NBA PLAYOFFS : Confident Pistons Get Hurt Where They Least Expected It--at Home

I don’t want to say that the Detroit Pistons’ arena is a long way from the Detroit airport, but when you call for a taxi, the dispatcher asks: “To rent or to buy?”

Nevertheless, even though the Palace of Auburn Hills did get built way the heck out here somewhere near Petticoat Junction, the Pistons like the place very much, and so do their fans.

With good reason.

First of all, the basketball team finally got out of that football stadium down the road, the Pontiac Silverdome, which, compared to Auburn Hills, was a comparatively cheap $50 cab ride.

Also, the people who own the Pistons get to pocket all the proceeds from selling out a 21,500-seat arena night after night, plus all the money generated by a whole bunch of big-shot corporate luxury boxes.

Best of all, the Pistons like it here because they beat people here. Beat them hard. Beat them bad.

They had won 25 games in a row in this building, before Sunday’s 94-88 stumble against the death-defying Chicago Bulls.

Talk about your setbacks.

Here was a team, Detroit, that fancied itself the best team in basketball, based partially on its near miss in last season’s National Basketball Assn. finals against the Lakers, and partially having this year’s best record in the league.

The Pistons had a point they wanted to prove to the Lakers--that nothing was going to stop them this time. Nothing and no one.

Then this Bull game came along. Even if Chicago never wins another game from Detroit, this one bothered the Pistons. Don’t think they don’t realize that the Lakers haven’t lost once in the 1989 playoffs. Don’t think they aren’t upset about being upset by the Bulls, a team Detroit has manhandled all season, a franchise that has never been to the NBA finals and probably has no business getting there this time.

“Discouraging--you can’t say it’s not,” Piston center Bill Laimbeer said after Sunday’s loss. “All we had to do was win all our home games, and we’re world champions.”

It can still happen, and around the league, you probably still can find more people who like Detroit’s chances of winning the championship than like L.A.’s.

The funny thing is, the great thing about the great teams is how they are able to shrug off defeats like this. It took the Lakers 21 games to get rid of the Jazz, Mavericks and Pistons in last year’s playoffs. Nobody minded, after the fact. It didn’t diminish the deed a bit. If anything, it enhanced it.

So why would a little thing like one loss to Chicago disturb Detroit?

Well, it’s like a boxer who gets beat for the first time, after feeling cocky about all the knockouts he’d gotten previously. It feels funny to lose. It makes you feel, well, vulnerable. Affects your thinking. Shakes your confidence.

Mark Aguirre of the Pistons tried to look on the bright side, if you want to call it that.

“This loss might be a blessing in disguise,” Aguirre said. “Maybe this will put a little fear in our hearts.”

Maybe. But the Pistons are the self-styled Bad Boys of the NBA. They have adopted that image, even on T-shirts that are sold at the arena.

There was a time you could get your lights punched out by an NBA player if you called him either one of those things--bad or boy.

The Pistons take pride in their reputation as punks. Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn posed for a poster in which they flex their muscles--well, flex their flesh, in Laimbeer’s case--and wear dark glasses.

Of course, back when other people were calling them bad boys, the Pistons used to take all sorts of umbrage. Oh, how it once pained them, this nasty rep of theirs. We’re not bad, they would say. We’re just physical.

I guess Physical Boys didn’t have much of a ring to it.

The Pistons have taken a liking to the idea that bullies aren’t necessarily bad people. They are basketball’s version of the Philadelphia Flyers, endorsing this image instead of apologizing for it.

The truth of the matter is, Detroit doesn’t beat teams by out-pounding them. Detroit beats teams by playing some of the best defense the NBA has seen in some time.

Going into Sunday’s game, the Pistons had a record of 43-2 when holding their opponents under 100 points.

Maybe that’s what agitated them so much about losing. The Bulls did not hit triple figures, but won anyway.

The Pistons were becoming accustomed to winning, reveling in it, beginning to believe that they might not lose another game until, oh, at least November. Since March 1, this team was 34-3 before Sunday. It had won 12 straight games, including seven in the playoffs.

Not only did Detroit want to become a championship team, but a team that people talked about for years to come, a team people talked about as a truly exceptional championship team.

After Sunday, it was ever more obvious that the Pistons will simply settle for a championship. Any old kind of championship.

These are not the Lakers, see. They merely aspire to be. The Detroit Pistons are discovering what it takes to take championships back to back.

You have to take these things one back at a time.