DETROIT – It wasn’t the Bad Boys in style, but in substance it was dead on.
On a night the Pistons honored the legacy of the 1989 and ’90 NBA champions, the 2018-19 Pistons exercised the one quality above all others that turned the Bad Boys into ultimate winners: indomitable will.
It would have been easy to shrug their shoulders and accept what was coming to them when first Blake Griffin came up lame in pregame warmups – a sore left knee that makes him day to day, Dwane Casey said – and then the Pistons missed their first 10 shots and scored all of 11 first-quarter points.