Pistons Looking to Drive Celtics From Playoffs : Battered Boston Needs a Rest, but It Won’t Get One as Series Begins Tonight

Generations, not to mention front lines, will collide in the start of the National Basketball Assn.’s Eastern Conference finals tonight, with the wise, battered old Boston Celtics and the new-wave Detroit Pistons.

The Pistons are younger, stronger, deeper and better rested, to say nothing of more bellicose. The Celtics are drained, gimpy, missing another starter--Danny Ainge, whose sprained right knee makes him doubtful for tonight’s Game 1--and, of course, favored.

There has been a lot of “inside” speculation--sportswriters, sportscasters, et. al.--ever since the Celtics stumbled through the stretch, that they were waiting to be taken and that the Atlanta Hawks were the ones to do it. When the Hawks fell in five to the Pistons, the speculation was amended, making the Pistons the ones to do it.

First, the Pistons have to deal with two trends. Detroit hasn’t ever been this deep in the playoffs, and it has lost 14 straight games in Boston Garden dating to Dec. 19, 1982.

For Detroit, there’s no time like the present. The Celtics, are trying to recover from their debilitating series against the Milwaukee Bucks in a day. A week would be about right.

Are the Celtics wobbly?

“Does a wild bear sleep in the woods?” K.C. asked Jones Monday. “We had gimpy ankles, gimpy knees, guys missing games, Larry Bird going 48 (minutes Sunday), DJ (Dennis Johnson) 46. Yeah, we were very gimpy.

“Until it came time for the last three minutes. Then we were refreshed.”

Refreshment is where you find it, but none seems forthcoming. The Pistons are renowned as the team of Isiah Thomas, and notorious as the team of Bill Laimbeer and Ricky Mahorn; Isiah with the choir boy’s countenance and the two boppers who wage a never-ending battle for No. 1 in the race for most hated player in the league.

Laimbeer, a fine defensive rebounder and outside shooter, plays more and thus has an advantage. He seems to be No. 1 right now, if the Hawk series is an indication. As part of a halftime show in Atlanta, a fan carried a large dummy labeled Laimbeer onto the court and cut it in half with a chain saw.

Laimbeer and Mahorn are both in the 6-foot 10-inch, 240-pound range--after a mid-season diet took Ricky down from the 260s and off the bench. Neither is a jumper. Both will hit people. Neither likes the thought of watching an uncontested layup.

“I guess everybody knows we don’t like him so good,” Bird once said of Laimbeer.

“McNasty” is what the Celtic announcer, Johnny Most, used to call Mahorn, when he was playing alongside “McFilthy”--Most’s name for Jeff Ruland--in Washington.

“Two of my favorite people,” said Robert Parish Monday, meaning Laimbeer and Mahorn, not Most and Ruland.

“I’m looking forward to running”--he grinned--”into them again. They’ll try to knock us around, get us off balance and make us lose our temper. But we’re going to fight fire with fire, or fists with fists.”

The Pistons have a lot of fire. Coach Chuck Daly has a matched pair of rookie terrors as backup forwards, 6-11 John Salley and 6-8 Dennis Rodman, whose exuberance has made him another hated Piston. How well the rookies handle the heat at this point, in storied Boston Garden, against the tall, wily Celtic front line, will tell a lot.

The Hawks say that the Pistons got them angry and took them out of their game. Actually, the Hawks just collapsed, led by point guard Doc Rivers, whose lack of range was exposed, and that missing cinematic classic, the Human Highlight Film, Dominique Wilkins, who shot 41%. In short, they provided nothing near the test the Celtics can be expected to present.

This is a challenge for Thomas, whose talent is outrageous but whose poise is sometimes criticized. Thomas is the finest player alive smaller than 6-6 Michael Jordan, and the other Piston guards are no day at the beach, unless it’s Omaha Beach. Sub Vinnie Johnson has unconscious streaks that have to be seen to be believed. In the ’85 conference semifinals, he scored 34 and 32 in consecutive games and scared the Celtics silly.

Those Pistons were a bunch of fancy gunners who played bad defense. This season, they cut their opponents’ field goal percentage to 46% and traded a launcher, Kelly Tripucka, for a post player, even if only a 6-4 one.

That’s Adrian Dantley but gnome or not, he can get to the line, an attribute whose value Bird demonstrated Sunday, when he struggled all game, then drew three fouls in the last 2 minutes 32 seconds and made six free throws.

“They think they have a better team,” Bird said. “They have a better team. Our problem right now, we just haven’t had a while to prepare for them.”

The Pistons’ problem is they have to win a game in the Garden. Right now, you could say they’re peering into a Celtic window of vulnerability.

“It’s not like we’re going to lie down,” Kevin McHale said. “I anticipate five guys standing out there. They’re going to have to beat us.”