On the surface, our second semifinal is a mismatch. One franchise has the greatest collection of individual talent in NBA history, while the other is known more for its championship-team ensembles than for the excellence of its star players. However, the past three decades of Pistons basketball have shown that team play can prevail in such matchups. Specifically, the 1988, 1989, and 2004 NBA Finals between these two franchises illustrated the effectiveness of team defense, rebounding, and hustle against high end individual talent. While the battle between the All-Time Los Angeles Lakers vs. All-Time Detroit Pistons seems lopsided, the complementary nature of Detroit’s roster, and the relentlessness of their stars, will create many issues for L.A.
Key Matchups
Best frenemies – Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas, the best point guards of their generation, face off in a classic battle. However, don’t expect them to play each other on defense; Detroit will use a combination of Grant Hill, Dennis Rodman, Chauncey Billups, and Joe Dumars on Magic, while L.A. will primarily utilize Jerry West on Thomas. Hill and Rodman have the size to neutralize Johnson, and Rodman had great success guarding him in the past. West, whose freakishly long arms helped make him an elite defender and one of the top thieves in NBA history, should capitalize on Thomas’s penchant for turnovers. Both teams will look to harass these primary ballhandlers, and attack them on defense.
Rebounding mavens – Statistically, Los Angeles features four of the top 25 rebounders in NBA history (Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal, and Elgin Baylor). Detroit, however, has a chance to win the battle of the boards, thanks to Dennis Rodman, the league’s all-time leader in offensive and total rebounding percentage (since the 1970-71 season, the first year this statistic was tracked). Detroit also has Ben Wallace, who ranks 11th all-time on the total rebounding percentage list, and Bob Lanier and Bill Laimbeer, who will be tasked with guarding the Lakers’ centers. If Lanier, Laimbeer, and Wallace can hold their own, Rodman and Bailey Howell should wreak havoc against the Lakers’ forwards, and create second and third chance point opportunities.
Detroit’s defense vs. Showtime – The Lakers have the greatest collection of skill players ever assembled. Their offense is led by arguably the greatest passer in NBA history, and features many of the league’s greatest scorers. There’s no way Detroit can compete offensively with this group. The Pistons will counter with a slew of excellent defenders who will make life difficult for the Lakers’ scorers. In addition to his rebounding prowess, Rodman was one of the greatest defensive players in NBA history, and should expect to spend time on Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Elgin Baylor, and the Lakers’ hall-of-fame centers at different points in the series. Wallace won four Defensive Player of the Year awards with the Pistons, and keyed their 2004 title run against Bryant and O’Neal. Dumars was a five-time selection to the All-Defensive team. Billups and Hill were known as solid defenders throughout their careers. If they need a stop, Detroit can play a lineup featuring these five, though the Wallace-Rodman combination would be perilous on offense. Expect Check Daly to utilize his versatile personnel to throw off L.A.’s offensive machine.
Biggest Mismatches
The Lakers scoring punch – With that being said…this Lakers team can really score. Magic Johnson has an almost unfair amount of weaponry at his disposal. They should be able to get hard baskets by throwing the ball into Abdul-Jabbar or O’Neal, leaning on West and Gail Goodrich to space the floor, and allowing Baylor and Bryant to operate from mid-range. The Pistons scorers (specifically Thomas, Dave Bing, and George Yardley) are going to have to have the series of their lives to compete.
The Lakers’ size – Los Angeles features superheavyweights O’Neal, Chamberlain, and Abdul-Jabbar, three of the biggest and baddest men in league history. They also have George Mikan, the league’s first dominant center, and Magic Johnson, the biggest point guard in our tournament. If Detroit plays the three behemoth centers one-on-one, they’ll get destroyed, but double-teaming them will lead to the other Laker Hall-of-Famers going off. Detroit’s players do not present the same matchup issues for L.A.
Detroit’s Toughness – Calling this a mismatch is inaccurate, since the Lakers have some tough hombres on their team, but expect the Pistons to live up to their ‘Bad Boy’ moniker in an attempt to unnerve their Hollywood counterparts. Rodman, Wallace, Howell, and Laimbeer will have a green light to make this series as physical as possible and rough up the Lakers’ stars. While this may work on some players, it’s hard to believe these tactics will affect the Herculean tandem coming off L.A.’s bench (O’Neal and Chamberlain).
X-Factor
Will the referees let them play? – You hate to bring up a topic like this in a fantasy tournament, but basketball history is littered with examples of referees impacting important series. If the refs call the games tight, Detroit has no chance to compete. However, if they allow some physicality, and aren’t too stringent with the rules, that works to the Pistons’ advantage. Expect Rodman and Laimbeer to test the limits, and see what they can get away with.
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Results
As mentioned above, Detroit has thrived in the underdog role against the mighty Lakers in the past quarter century. They have enough unique pieces and big-game performers to make the All-Time Lakers team sweat over the course of a seven-game series. However, the Lakers high-end talent is too much for the scrappy Bad Boys to overcome. Even though the referees swallow their whistles, which allows Rodman to avoid major foul trouble, Los Angeles punches their ticket to the finals in six hard-fought games.
