During an appearance on Bleacher Report’s Full-Bodied with Channing Frye, Isiah Thomas talked about defeating some of the all-time greats in the NBA and the misconceptions around Bad Boy Pistons.
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Isiah Thomas is arguably one of the top 5 point guards of all time. Zeke played his entire pro basketball career for the Detroit Pistons, bringing the Motor City their first two NBA championships. Most of us remember Isiah for his days as a part of the Bad Boy Pistons. However, there are many more facets to his Hall of Fame journey in the NBA.
The Pistons legend is one of the few players to defeat the likes of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the playoffs. Zeke denied Jordan a ticket to the Finals three out of the four times they faced each other.
Though the Pistons faced defeat at the hands of Larry Bird and the Showtime Lakers, they would beat both the iconic teams ultimately. Isiah beat the Cs in the 1988 eastern conference finals and swept the LA Lakers in the 1989 NBA Finals.
Though Zeke had such landmark moments in his career, the highlight of his career remains the era of the Bad Boy Pistons. Thus the twelve-time All-Star would address all these misconceptions over wine with Channing Fyre.
Isiah Thomas addresses the misconceptions around the Detroit Pistons.
The current generation associates Zeke with the Bad Boy Pistons, who tortured Air Jordan with their physical plays, courtesy of MJ’s docu-series The Last Dance. Many don’t know that the Pistons style of defense is something many teams tried but failed to embody.
Recently, Isiah sat down with former NBA player Channing Fyre to address these misconceptions.
“All them people that they say are the best to ever do it, my teams beat all them,” said the Pistons MVP.
“You know we probably were the best defensive team to ever play in the NBA. Now they’ve showed you some highlights of us, some clips of us fouling people hard, and then you know they wrote a few paragraphs around it and said okay this is the Pistons.”
“Still the highest-scoring game in the NBA is held by the Detroit Pistons. At 186 points, we scored against the Denver Nuggets, 186-184. The highest-scoring game ever.”
The game that Isiah was referring to took place on December 13th, 1983 in Denver. The overtime game ended with a 186-184 score in favor of the Pistons, with Isiah playing an impeccable 52 minutes, scoring 47-points and 17-assists.
Though his enmity with Jordan has taken away a lot from his legacy, one cannot deny his brilliance on the court, something even MJ accepted during one of the Last Dance episodes.
