Pistons Win the First Rematch : Victory Over Lakers Makes Rodman Feel a Bit Better

Dennis Rodman tried to forget, but he might as well have tried to stop breathing.

“I tried to block it out of my mind, but I had to look at the tapes,” Rodman said, referring to his private screening of the Detroit Pistons’ loss to the Lakers in last season’s National Basketball Assn. finals.

“We were 1 minute away from being world champions.”

Any countdown to another title still must be conducted in months, not minutes, but Saturday night, Rodman and the Pistons blocked out both an unpleasant past and an uncertain future and simply enjoyed the moment, a 102-99 victory over the defending champion Lakers in their new Auburn Hills home. This was a rematch of the Bad Boys vs. the Glamour Boys, as Piston guard Isiah Thomas called it, and the Bad Boys got the first win.

“In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t mean a whole lot,” Detroit center Bill Laimbeer said. “A lot of fluky things can happen during the season. We play like we’re the best and we like to think we’re the best, but we’re not ready to declare anything.

“We didn’t play well tonight and neither did the Lakers. It’s like we were feeling each other out for most of the game. They didn’t make the big shots and neither did we. The only thing that made a difference tonight was Dennis Rodman’s offensive rebounding down the stretch.

“It wasn’t pretty, but we gutted out a win.”

The Lakers could pin the loss on Magic Johnson’s first-quarter collision with Adrian Dantley, which left Johnson with a bruised left knee, which limited him to 32 minutes, and undoubtedly contributed to his 9 turnovers. They could also talk about the shock of coming back out to the floor for the second half and discovering that a Detroit basket that hadn’t counted before halftime suddenly was in

the Pistons’ possession.

They could also talk about how they still had a chance to force an overtime in the last 7 seconds, when Laimbeer missed the second of two free throws and Magic Johnson got off not one, but two 3-point attempts at the basket. The first looked as if it might bank in, the desperation follow-up was swatted away by Isiah Thomas.

But if the Lakers cut to the heart of the matter, the outcome revolved around the fist-waving Rodman, who had two decisive offensive rebounds and a steal in the last 4 1/2 minutes Saturday, while alternately applying a nasty defensive vise on James Worthy and Magic Johnson. That’s why he was in the Piston locker room afterward, doing stand-up TV interviews while wearing nothing more than an athletic supporter and ice packs on his knees after the game.

“Put some clothes on,” shouted Rick Mahorn, another Piston who pounded the boards for 11 rebounds to go along with his 13 points. “You’re becoming the sex symbol of the Pistons.”

How’s that?

“It’s his ears,” John Salley said with a giggle. “They’re so beautiful.”

That must be why Salley tugged at both of Rodman’s prominent ears as the Pistons left the court. But it was Rodman’s mouth, more than anything else, that had brought him notoriety. His ill-chosen criticism of Larry Bird dogged him last season, although Rodman has just about buried that one.

What haunted him more this past summer was the memory of a Detroit comeback in Game 7 against the Lakers last spring, when he had the ball on a Piston fast break in the final minute, pulled up for a jumper and clanged a shot off the iron.

“When I play the tape of that, I turn my head and do this,” Rodman said, covering his eyes with one hand. “I myself, ‘Gawd almighty, if I were a jump shooter, that would be two points.”

Rodman appears to have learned to leave the jumpers to teammates such as Joe Dumars--who led the Pistons with 20 points, including the disputed basket at the end of the first half--and concentrate on his defense and rebounding.

The Lakers, whose only lead of the second half came on Orlando Woolridge’s two free throws that made it 77-76 with 1:12 left in the third quarter, had closed to within five, 95-90, when Magic scored on a give-and-go with Michael Cooper with 4:53 to play.

Cooper then rebounded and sent Magic away on a quick transition, but Rodman slipped behind Magic and slapped the ball into the hands of Adrian Dantley, and Thomas converted a fast break on the other end.

A 3-point shot by Cooper cut it to three again, 99-96, with 2:17 to play, but Rodman kept alive Detroit’s next possession with a big rebound. The ball eventually changed hands before Thomas, with 6 seconds left on the 24-second clock, turned an in-bounds play into a driving basket past A.C. Green with 58 seconds to go.

Magic converted a miss by Green and was fouled with 37 seconds left. His free throw cut it to two, 101-99. But after Thomas misfired on a 3-point try, Rodman slipped between Green and Cooper and tipped the rebound to himself. The Lakers were forced to foul twice (they had one to give), Laimbeer made one of his two chances, and Rodman was on Magic when he let fly with his game-tying bid.

“When he got the ball, I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, I can play the best defense in the world and he can still open the safe and pull one out,’ ” Rodman said. “I thought the shot was going to hit the backboard and go in.

“I told him, ‘That was a good shot--too bad it didn’t go in.’ ”

Johnson may have appreciated the sentiment, but would have preferred the three points.

“This was a big loss--we were right there for it,” he said. “I still say we’re the two best teams in basketball, but we’ve got to prove that in the end. There’s a long way to go, but all indications are that we’ll both keep it going.”

Laker Notes

Why did Joe Dumars’ last shot of the first half, which didn’t count before intermission, count when the teams came out for the second half, expanding a three-point Piston lead to five, 54-49? Ed Rush, the lead official overruled Gary Benson, the rookie referee who emphatically waved no basket at the buzzer. Rush said it wasn’t Benson’s call to make and that Dan Crawford, who was trailing the play and thus had the responsibility of deciding, had signaled that the basket was good. “From my vantage point, I had it good also,” Rush told a pool reporter. “It was a correctable call as long as it was corrected before the start of the next period.” . . . Laker Coach Pat Riley was not informed of the change until just before play began in the second half. “He (Rush) told me he didn’t want to embarrass the official,” Riley said. . . . The Lakers, obviously, weren’t enchanted by the decision. “Maybe they conferred with NFL officials and changed the call,” Mychal Thompson said. “It was like they looked at the instant replay.” Magic Johnson was in the locker room having his sore knee tended to, and thus didn’t see the play. “That’s tough to deal with,” he said. “You think you’re down by three, and you come out and you’re down by five. It caught everybody by surprise.” . . . Johnson, who injured his left knee when he slid over to cut off a drive by Adrian Dantley and banged it first against the Piston forward, then again when he hit the floor, said he was uncertain of his status for Monday night’s game in Philadelphia. “I know it’s going to be sore and swollen,” he said. “I couldn’t get to where I wanted to go tonight. My driving game wasn’t there.”

A.C. Green had 14 rebounds for the Lakers, a season-high for the team but missed a critical layup after stealing an Isiah Thomas pass in the closing minutes. . . . Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, honored before the game, had 14 points but just 1 rebound in 24 minutes. . . . Neither team shot real well. The Lakers made just 44.8% of their shots, the Pistons 47.2%. Detroit committed just 9 turnovers, the Lakers 17. . . . The significance of the game, to Riley: “It just means that the team that lost will take a lot more flak in the next couple of weeks.” Riley cited the Lakers’ failure to execute their rotating, trap defense in a stretch of six straight Detroit possessions in the fourth quarter as a key to the loss.