Los Angeles wins, four games to two.
Next Round
The Lakers face the All-Time Celtics in the NBA Franchise Tournament Finals.
I compliment you for a terrific job, as always.
In this case you’ve made a seemingly lop-sided series (as you yourself say) seem much more interesting. Your descriptions of: the match-ups; the advantages and disadvantages; and even the role the Refs might play – are all well-thought out.
On the other hand, I still see it as decidedly lop-sided;
In terms of the starting 5s: the Lakers have 4 All-Time scorers (West, Kobe, Elgin & Kareem) for Magic, the All-Time greatest passer, to feed – there is NO stopping this juggernaut; not even by a super-defensive team like the Pistons.
The problems get even worse for Detroit when the subs come in.
The Lakers will score more than enough points on the Pistons; and the Pistons will have trouble scoring enough points on the Lakers.
I’d say the Pistons would be lucky to take one game:
Lakers: 4 – 1 over the Pistons
For these Pistons to squeak out one game, the following would have to happen:
1) It would have to be at HOME;
2) It would have to be in OVERTIME; and, most importantly,
3) The REFS would really have to stash their whistles and let them play so physically that most fans would think it was “dirty”.
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BUT, I’d actually start a different Lakers starting 5:
Magic
West
Kobe
KAJ (at Power Forward)
Wilt (at Center)
I absolutely loved Elgin Baylor from the beginning of his career; but with Wilt available AND the incredible passing-scoring potential of Magic-West-Kobe; I’d start Wilt at Center and KAJ at power forward. Elgin would be relatively redundant on offense with Magic-West-Kobe on the floor; and on defense, while he was good; Wilt was an All-Time defensive behemoth.
“Pablo’s” STARTING 5’S:
LAKERS ON OFFENSE: KAJ never needed to be that close to the basket to absolutely dominate with the invincible Sky-hook. Wilt will totally keep the Pistons from double-teaming anybody. And then, as you say, the Pistons are doomed: If they don’t double team – ABSOLUTELY SURROUNDED by All-Time Greats, Magic will shine as never before with his near-perfectly timed & placed passes. If the Pistons dare double team anyone (but who?), all 5 are good enough passers – the other guys will just go off even more.
DETROIT ON OFFENSE: The Pistons just won’t be able to score nearly enough on West-Kobe-KAJ-Wilt to expose Magic’s average defense. With Wilt deep, the others can play super-aggressive defense – and just smother the Pistons’ attack; especially given that the Pistons have NO go-to, unstoppable offensive weapons.
MINUTES-SHARING FOR THE LAKERS:
I’d envision the Lakers’ starters playing as one unit (and only needed for about 28 minutes a game, except Magic who’d play 36). With so relatively few minutes per game, all of them except Magic can go all-out at both ends of the floor; while Magic doesn’t need to either put out top effort either trying to score or on defense). The subs would adequately hold their own against the Detroit subs; dividing up the remaining 92 minutes (with the 3 Minneapolis Lakers mostly cleaning up in garbage time).
“Pablo’s” SUBS:
btw, part of the reason I’d start Wilt, is because otherwise you’d have to choose between Wilt & Shaq playing together – where spacing would be a BIG problem; or both of them would play far too few minutes.
LAKERS SUBS ON OFFENSE: Goodrich is a good enough passer (with Magic helping out for half of these minutes; not counting “garbage time”) that the Lakers won’t have any problem scoring against the Pistons subs. The key here will be proper spacing – and playing THRU Shaq, who with lots of inside room, will be close to unstoppable because of the variety of other Lakers threats, particularly Baylor and Worthy taking turns slashing and popping.
PISTONS’ SUBS ON OFFENSE: Due to their limited minutes per game, this Lakers defense, with Shaq patrolling the paint, allows Goodrich, Baylor & Worthy to play fast, intense and loose. The Pistons’ bench just doesn’t have nearly enough fire-power offensively, nor do they have any sub who could just “take over” during these minutes.
SUMMATION:
Lakers in 4 games, with both home games being blow-outs.
Awesome comment – I love your analysis. I may have overstated Detroit’s case here, but I love the way their players complement each other. No question the Lakers would win the series, but I think this Detroit team would make it more difficult than meets the eye.
Very interesting that you’d start Wilt along with Kareem. My rationale was that the five starters have the best body of work as Lakers, and Wilt, as dominant as he was, just didn’t have enough years in L.A. to join them. I agree that the Wilt and Shaq combo wouldn’t work on the floor together, so Wilt would probably be the greatest third string center of all time in this format (I would take Shaq’s eight Laker years over Wilt’s five). That doesn’t even account for Mikan – just an embarrassment of riches.
I completely agree that Detroit’s D is just a thing of beauty; LOCK-DOWN style; the ULTIMATE defensive dragnet. Against any other team; the scores would break the All-Time LOW-scoring records (maybe even for the pre 24-second shot clock; well that might be going a little overboard, lol)
But Detroit just “picked” the wrong bracket. Every single Piston defender is gonna get beat by his opposite number; and Magic is gonna just demoralize them – his passes (with THESE team-mates) are gonna more beautiful than even Spur-fection from a couple of years back – where they ANNIHILATED one of the all-time best defensive teams, the HEAT. (That HAS TO BE (one of) THE GREATEST COACHING JOBS OF ALL TIME. Nothing less would have even kept those Spurs in the game against that monster team.
