No one knows Pistons basketball -- Deeeetroit Basketball -- better than Isiah Thomas, the Hall of Famer who led the Bad Boys to three straight trips to the NBA Finals and back-to-back championships in 1989 and 1990. When Thomas watches the Pistons now, "oh yeah, they're back," he said Sunday night after their 40th win of the season.
They had been gone a long while, buried in the basement of the East. Last in the NBA over the past five years, the past 10 years, and the past 15 years. But "they found their identity," Thomas said on NBA TV after the Pistons took care of the Pelicans without Cade Cunningham to move eight games over .500 as they close in on the playoffs. "They’re Bad Boys walking out."
The Pistons haven't won a playoff game in 17 years. That almost certainly ends this year, whether they get the Knicks, Pacers or Bucks in the first round. And don't put it past them to win a series for the first time in the same span. They would currently play the 3-seed Knicks, who the Pistons have already beaten twice this season at Madison Square Garden.
Detroit deters scorers like it used to. It ranks ninth in the NBA in defensive rating, second since the New Year. It controls the dirty areas like it used to. The Pistons have poured in the fifth most point paints and conceded the fourth fewest. "And most nights when you're in the paint," said Thomas, "you’re getting beat up in the paint — by Detroit." They clear the glass like they used to, second in the East in rebounding since the New Year.
They outmuscle and out-hustle their opponents like they used to, boxing out on the boards, chasing down loose balls and charging fearlessly toward the basket. Head coach JB Bickerstaff calls it a collective "mindset, a willingness and a want to play a physical brand of gritty, nasty, mentally and physically tough basketball."
"That's who our guys are," he said. "It's easy to settle for jumpers and threes. But it's difficult to play in the mud and the trenches, and that's where our guys love to play."
The Pelicans drained seven more threes than the Pistons on Sunday, but the Pistons earned 24 more trips to the line, scored 12 more points in the paint and 13 more off turnovers. Without their best player, they got a career-high 26 from rookie Ron Holland II, a season-high 22 from Jalen Duren and 20 from second-year man Marcus Sasser.
With Cunningham sidelined again on Tuesday as he nurses a calf injury, Sasser outdid himself with a career-high 27 and the Pistons put the clamps on the Spurs in a wire-to-wire rout. After another game in which Detroit imposed itself down low, Spurs acting head coach Mitch Johnson said, "Give them credit. They are physical, they guard, they make you work for everything. They are really committed to the paint and the rim on both sides of the floor.
"We missed a lot of shots -- they had something to do with that. They were pushing us off spots, they were getting us off our timing. We had six points in the paint in the first half. That’s not sustainable."
For five straight years, the Bad Boys ranked among the top three defensive teams in the NBA. This coincided with their reign in the East over Boston and Chicago, until Michael Jordan and the Bulls knocked them off the pedestal. When the Goin' to Work Pistons mounted it again in the mid-2000's, they ranked among the top-three defensive teams for another five-year stretch.
These Pistons aren't there yet -- and don't claim to be -- but they're playing with the same hard-edged personality, and selfless purpose. In other words, said Thomas, "they finally found their way back home to Pistons Bad Boys culture: defense, rebounding and playing physical."
"That’s who Detroit is, that’s who the city likes to see," he said. "Hey, if you want to shoot 50 threes, go live in Boston. If you want defense, hard work, rebounding, championship pedigree, come to Detroit."
The Pistons have nine games to go, continuing Friday night in Detroit against the Eastern Conference-leading Cavaliers. They've already improved on last season's franchise-worst record by 26 wins, with a chance to post one of the five greatest year-to-year turnarounds in NBA history. They're churning toward the playoffs with bad intentions, behind a darkhorse for MVP, a favorite for Coach of the Year and a well-blended team across the floor.
We'll see how far they go, but they aren't going away. Yessir, the Pistons are back.