NBA boss holds court in Detroit

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 8, 2007 by Krista Jahnke Detroit Free Press

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- Count NBA commissioner David Stern among those excited to see a rekindling of the Bulls vs. Pistons rivalry.

"I was remembering everything back, including (John) Salley's red sneakers that we had to fine him for," Stern said before Game 2 on Monday at the Palace. "And the soft play. But that's a whole other thing."

Stern called the old rivalry days a "wonderful and heady time" and wasn't convinced that the newer version of Bulls vs. Pistons could live up to the way Michael Jordan and the Bad Boys captured the nation's attention.

"It was a very fascinating time for us," he said, "a time that will never quite be recaptured because of the media explosion. ... You don't quite have the attention on a game that you did in those years back. It was an important time for us--it literally put us into the public consciousness."

Stern spoke with the media about a number of topics before the game, including reseeding in the playoffs, banned official Joey Crawford, the so-called "zero-tolerance" technical-foul rule and the draft lottery system.

After a year of witnessing how officials would handle their increased power to call technical fouls, Stern liked what he saw-- specifically, more basketball and less complaining.

"I think it was something we should have done a long time ago," Stern said. "I consider it to be my fault and my mistake to let it get to the level where we had to do that."

As for reseeding, Stern said he will never consider it because of TV commitments.

"Then you have to wait for every series that could affect the reseeding to be over," Stern said. "And given the fact that we have contracts with TNT, ESPN and ABC, it's almost impossible to do and meet those obligations. And secondly, it just depends what we do each year for you guys to beat up on us. One of the things an upset gets you is you get to advance and you get to advance in the positioning of the seed you knocked off. We think that's fine."

As for Crawford, Stern said he's told the veteran official he'd like to meet with him after the season. He wasn't aware of how his spot had been filled in the playoffs' officiating roster.

"We have so many excellent referees," Stern said, "that I just don't know what we did, but thank you for asking."

SPIN THE WEBB: Pistons center Chris Webber had an unremarkable Game 1 against the Bulls -- on paper, anyway.

But two days later, coach Flip Saunders was still raving about his defensive performance.

"No one has ever said he could hang his hat on his defense," Saunders said. "But defensively, he was great in Game No. 1. The things he did defensively for us, helping out, rebounding-wise, getting his hands on a lot of balls, getting some loose balls. I thought it was probably his best defensive game he's played since he's been with us."

Offensively, Webber scored only five points, but he was limited to 20 minutes because of foul trouble. Also, the Pistons' offense centered on the perimeter scoring of Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton .

Saunders feels a certain comfort, though, in knowing that Webber can step up and be a bigger factor later in the series. Just like against Orlando, Saunders expects his effectiveness to go up with each game.

"There's going to be a time where we want to go inside-out," Saunders said, "and we'll run things through him. That's one of the luxuries that we have is that we can go different ways depending on what we're trying to go at."

EXPECTING ZONE: The Pistons expected the Bulls to add some zone defense in Game 2.

The reason is simple -- Bulls guard Ben Gordon doesn't match up well against either Hamilton or Billups, and a zone could hide that problem.

"We talked a lot about that the last couple days, to be prepared for zone," Saunders said. "For us, because we play so much zone and practice it a lot every day, you usually get a good comfort level doing that."

The Bulls haven't played much zone this season, especially in the playoffs, and Bulls center Ben Wallace is famously opposed to using it too much.

"But it's something they could do," Saunders said.

Bulls coach Scott Skiles said before the game that he planned to stick with the same defensive matchups -- at least to start -- meaning Gordon would check Billups.

Skiles said Gordon can be effective, but he can't afford to pick up cheap fouls as he did in Game 1. He said Gordon didn't get a "fair shake" on his second personal foul Saturday.

"He was not great on (Billups) before that," Skiles said, "but I would imagine he's going to play him much better tonight early in the game, and, hopefully, he can stay out of foul trouble because the second foul that did him in was more accidental than anything else."