Isiah Compares the Cavs to the Early 90’s Bulls

From Sam Smith of Bulls.com:

The Celtics are old, tired from playing too many games last season in winning the championship (though I like Spurs coach Gregg Popovich’s take in the San Antonio Express best as he said, “Who else gets 30 or 45 days off before they have to go back to work? How much off time do you need?”), too many tough games in two seven game series, Rondo can’t shoot (though it is KG lately at 39 percent in January) and there’s no bench. You say they won the championship last season? They aren’t panicking and shouldn’t be. Their test is in this year’s playoffs. But back when they were ripping off 19 straight, I was talking to Isiah Thomas, who was seeing a parallel between his old Pistons being passed by the Bulls.

Like some of us in Chicago this season, Thomas was seeing in LeBron James and the role playing Cavs what many saw here in the charging Bulls of the early 1990’s against those Pistons. Thomas, doing some scouting for the Knicks, wasn’t sure Boston could overcome the Cavs. And that’s when they where on the way to the best two loss start in league history at 27-2

“We had a hard time scoring points, especially as we got older,” Thomas recalled about his two-time champion Pistons who eventually were dethroned by the Bulls and Michael Jordan. “We expended so much energy playing defense that it became a problem against a team like that. It’s one thing that made Michael so good. The last four, five minutes, they could go to him every time and he’d get fouled or score the ball. You miss a shot or two and you’re down two, four and trying to catch up and he keeps scoring. We had more guys to go to for a bucket, but they had that scorer. It makes it tough. People always say defense wins. But you’ve got to score the ball.”