Magic, Lakers Can’t Fool Pistons
Things looked good for the Pistons with a two-games-to-none lead, only nobody was saying that as the series headed to Los Angeles. But the immediate speculation centered on Magic. Could he play? He tried, but he had to leave Game 3 after just five minutes of the first quarter with the Lakers leading, 11-8. “I wanted to play so bad, but I just could not,” Johnson said later. “I could not make the cuts, defensively, that I had to make.”
“He made a heck of an effort,” Dumars observed, “but it just wasn’t there. You could tell by his motion. One time, the ball was right there a couple feet away, and he just couldn’t get it.” Without him, the Lakers still played like a championship contender. James Worthy scored 26 points, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played like a much younger man, contributing 24 points and 13 rebounds. The only veteran in the backcourt, Michael Cooper, had 13 assists and 15 points. But it wasn’t enough.
For starters, there was Dennis Rodman. Wracked by painful back spasms, he ripped down 19 rebounds between gasps—going to the sideline for rubdowns, then coming back in to worm his way inside the Lakers’ interior defense for offensive boards.
That was the supporting work. The marquee effort came from the guards. Once again, the Detroit backcourt lit it up. Joe Dumars hit for 31, including a remarkable third quarter in which he scored 17 consecutive points (21 in all for the period). The Lakers had trouble switching on defense and left him open repeatedly, and Dumars was obliged to do the damage. And when he went to his seat for a rest, Vinnie Johnson picked up the slack, scoring 13 points in the crucial fourth period (he finished with 17).
Isiah Thomas pitched in with 26 points and 8 assists. Much of his best work came in the clutch—6 key points and 3 assists. The only problem was, so did his only real mistakes of the afternoon, including a bad pass with the Pistons leading 103-102. Still, things seemed pretty secure with 2:06 left when the Microwave hit one of his big-time jumpers to give Detroit a 109-104 lead. The Pistons maintained that five-point margin until 15 seconds remained, when Thomas allowed A. C. Green to tie him up and steal the ball. Thomas then fouled the Lakers’ rookie point guard, David Rivers, who made both, pulling Los Angeles to within three at 113-110 with 13 seconds left. Dumars came back in the game at that point, and with nine seconds left he tipped the ball out of bounds, giving the Lakers a shot at the tie.
Dumars: “Just Give Me The Ball”
Prior to this game, Rivers had played only 8 minutes in the playoffs, none of it in the clutch. But with the injuries to Magic Johnson and Byron Scott the rookie suddenly found himself with lots of prime time. Now, he was the first option on a last-second three-pointer.
“He got away from me,” Dumars said of Rivers. “I let up a little because when he broke, I let him go. I thought, ‘He can’t be the first option, so I am going to take a look and see where the ball is going.’ I turned back and the ball was going right to him. Then I knew I had to react. I knew he wouldn’t be going to the goal because they needed three. I can’t even think of the last time I blocked a shot. It was just instinct. I was a good ways from him. It’s amazing what you do in pressure situations.”
From about 8 feet to Rivers’s right, Dumars wheeled and lunged at the shot. Not only did he block it, he then landed and saved it from going out of bounds. “That was a First Team All-Defensive play right there,” Laimbeer said afterward. “To block the shot…yeah, everybody blocks shots, but to block the shot and save the ball to your teammate—that’s a big play. That’s a play you win championships with.”
Not to mention MVP Awards. The writers began asking the reserved Dumars if he had thought about taking the Finals MVP honors. “It would be great,” he admitted. “I don’t want to downplay it, but championship rings—that’s what you play for.” The defensive play seemed to seal the award for Dumars, especially when combined with his offensive outburst. “I just happened to get into one of those zones where a couple of shots went down and I wanted to touch the ball every time it came down the floor,” he said of his third-quarter scoring.
“Was it a case where you would talk to Isiah and say, ‘I’m hot’?” a writer asked. “Or does he just know that?”
“He knows it,” said Dumars. “At one point he asked me, ‘What do you want?’, meaning what play did I want. I said, ‘Just the ball.’ That’s about how it was, ‘Just give me the ball.’”
Forum Crowd Bids Farewell To “The Captain”
Down three games to none, the Lakers still talked of making history—specifically, becoming the first team ever to overcome a three-game deficit. Tony Campbell, the reserve guard who had filled in admirably for Scott, asserted that such a comeback was in the works. Wiser voices weren’t quite so optimistic.
“It’s like you have a real nice sports car and a great driver,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said of the circumstances, “and then all of a sudden you have to find somebody who has been driving a bus to be a driver. That’s a learning experience.”
The Lakers knew things would be tough. Pat Riley told James Worthy he would have to up his game a few notches and get them a win. Riley reminded Worthy how his efforts had paid off in ’88. And Worthy responded with a championship effort—40 points on 17-of-26 field-goal shooting, and that with Rick Mahorn in his face every step of the way. But he couldn’t do it alone.
The crowd had come expecting an event—Abdul-Jabbar’s final game. The big center had conducted his final warm-up, his bald pate glistening under the Forum lights. He was composed, spending much of the session standing silently in a half-slouch, his hand on his hip. He dropped in one final finger-roll and headed over to the bench. With that signal, the team had followed, igniting a round of applause that spread across the Forum crowd.
