AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – Always loquacious George Karl visited Pistons camp yesterday and basically stuck a fork in the Nets and Lakers.
Karl, the former Bucks coach who will analyze tonight’s Game 2 of the Nets-Pistons series for ESPN, said he believed the Pistons’ 78-56 romp in the opener wasn’t a fluke.
“I was here the day the Rasheed Wallace trade was made and there’s a karma going on in Detroit,” Karl said. “You can feel it. There’s a karma to this – Joe Dumars, Larry Brown, Rasheed. There’s a karma to it, man. I usually believe there’s a spirit to greatness and there seems to be a spirit here.”
The Nets shot 27 percent in the opener and scored the fewest points in their franchise’s history.
“Detroit, Indiana and San Antonio are my three teams,” Karl said. “Maybe my eyes are cloudy because I want to coach defense again and those three teams are there.”
When someone mentioned the Lakers, down 0-2 to San Antonio, Karl said, “If they can figure out what happened the last two games, the faces they had, the body language they had, the B.S. that they have. If they can figure this out, Phil Jackson deserves to be at the top of the Hall of Fame.”
Karl said the Nets must run the ball down the Pistons’ throat to stand a chance.
“If they don’t run, I don’t know how they’re going to win the series,” Karl said. “They have to. If it’s a 5-on-5 game, Detroit is too big and has too many matchups in a low-possession, half-court game. I always look at a seven-game series as a ping-pong mach. The ball’s in Jersey’s court. How fast is it going to come back, because Detroit spiked them pretty good.”
Big Ben Wallace hopes the cat’s not out of the bag, that this ferocious Pistons defense may give the Western champion pause.
“Looking at the last couple of years, the team to beat is in the West,” Wallace said. “Until we do something to change that, there’s always going to be that talk. We ain’t ready for them to take notice right now. Hopefully when they take notice, it will be too late.”
Pistons coach Larry Brown spent three days defusing the premise the Pistons played the perfect defensive game Monday. Brown said the Nets were off.
“I don’t think we played perfect,” Brown said. “I watched Jersey play. They didn’t play one of their stellar games. There’s four games a year where you can write off. Not matter what you do, you’re not going to get it done. Maybe that was one of those games for them. Richard [Jefferson] made one shot. It was a breakaway layup, and this kid’s had such an incredible year.”