THE NBA CHAMPIONSHIPS : LOS ANGELES LAKERS vs. DETROIT PISTONS : Dirty Is in the Eye of the Beholder--Especially If It’s a Black Eye

Let’s clear up one huge misconception before the National Basketball Assn. finals get under way tonight.

The Detroit Pistons are not a dirty team. They play physical basketball.

I know this is true because I have heard several knowledgeable NBA insiders say it. All of these knowledgeable NBA insiders happen to be Detroit Pistons, but would they lie?

“We are not a dirty team,” the Pistons say, over and over, like a third-grade class reciting the multiplication tables. “We play physical basketball.”

Right. And Wilt Chamberlain isn’t tall, he simply has real good posture.

Where do you draw the line between physical and felonious? When the Pistons got into a heated disagreement with the Chicago Bulls this season, Piston forward Rick Mahorn picked up the Chicago coach and threw him into the stands.

No harm, no foul. The coach was unhurt, and Mahorn qualified for the U.S. Olympic team. At Seoul, he will be our country’s top hope in the Doug Collins throw.

Bill Laimbeer, the Piston center, is also a physical player. He is the team’s toll collector. When you drive through his territory, you must expect to pay. In lieu of cash, which NBA players seldom carry, Laimbeer will accept traveler’s checks, teeth or your Adam’s apple.

“As far as the Pistons being rough, for the most part they are,” said Laker substitute Tony Campbell, who spent the previous three seasons with the Pistons. “They like the rough and tough game. Tactics.”

Tactics? Such as?

“Mahorn is going to push and hold,” Campbell said. “His specialty is trying to get guys off balance, make ‘em fall. He’ll pull you down, or lean on you and then move away real fast so you fall, like he did with (Boston’s) Kevin McHale.

“(Dennis) Rodman does a good job pushing under the basket. He’ll hold you, then push you out and get put-backs (offensive rebound baskets).”

The Pistons, Campbell noted, will tug on the odd jersey to slow down a running team.

Of course the Pistons didn’t invent these tactics, at least not all of them. In the Laker-Jazz series, for example, Mailman Malone accused Michael Cooper and A.C. Green of grabbing Malone’s jersey and water-skiing behind him as he ran downcourt.

Quietly, the Lakers believe they can hold their own--their own ground, not jerseys--against the Pistons if the series comes down to a battle of tactics.

“We worked on our trembling drills this morning,” Coach Pat Riley said Monday with a trace of sarcasm.

Still, there’s no denying the difference in styles between the clubs in this year’s finals. This contrast is best reflected in the courtside celebrities.

At the Forum you might see Barbra Streisand, who sings, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.”

The Pistons’ most loyal Silverdome celebrity is rocker Bob Seger, who penned that anthem-like ode to chivalry, “Her Strut (They Do Respect Her Butt).”

The Lakers’ Monday morning workout was a long one, and the nation’s media was kept sequestered in a small room, awaiting the post-practice interview session.

“Riley’s installing the wishbone,” Houston writer Bill Sullivan said.

A Detroit columnist, Shelby Strother, started the rumor that the Pistons had hired a new trainer--Woody Stephens. Even Detroit writers take cheap shots now and then.

Kidding aside, though, this might be a good time for the NBA to consider adopting the 20-free-throw system. It’s a new idea, presented here for the first time.

Under this rule, any foul deemed by the alternate official to be above and beyond the call of duty, such as a fist to the groin, or a blatant low-bridge, would be referred to a courtside panel of judges, who would rate the foul from 1 to 20 on the McHale scale, similar to Caltech’s Richter scale.

A 20 would be the equivalent of Kevin McHale’s classic flying pole-ax takedown of Kurt Rambis in the 1984 finals.

The jury would consist of such people as Daryl Gates, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ike Turner. They would hold up score cards rating the foul from 1 to 20, and their scores would be tabulated and averaged.

Judges would base their scoring on perceived intent to maim, originality, and evidence such as measurement of the sneaker skid marks at the scene of the foul.

Michael Cooper’s takedown of Derek Harper in Game 2 of the Dallas series, for instance, might register 4.1 on the McHale scale, so Harper would get three free throws.

To avoid TV viewer boredom, if a player is awarded five or more free throws, the CBS people would get some commercials out of the way, and when they return, show replays of the free throws in super-fast-mo, three or four free throws per second.

The intent of this rule is not to re-invent basketball, but to restore it to a purer state, bring back some dignity.

We need to ask ourselves: When a million-dollar ballplayer heads to the hoop with the ball, goes airborne, is he still a person with legal rights? Or by his invasion of enemy air space has he been reclassified a pinata?

Not that any of this is relevant to this particular series. Neither team plays dirty. Only physical.