Pistons: Job Still to be Done : Pro basketball: Detroit finishes Chicago, 93-74, but the celebration is muted because NBA Final series with Portland is ahead.

Even after winning a third consecutive Eastern Conference title Sunday afternoon, the defending NBA champion Detroit Pistons avoided celebration. Game 7 in their series against the Chicago Bulls was merely another playoff game.

“We felt confident coming in,” said Isiah Thomas, who had 21 points and 11 assists to spark Detroit’s 93-74 victory over the Chicago Bulls at the Palace of Auburn Hills. “The whole team was confident. It was a big game to Chicago, but it wasn’t a big game to us. Emotionally, maybe, their youth and inexperience showed. But because we’ve been to the NBA Finals the last two or three years, and some of the other playoff series we have had with Boston, this game was just another game for us in the playoffs.”

Said the Bulls’ Michael Jordan, who scored 31 points to finish the series with a 32.1-point average: “I think it was more or less the pressure, the nervousness, the experience of being in the seventh game, a game away from the finals.

“Nobody, except maybe (Bull center) Bill Cartwright, had ever been in this type of situation before. The experience killed us. They came out and poured it on, and we couldn’t collect our poise.”

The Pistons, 26-6 in the playoffs the last two years, were in command by halftime, turning a 27-25 deficit with 7:53 remaining into a 48-33 lead. They shot 82% during the second quarter, and their 23-6 run was part of a stretch in which they made 16 of 19 attempts.

That stretch reached into the third quarter, when the lead expanded to 61-39 on Thomas’ three-point jump shot. Chicago had four baskets in the first five minutes of the half.

“I think they kind of tensed up a bit when we made our runs,” Piston James Edwards said. “They started forcing shots.”

Said Jordan: “You could see their killer instinct. They could see that we were back on our heels, and they were not going to let us up. We needed to make a run to get back on our feet. We tried to do that in the third quarter, but we couldn’t sustain it. We were overwhelmed.”

Chicago, which lost for the eighth consecutive time at the Palace and failed to shoot at least 50% against the Pistons in any of these seven games, made one surge. With Jordan scoring 12 points in the third quarter, the Bulls pulled to 69-59 heading into the fourth. Shortly after its 16-of-19 streak ended, Detroit went 6:20 without a field goal.

That was as close as the Bulls would come, however. The Pistons led by 16 points less than four minutes into the quarter, and after Chicago pulled to 79-68 with 5:36 to play, they surged to a 93-70 lead with 2:10 to play.

“We definitely didn’t want it close in the last four minutes of the fourth quarter,” Thomas said.

“Jordan is so explosive, so we wanted to get out and get a big lead. It wasn’t in the game plan, but in the back of your mind is this guy who can score 25 points in like four minutes.”

Jordan, who had nine points in the fourth quarter, finished 13 of 27, meaning his teammates made only 15 of 63 (23.8%). The culprits were Scottie Pippen (one of 10), Horace Grant (three of 17), Craig Hodges (three of 13) and B.J. Armstrong (one of eight).

Did they miss John Paxson, who dressed but did not play because of a badly sprained ankle? The Bulls’ three main guards--Jordan, Hodges and Armstrong--were 17 of 48, so anything would have helped.

The Pistons shot 51.4%. Thomas made only seven of 17, but he had eight rebounds and made only two turnovers.

“Isiah probably had his best game of the playoffs, maybe of the season,” Coach Chuck Daly said. “He was penetrating and dishing off, causing a lot of problems for them.”

Of course. He is a playoff-tested veteran.

Eastern Conference Notes

The NBA Finals start in Auburn Hills, Mich., Tuesday night. Both Detroit and Portland finished 59-23, and they split the two regular-season meetings. . . . Mark Aguirre had 15 points and 10 rebounds for Detroit. “It was a big game that means the end of the season or if you’ll keep it going,” he said. “I’m into it from head to toe.”

The 74 points by Chicago are the fewest the Pistons have ever allowed in a playoff game. . . . Michael Jordan raised some eyebrows in the postgame news conference when asked what changes the Bulls need to make to reach the finals next season. “I’m not the GM,” he said. “If I was, I’d be making a lot more money.”