Chauncey. Yeah, he’s definitely Clyde. Cool, makes the big shot, runs the show.
Rip. He’s Barnett with the shot, though not the “fall back, baby” fadeaway for which Dick Barnett was famous.
Tay. He’s Dollar Bill, the worker, mostly unnoticed, smart, always in the right place at the right time.
No one’s really quite Dave D., the ultimate hustle guy playing bigger than his size, a native Detroit guy.
And C-Web, yeah, he has a little Willis in him, especially the hobble, but he will make that shot and take you away from the basket.
“I always said when I came here last year, from the first practice, that’s who this team reminded me of — the ’70 Knicks,” Pistons coach Flip Saunders said. “The unselfish play. They don’t seem to care who scores. Over the course of the game they never beat themselves. They don’t turn the ball over and rely on making the right basketball play.
“Everyone on the floor does something to make the other guys better, and that’s how you want to play.”
No, this Pistons model, without Ben Wallace and with Chris Webber, isn’t quite the ’04 championship team yet. But it can make a big step in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Bulls on Thursday night at the United Center.
With a 2-0 series lead, the Pistons could be on the verge of their fifth consecutive Eastern Conference finals, the only team in the NBA to do that since the Bulls from 1989-93.
But what makes this Pistons team special is its versatility. Saunders isn’t the only one who is drawing parallels to the Knicks of the early ’70s, one of the NBA’s great teams.
The comparison isn’t lost on these Pistons, who have yet to come close to the Knicks’ success — NBA titles in 1970 and 1973 with slightly different casts. But with the addition of Webber midway through this season, the Pistons have changed in character and come close to mirroring that classic team.
“Yes, I think about that,” Webber said. “I remember talking to [Dave] DeBusschere. He had come back to UD (University of Detroit) and was talking about team, trusting one another. This team is by far the best I’ve ever been on as far as trusting each other. It’s not the most athletic team, not the youngest, but the best as far as focusing on what it needs to do.”
In the first two games against the Bulls, the Pistons have been remarkable in doing exactly that.
The Pistons have shot well — 48 percent, and 49 from three-point range — and have outrebounded the Bulls by about 15 per game. They also have averaged almost nine more assists per game. They moved the ball for good shots, had position to rebound and control the pace and played defense aggressively and relentlessly, holding the Bulls to about 33 percent shooting.
The only real surprise has been an unusually high number of turnovers (18 per game) for the team that was the best in the NBA at taking care of the ball this season. But in blowout games, that stat can be distorted.
It’s only two victories at home, and any playoff series can turn around quickly, but the way the Pistons have done it has been most impressive.
I’m somewhat biased because those Knicks teams of the early 1970s were perhaps my favorites. They were the closest, in my view, not just to perfect basketball, but basketball as we old-timers played it.
There were no high fliers and dunkers. It wasn’t a particularly athletic game, even though the 1973 team had Earl Monroe, arguably the inspiration for the street ball that is common today.
But Monroe, known as “Earl the Pearl,” had lost some athletic luster by then as he neared 30.
The first incarnation of that team in 1970 with Walt “Clyde” Frazier, DeBusschere, Bill Bradley and Willis Reed was the best, an ideal blend of team play, though Barnett was a bit one-dimensional as a shooter.
But surprisingly, Phil Jackson, who played on those teams but was injured in the 1970 season, doesn’t agree completely with me.
I ran my parallel by Jackson in an e-mail. He replied:
“They remind me of [Joe] Dumars’ team back in the late ’80s with strong guards, outside shooting bigs. … [Tayshaun] Prince is good one-on-one like Adrian Dantley and Mark Aguirre, but also a stopper on defense.”
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There were better teams over the years, certainly in Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. All had greater stars with Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Although most of those Knicks are in the Hall of Fame, none really rank among even the top 20 players of all time, which is how we usually define the classic teams.
But it was a joy to watch the way they moved the ball in and out, shot off well-executed screens and boxed out for rebounds against bigger, more athletic players. It was one of those teams that truly was greater than the sum of its parts.
In some sense it defines this Pistons team.
Particularly since Webber came aboard.
It’s not a group of stars, although Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton were All-Stars this season. Will any of their players make the Hall of Fame? Doubtful. Ben Wallace was their most celebrated player, and when the NBA announces its all-league team this week, Billups, who made it last year, probably is the only one who even has a chance to be selected.
But what most reflects those Knicks, and perhaps more the 1973 team because its big guy was a perimeter-shooting big man in Jerry Lucas, is the rarity in this era of five scoring options on the floor.
“We have five guys who can score and play inside-out,” said Prince, regarded as perhaps the team’s brightest player because of the way he can front its zone defense. ” [Rasheed Wallace] can be on the perimeter, C-Web. The 1, 2 and 3 can be posting.”
Saunders acknowledges the pieces came together with the signing of Webber, whom the 76ers are paying off. The Pistons are 38-13 since Webber began starting, and Webber had 22 points in the Game 2 victory over the Bulls.
“We’ve been really good since we got Webber,” said Saunders, the acquisition bringing comparisons to the 2004 midseason deal for Rasheed Wallace that led to a championship. “Now you have a choice where you are going to put your best [interior] defender. If you put a little guy on Chris, he can post or take a big guy outside. He’s really helped ‘Sheed, and they really help one another.”
They’re not a great team yet. But they’re not bad.
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