Once the game started, the pattern was familiar. Mahorn and Cooper mixed it up in the first period, drawing a double technical. With Worthy playing out of his mind, the Lakers took a 35-23 lead at the end of the first. Detroit missed free throws like they were dental appointments, 11 in all in the first half. But Vinnie Johnson made one to close out the first-half scoring with Los Angeles leading 55-49 at intermission.
The Pistons started fast in the third quarter, beginning with an opening trey by Bill Laimbeer. Mahorn then scored four quick points and the Pistons took a 59-58 lead moments later when Dumars hit a driving bank shot, drew the foul, and made the free throw, giving him 19 points on the evening. Mahorn followed that with another bucket, and suddenly it was timeout, Lakers.
Abdul-Jabbar Hits Final Hoop
When Worthy blasted them back into the lead later in the quarter, the crowd chanted “Three-peat.” It was a Hollywood dream that would never see the light of reality. The Lakers held a 78-76 lead at the end of the third, but they knew the Pistons were coming on. Everyone in the building knew it. The Pistons turned the chores over to James Edwards, who slammed and picked his way along, giving Detroit the lead in the process. As the Pistons’ momentum increased, the Lakers appeared drained.
When Detroit got the ball back with 3:23 left and a 100-94 lead the crowd rose to a standing ovation—more a note of thanks than a plea for a miracle. Abdul-Jabbar came back in the game, but neither team was playing well. The next two minutes were an exchange of missed shots and turnovers.
At 1:37, Abdul-Jabbar broke the chill with a spin move and bank shot, his last two NBA points, cutting the Pistons’ margin to 100-96. “The Big Guy” went out at 0:47. Then Laimbeer hit a jumper at 0:28, and the Pistons figured it was safe to start hugging during the ensuing timeout. Mahorn stood in the midst of this outbreak, a towel draped over his shoulders, and slowly rotated, looking up into the crowd. Then he raised his arms in triumph. Laimbeer was shouting “it-ain’t-over-’til-it’s-over” kinds of things. Dumars just sat quietly, his face pressed into a towel.
Riley sent Abdul-Jabbar back in after the timeout, but Michael Cooper missed a three-pointer and Isiah got fouled. Riley sent Orlando Woolridge in for “the Captain.” It was hug time for the Lakers. Magic came out to meet Abdul-Jabbar. The crowd’s applause was warm, and the Pistons all stepped onto the floor, faced the Lakers’ bench, and joined in.
Then Mark Aguirre suddenly grabbed Thomas and began squeezing his head. Somehow Isiah escaped. Then he turned, hugged Daly, and cried openly for the cameras. Daly later said he forced a tear or two himself, but it looked like a little more than that. “Free throws. Let’s go,” Daly said, breaking the spell. Isiah went back to the line. Soon it was over, 105-97. “Kareem, Kareem, Kareem,” the crowd intoned again and again.
Just before the final buzzer sounded, Riley strode down the sideline to shake Daly’s hand. It was the only sign Isiah needed. As the final seconds ticked off the clock he sent the ball zipping into the Forum rafters.
“Broadway Joe” A Reluctant Star
As expected, Joe Dumars was named the Finals MVP. Prior to the ’89 playoffs, the 6-foot-3 guard was considered one of the best-kept secrets in basketball, primarily because he played in Isiah’s shadow. But in the aftermath of the championship, Dumars was swept away in a tide of celebrity. Normally a controlled, measured man, he struggled to keep his emotions in check amid the din of celebration in the Pistons’ locker room.
After all, his teammates were the Bad Boys, and Dumars was their resident Good Guy. He played steady defense, provided outbursts of scoring when necessary, and otherwise blended into the background. On a roster bristling with personalities, Dumars was inordinately plain. “I can understand,” he said, “that people want to see the fancy stuff. But, believe me, we’ve got enough fancy stuff on the Detroit Pistons where I don’t have to be fancy.”
Dumars said he looked to his father, Joe Dumars II, a hard-working Louisiana trucker, for help in maintaining his equilibrium. “I compare myself here to the way he was on his job,” he explained. “A lot of truckers are some rough guys. For him at his work, it was almost like it is here for me—he was one of the good guys with the bad guys, the Bad Boys. Because those truckers are some bad boys. He was one of the good guys. He drove the speed limit and didn’t hog the road.”
The jubilation of the championship did little to alter Dumars’s modus operandi. While his teammates celebrated loudly, he quietly retreated to the back of the locker room to answer a few questions. His answers were as steady and unfancy as his play. Before Dumars could acknowledge a request for an on-the-spot TV interview, Vinnie Johnson yelled from across the room, “Broadway Joe! Yo, yo, yo!”
Broadway Joe? Dumars said he wanted to be recognized for his ability, yet when the media came in waves, he met the onslaught with a fluttering smile and retreated a little further into the background. The challenge, he said in an aside during the locker room celebration, is to keep your emotions from blasting through the ceiling and going skyward, taking your ego with them.
It seemed that Dumars had met that challenge.
(c)1994 NBA Properties, Inc. and/or Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