But, to repeat myself, NOBODY is stopping Magic driving THIS Buss (lol). He’d be content to only score when he was unguarded AT the rim; I can SEE his eyes glowing; his irresistible smile at a new level. (He’d have double vision; half on slicing and dicing the Pistons apart; the other half with visions of Larry in his head, “Hey Legend, I think we’ve got a score to settle.”
And, then there’s Jerry West – you did a marvelous job of addressing his excellent defense; but on offense this guy was the original Stephen Curry; with Magic dishing, he wouldn’t move off the 3-point line – and he’d drain them a-la-Curry.
Then you have a “force multiplier” effect. With Magic you can’t even hope to stop ANY of those four guys. But add in West; and Kobe is gonna be doing 82-point game KOBE level of play. With those three going lights-out outside, KAJ is gonna have a field day floating in Sky-Hooks against defenders that HAVE to help; but absolutely can not. And Wilt (if we do allow him to play first string – although I LOVE Elgin) – Wilt would do any damned thing he pleased.
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About Wilt only meriting 3rd string for only playing 5 years – I had the same qualms – I won’t even add players to All-Team Teams if they’ve got LESS than 5 years with them.
But how the bleep could I have him 3rd string !
About Mikan, my dad was “his biggest fan” – tracked down every single thing ever written about him. I grew up hearing about the Mikan this, the Mikan that and, of course, breakfast, lunch dinner with the Mikan Drill. (The billboards in NYC would read, The Celtics against Mikan and the Lakers; or … “And Mikan’s Lakers …)
It feels absolutely sacriligeous (George, please forgive little me); But on this team, MIKAN only gets off the bench in 25+ plus point blow-outs – and he’s not gonna beat up on the 3rd string Pistons.
“An embarrassment of riches” it is.
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The most important thing (maybe not so important at all; but RELATIVELY SPEAKING …) I have to say in this particular post is that I think we’re a GREAT TEAM (and TEAM-work has been my middle name for 50+ years).
I am NO primary researcher; but you just “lay down the law” in your characterizations of every single player. I’m a “synthesizer”; I summarize other people’s work, throwing in some 55 years of NBA rabidity; and top it off with a bit of really unique spin for flavor. lol
I do NOT remember the last time I’ve read a series of articles about All-Things-Important-NBA that thrilled me nearly as much as your work here.
It’s a total honor to have the privilege to hang out here in the Comments suggestion.
All glory to you, my friend.
Pablo
Like Magic, I’m dreaming Larry now. Is RED gonna be genius enough to outsmart the Lakers – for me HE is the only NON-PLAYER EVER who did and still could shift the balance in any game or series. (That DYNASTY was the house that RED built.)
Chris,
I have to weigh in here, and disagree (possibly my first and last!) with the assertion that Wilt didn’t have enough years in LA to “join” them. He’s already on the team! There’s no stipulation anywhere in your blogs that a player can’t play a different role or start just because he didn’t have enough years on the team – when he’s already there! Moreover, Wilt on the Lakers took them to 4 finals in 5 seasons. 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973.
And to Pablo’s point, Wilt was a great interior defender – much better than even Shaq at his peak from 1999 to 2002. Shaq was the better offensive option, and I would start him versus teams with weaker frontcourts to wear them down. But against competent ones, I’d start Wilt and have him shut down the paint. He was still athletic at that point to completely erase shots taken inside of 10 feet radius. He could cover more space and had more springs in his legs than Shaq on defense. Shaq had the intimidation factor, and after wearing them down and repeatedly dunking on the poor defenders, they would be too tired to challenge him on the other end.
But Wilt as a Laker was a bigger and stronger Russell. 🙂
Good points. I should clarify what I meant here – Wilt definitely is eligible to start on the Lakers team (once a player makes the cut, he’s eligible for starting status), but I just meant that Kareem and Shaq had greater bodies of work as Lakers than Wilt did. In my mind, I can’t justify benching either of the starting forwards (Kobe and Elgin) in favor of L.A. Wilt, either. He would definitely get minutes, but I believe they would be in a 3rd string capacity, since Shaq would be my first big off the bench for this team. I get the argument that Wilt is the best defensive big man on the team though, so he could get more minutes in situations that call for it.
Thanks so much for all of your comments – please keep them coming!
A last “laugh” for you.
Like the refs could in a Lakers-Pistons series (or any Pistons series really); the actual Boston GAAAAden is gonna win one for the C’s – they’ll have a mal-functioning air conditioning system – that’ll make just enough of the difference in THE greatest game of all time (regular season or play-offs); a Game 5 triple overtime “thrilla in Manilla” in leprechaun land.
Haha – I’m glad you’re enjoying it, and really appreciate the feedback. I’m definitely looking forward to the write-up for the finals, and taking all of the factors that you highlighted into account when doing so.
Did you ever write up your player rankings? I’d still love to check them out when they’re ready.