Sparring Is Over Going Into Game 5 : Lakers, Pistons Both Saying Push Has Come to Shove

A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, but watch out for your back, Sam, because it appears that romance is about to give way to a rumble in the National Basketball Assn. finals.

Judging by the rumors of war spread by both teams Wednesday, the Lakers and Detroit Pistons won’t need coaches for Game 5 in the Silverdome tonight, they’ll need corner men. Instead of a jump ball, they’ll begin with a clinch. And that won’t be David Stern courtside, it’ll be Don King ringside.

You thought matters got out of hand in Game 4, which began with Isiah Thomas giving Magic Johnson a kiss, followed by a shot to the kisser in Detroit’s 111-86 spanking of the Lakers?

“That was mild by our standards,” Detroit center Bill Laimbeer said.

So, just how do the Pistons measure their behavior, by the Geneva Convention?

Said forward Rick Mahorn: “A physical game by Piston standards is when everybody is bleeding from the mouth.”

If there is to be bloodshed tonight, it won’t be just Forum blue, according to Magic Johnson, who showed up at the Silverdome Wednesday as angry, he said, as he’s ever been.

“They’re the hit men, that’s what they call themselves,” Johnson said of the Pistons. “Well, we’ve got some hit men, too, and we’ve got to start hitting.”

“It’ll be kind of fun to see who is ferocious-est.”

This will be the last game the Pistons play in the Silverdome--they’re moving to a new arena in nearby Auburn Hills next season--and it’s also something of a last stand, considering the series is tied, 2-2, and Games 6 and 7, if a seventh is necessary, are scheduled to be played in the Forum.

That’s why the Pistons plan to show up as their bad selves, something they got away from at the start of this series, according to forward John Salley.

“We were trying to play L.A.’s game, fast-break with them,” Salley said. “ . . . and in Game 3 they came out very aggressive offensively and defensively and we played soft, very passive.

“So we had to do what we did all season to get to this point. People said we were bad boys, cheap-shot artists, we were banging on people. Well, that got us here.”

So much for reform school, which came as great news to Mahorn, who when he played with the Washington Bullets was dubbed McFilthy to Jeff Ruland’s McNasty by Boston broadcaster Johnny Most.

“When he was lying on the floor,” Salley said of Mahorn, who spreads out next to the Piston bench because of his bad back, “we were talking and he said, ‘I’ve got back my license to hit. I feel a whole lot better.’ ”

That might have put a smile on Mahorn’s face, but it put a glower on Magic’s.

“He deliberately smacked me in the face,” Johnson said. “That’s all right, because what they were doing, we have to do, too.”

Told that Laimbeer judged the Pistons’ activity as mild, Johnson said: “It’ll be mild by what we’re going to do (tonight). It’s going to be a real war.

“I can take hard fouls, but when they come into the lane, we’re going to do exactly the same thing--slamming people, hitting them in the face. I don’t mind. I can take it. I’ve been taking it for nine years.”

The Pistons aren’t the first team to offer a physical challenge to the Lakers, as anyone who witnessed Kevin McHale’s clothesline take-down of Kurt Rambis in the 1984 Boston-L.A. final could attest. There is, however, a difference, according to Johnson.

“Boston plays you physical,” he said. “But Detroit, they come and go after you. They try to make you pay for it. After a shot, they try to smack you, elbow you, hit you in the back of the head--they give you added punishment.

“You just have to be ready for it, and we happened to be caught off guard.”

That would seem surprising, given the Pistons’ reputation, which may be why Johnson’s ire was directed at his teammates almost as much as the Pistons.

“I was mad at my teammates,” he said. “A lot of people have to step up and take charge.”

But if it’s hit men the Lakers need, count Johnson among their ranks.

“(Mahorn) can give it out, but he can’t take it,” Johnson said.

“If he does it to me, right off the bat I’ll hit him back the same way he did. A team can’t let that happen to them.

“They know about me. I don’t back down from nobody. That’s why I’ve been able to play this long.”

The Lakers knew that, sooner or later, this would be coming from the Pistons. Even before Tuesday’s game, Mychal Thompson predicted that Mahorn would “throw a little pepper into their chili.”

If anything, the Lakers were wondering what took so long.

“They were trying to play the game of basketball, which is not the way Detroit plays basketball,” Laker guard Michael Cooper said. “And they played great in Game 1. But when they saw they couldn’t beat us on a regular basis, they resorted to their old tactics.”

Which leaves the Lakers one choice, Cooper said.

“We have to fight fire with fire,” he said. “And it’s going to get hot by our standards.”

While this may strike some as so much macho posturing, the Pistons found it infinitely preferable to talking about the kissing cousins--Thomas and Magic Johnson.

“I would never do that,” said Adrian Dantley, screwing up his face. “It’s kind of weird. People always are asking me about that: ‘Did you see Magic and Isiah kiss each other before the game?’ I would not kiss another player on the court.”

The two Piston centers, Laimbeer and James Edwards, said the same thing. And what about Mahorn--would he pucker up?

“ Hell no,” he said. “That ain’t me.”

Thomas wasn’t at practice Wednesday--he took the day off to rest his aching back--but Johnson said that his smooching days may be over.

It’s doubtful that you’ll see any hugs tonight, either, unless it takes the form of a body slam.

“There’ll be a lot of tapping out there tonight,” Salley said.

Oh, yeah. And someone may remember to bring a basketball.