Detroit Pistons Stand Pat in Pursuit of Third NBA Title

The Detroit Pistons are standing still while going for their third straight championship.

A half-dozen teams are making big changes while going for glory in the West.

The Denver Nuggets are moving faster than anyone and could be going nowhere except into the record book.

The 1990-91 NBA season opens Friday with nearly everyone in the West other than the Los Angeles Lakers hoping for a new era not dominated by one team.

The Lakers represented the West in the NBA Finals every year but one in the 1980s, but the Portland Trail Blazers’ surprising run through the 1990 playoffs had much of the conference scrambling during the offseason for an edge.

Meanwhile, the Pistons’ second straight dominating season has the rest of the East’s coaches scratching their heads over what to do about it. But everyone concedes Detroit is the favorite to become the first team since the 1959-66 Celtics to win as many as three consecutive championships.

“The Pistons have such good athletes, good rotations and work so well together,” Chicago coach Phil Jackson said. “We match them in the first unit, but it was their depth that beat us.”

The Bulls, the only team to challenge the Pistons playoff superiority the last two years, added guard Dennis Hopson and forward Cliff Levingston to improve the cast around scoring machine Michael Jordan.

“You have to earn your stripes in this league and we hope we’re in a situation like Detroit was when it was chasing Boston in the ‘80s,” Jackson said.

Detroit coach Chuck Daly is worried that his near-perfect mixture of players is being threatened by a recurring ankle injury to defensive star Dennis Rodman. Playoff MVP Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer both were injured during the exhibition season, but are expected back before the opener.

“Can we sustain what we’ve done for three years?” Daly asked. “We have to stay injury free and we have to overcome a difficult schedule at the start of the season.”

Detroit, which started 13-10 last year and then finished 46-13 en route to its second consecutive NBA title, has two West Coast road trips in the first five weeks of the season.

“It’s difficult to accomplish three straight titles from a mental standpoint, and other than that, there seem to be eight to 10 teams who can win it in the East and West,” Daly said.

“In the East, Detroit has to be the favorite,” said Stu Jackson of the Knicks, who are relying on improvement from last season’s players. “In the West, you could be a darn good team and struggle to finish .500.”

You can’t tell the teams without a scorecard in the Western Conference.

The biggest changes in a nutshell:

--The Utah Jazz acquired 24-point scorer Jeff Malone to go with all-league forward Karl Malone and assist champion John Stockton.

--The defending conference champion Trail Blazers gave up a draft choice for Danny Ainge, giving Portland a three-guard rotation of Ainge, Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter that rivals anyone else’s.

--The Lakers brought in Mike Dunleavy to replace Coach of the Decade Pat Riley and signed the offseason’s unrestricted free agent prize, Sam Perkins, then further improved their depth by adding Terry Teagle, a West version of Detroit’s Vinnie Johnson.

--Dallas rejected its long-lived policy of hoarding first-round draft picks and sent them all away in exchange for veterans Fat Lever and Rodney McCray, then signed Alex English.

--Sacramento inherited the Mavericks’ system and wound up with four first-round draft picks. Two of them, Lionel Simmons and Travis Mays, may wind up as starters.

--The Nuggets hired Paul Westhead away from Loyola Marymount, virtually guaranteeing the obsolescence of every single-season record for points and points allowed.

“We shouldn’t have any problem reaching that,” Westhead said when informed that the NBA record scoring average is 126.5, set by the Nuggets in 1981-82.

Westhead wasn’t reminded that the largest scoring average allowed in a season was 126.0 by those same 1981-82 Nuggets.

Considering that the average score of Denver’s first five preseason games--four of them losses--was 171-145 for the opposition, it’s little wonder that NBA coaches were watching exhibition scores and wondering who would be the first team to score 200 points in a game.

The record for one game is 186 in triple overtime; the high mark in regulation is 173.

“We should be up in the 150s and above in most games,” Westhead said. “Obviously, on some days the opposition will be right up there with us.”

Westhead said he wants the Nuggets to wait just 5-7 seconds before taking a shot in each possession, reminding them that “if you run three-quarters speed, it’s better not to run at all.”

According to Westhead, the real key to forcing high-octane games is pressure defense.

“I learned that the only problem with this offense was when the other team has the ball they slowed the pace,” Westhead said. “So I started using pressure defense. If that works, the offense can’t be stopped.”

Westhead is by no means afraid of making NBA history.

“Everyone in the league runs basically the same stuff,” he said. “Everybody plays the game of Monopoly. I’m going to try to play Parcheesi. I’m going to try to change the game a little bit.”

If the rest of the NBA is playing Monopoly, at least some of them will be using different pieces this season.

Dallas coach Richie Adubato said the acquisitions of Lever, McCray and English give the Mavericks the versatility to match up with any team.

“We can be very big with James Donaldson, Roy Tarpley and Herb Williams on the front line, and we can be small and quick with Roy, Rodney and Rolando Blackman on the front line,” Adubato said.

Utah sacrificed some depth by giving up Eric Leckner and Bobby Hansen in the Jeff Malone deal, but the Jazz will be hard to stop with an outstanding jump shooter for Stockton to find.

“We hope the gap has closed with the Lakers, and we’re among the four, five or six teams that can win it all,” coach Jerry Sloan said.

The Lakers’ 63-win season was largely forgotten after they were dumped by Phoenix in the second round of the playoffs.

Dunleavy plans to move last season’s rookie sensation, Vlade Divac, into the starting lineup at center and bring veterans Perkins and Mychal Thompson off the bench in a flexible front line.

“I don’t see the Lakers dropping off as long as they have Magic Johnson and James Worthy,” Portland coach Rick Adelman said. “And I think Byron Scott will come back strong after an off year.”

But Adelman, who took the Trail Blazers into the finals last season, said the Lakers are just one of five or six teams, including Portland, that have a chance to come out of the West.