Two-Sided Tale

It is not for me, Bill, as a man living in the Midwest, where we let our faces and breasts sag naturally, to pose a question to the well-stitched, upper tax bracket of Laker Nation, but I’ll do it anyhow:

Has your team stopped fighting yet?

Honestly, we can’t tell if you want to win a trophy or clonk each other over the head with it. Shaq doesn’t like Kobe. Kobe doesn’t like Shaq. Gary doesn’t like anything. Karl loves, no, hates, no, loves it there.

By comparison, our Pistons must look like Amish country on a Tuesday night. You probably expect them to arrive in a buggy. A bunch of sweaty, easy-going, defense-loving players who are barely quotable (well, Rasheed Wallace does occasionally scream at the crowd, but nothing we can print here) coming to the West Coast to challenge the NBA’s dream team?

Do we bore you? Do we, as Joe Pesci once asked, amuuuse you?

Good. Because here’s the single best thing the Pistons have going for them: Nobody expects them to win. Not the series. Not a game. Maybe not even a quarter.

What could be better than that?

I hate to break it to you, Bill, my friend, but this is not a battle of network stars (you win), not a battle of waterfronts (ocean vs. river, you win), not a battle of expensive cars (we make ‘em, you buy ‘em, you win again).

This is a battle of rebounds, blocks, box-outs and elbows. This is a battle of nasty, not nice. And while no one doubts the Lakers’ amazing offensive potential, they haven’t seen this kind of defense in a while. The Pistons love it. They never get tired of it. We all know the nights when Kobe goes for 40, but there was a night in these playoffs when the Pistons blocked 19 shots. Nineteen shots?

Did that make your paper?

Maybe in the small print, under the latest DreamWorks development deal?

Now I know to most of your audience, the Pistons are simply “the stupid gross thing in the way of our parade.” Allow me to identify a few Detroit players: The guy whose Afro looks like Jason from “Room 222”? That’s Ben Wallace. The guy who wears a mask and headband and suggests Johnny Depp in “Pirates of the Caribbean?” That’s Rip Hamilton.

We call them The Muscle and The Hustle.

Sure, they head a roster that, when compared to the Lakers’ championship experience, seems like kindergarten.

But need we remind you of the last time a bunch of new, hard-nosed Pistons challenged a reigning Lakers team for the crown? The first go-around, they took them to seven games, and, let’s be honest, won the title, then had to give it back when a ref called a phantom foul on Bill Laimbeer. (OK, so he was unlikable; did you have to punish the rest of the team?)

The following year, the Pistons mowed down the Lakers in four straight. And that, you recall, was the end of “Showtime.”

I’m not saying this will be as seismic a change. After all, the Pistons have to pay fair-market value for their players. We’re not on a subsidy program of celebrity-for-salary. What are you giving Payton and Malone? A buck-fifty and free refills?

But I am saying this: Do not expect the Pistons to be the catering crew for your movie set. They have nothing to lose. And even if the Lakers do hoist a trophy this year, you know as well as I do, their end is coming, while the Pistons’ era is just getting started.

So to quote a president, bring it on. Enjoy it while you can.

And please, for the sake of us peace-loving Midwesterners, try not to kill one another before it’s over.

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Contact Mitch Albom at (313) 223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. To read recent columns by Albom, go to www.freep.com/index/albom.