No team had more success against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls than the “Bad Boys” Detroit Pistons. The Isiah Thomas-led Pistons used the infamous “Jordan Rules” to help them knock the Bulls out of the playoffs in 1988, 1989, and 1990.
Now, you’d say their brand of defense wouldn’t be allowed in today’s NBA, but Thomas sees one team using a strategy similar to theirs. During an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show on Thursday, the Hall of Famer likened how the San Antonio Spurs are defending Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to the “Jordan Rules” and explained how Phil Jackson helped the Bulls counter them back in the day.
“We actually see San Antonio doing that with SGA,” Thomas said. “Right now, the new name for it is boxes and elbows, where you see where SGA likes to shoot from mid-range, they have a double team trap set up for him at the elbow. So if he goes right, he’s forced into a double team. If he goes left, he’s forced into a double team.
“On the back line, they keep [Victor Wembanyama] as a rim protector, and then they have a smaller player in rotation shooting out to the corners,” Thomas continued. “That’s why you see those corner threes right now that OKC is knocking down. Those are the ones that they’re giving up because they’re taking the elbow shots or the mid-range shots away from SGA.
“It’s similar to what we did with Jordan,” Thomas continued. “We would force Jordan left, trap him going left. SGA is more of a passer than Jordan was at that particular time. Jordan was what we called the reluctant passer. He would actually take on the double team as a challenge and try to score over the double team as opposed to kicking it out.
“And when Phil Jackson came along, put him in a triangle and put those snipers around him, that’s when everything changed,” Thomas added.
Jackson was promoted to head coach in 1989 after the Bulls fired Doug Collins. They had just lost to the Pistons in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals and felt it was time for a change.
Jackson and his assistant, Tex Winter, believed implementing the triangle offense would get the Bulls to the Promised Land. Jordan wasn’t a fan of the idea, though. The triangle is an equal-opportunity offense where everyone touches the ball.
Jordan preferred the isolation-heavy offense that was run under Collins. He was resistant to the switch, but embraced it more after the Pistons beat the Bulls in seven games in the Eastern Conference Finals in 1990.
Jordan would start operating more out of the post, and it was a no-contest when the teams met again in the Eastern Conference Finals in 1991. The Bulls swept the Pistons in some style and then beat the Los Angeles Lakers in five games in the NBA Finals. It was the first of six titles they won in the decade, three-peating from 1991 to 1993 and then from 1996 to 1998.
Thomas is giving Jackson the credit for flipping the script, and he isn’t the only one from those Pistons teams to feel that way. John Salley believes Jordan wouldn’t have won championships without the triangle offense.
“If you’re talking about Chicago, Michael doesn’t win without that system,” Salley said.
“If you don’t have that system, we are knowing how to play Michael,” Salley stated. “He catch the ball, double-team him. When he picks the ball up, he got to dribble out when you’re double-teaming. If he puts two hands on the ball, you just run back. He’s not going to make the right pass. He’s mad he’s not scoring.”
Unlike Thomas, Salley has been a friend of Jordan’s for years and was even his teammate, so you can’t accuse him of having an axe to grind. You’d imagine, though, that the Bulls would have broken through at some point. They were banging on that door, and the Pistons would have been able to swat them away only for so long.
