Watching the Pistons honor Isiah Thomas at halftime of their game with the Knicks December 2nd, two things came to mind: Isiah, you gave us chills as a player; as a team executive, you’ve put chills up the spine of the franchises that have employed you. Oh well -- the emblazoning of "11 Thomas" on the sidelines of the Palace court was for the time spent in uniform, not the time spent in an Armani suit.
But back to the "chills as a player" part of that paragraph. It occurred to me, after some reflective moments while walking our Jack Russell Terror that evening, that Isiah Thomas -- the player -- has provided me with some of the most impressionable memories I have as a sports fan and journalist, as far as individual moments are concerned. Another is Barry Sanders, which I know isn’t exactly going out on a limb, but there you have it.
There have been many terrific athletes to play our town, and I consider myself lucky to have witnessed, in my 36 seasons watching and covering sports in Detroit, some dynamite performances -- careers, seasons, games. Sometimes 90 seconds.
In a playoff game against the Knicks in 1984, in Joe Louis Arena, with the air thick and the temperature hot, Isiah Thomas simply took over the proceedings. It was Game 5, the deciding game of a best-of-five series, and the Pistons would end up playing it in the hockey arena-turned basketball court, because the Silverdome -- their "home" -- was pre-booked. That’s right -- the Pistons were often times vagabonds in their own city, even during the playoffs. It was one of the biggest reasons they would one day build their own basketball home, in a place called Auburn Hills.
For a minute and a half, late in the fourth quarter, the Pistons trailing the deciding game on their supposed home floor by 10 points, Isiah put on a display that I, to this day, have never seen duplicated -- not by Jordan, not by Magic, not by Bird, not by anyone. Thomas shot, scored, stole the ball, shot and scored some more -- layups, mid-range jumpers, three-pointers -- stole another inbounds pass, made a three-pointer, was fouled, you name it. He brought the Pistons all the way back. By himself.
When the dust settled, and when the JLA crowd had screamed itself collectively hoarse, Isiah had scored 16 points in those final ninety seconds in regulation, willing the game into overtime. Of course, we had no idea how many points Thomas scored, nor that it had been done in a minute-and-a-half of playing time. All we knew was, Isiah was a one-man team at the end of the fourth quarter. The other four Pistons players were satellites on the court with him. He was celestial, and we were star struck, as were the Knicks. However, in overtime Thomas fouled out, and the Pistons collapsed into begrudging defeat. Many still believe that game, Pistons-Knicks Game 5, is one of the best playoff games ever. I don’t know about all that; all I know is, for ninety seconds, Isiah Thomas was the best basketball player who ever lived.
For about six minutes of the third quarter of Game 6 of the 1988 NBA Finals, Isiah Thomas was the gutsiest player who ever lived. The Pistons were trying to vanquish the Lakers, and they would have to do it on the enemy court in Los Angeles. It was Sunday -- Father’s Day. Isiah was having his way with the Lakers in the third, once again scoring at will, it seemed. But then running down the court, Thomas rolled his ankle something fierce. Immediately he started hobbling. Grimacing, he turned and ran the other way, the play switching ends. Despite terrific pain, and because the will to win a championship was beckoning him, Thomas scored 25 points in the third quarter alone. Nobody but Isiah himself, of course, will truly know what kind of pain he was in at that moment, but after the doctors explained it the next day, the severity of the sprain was such that we could only imagine the level of pain and be thankful it wasn’t any of us. The Pistons lost that game, and the championship in Game 7. But Isiah’s level of courage and determination almost overshadowed the Lakers’ winning of back-to-back titles. It’s storybook stuff.
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Isiah Thomas and Barry Sanders thrilled Detroit sports fans with individual moments of brilliance better and more often than any other athlete to play in the Motor City
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Thomas and Sanders provided
thrills to last a lifetime
There were other Isiah-isms I can call upon, but those two come to the forefront of my mind, whenever I choose to think of all-time great performances as a one-man band, even if that man had only one leg at his disposal.
Barry Sanders, I am proud to say, was another who played his entire career before my very eyes.
The greatness of Sanders, the waterbug Lions running back, was such that, every single game, he did something that you’d never seen a running back do, nor come close to doing. Every single game. Sanders could be just as breathtaking on an 80-yard gallop as he could in a two-yard loss. How many runners can you say that about?
I could watch a highlight reel of Barry Sanders’ great runs all day, and then I’d immediately hit the play button to watch it again. And from that reel, I would like to see these plays once more: a two-yard loss against the Bills in 1991, and a 55-yard screen pass reception in 1997. Both typify Sanders’ mesmerizing running ability.
In Buffalo, Sanders received a handoff, and as was commonplace, he was attacked behind the line of scrimmage. The great Bruce Smith, Bills’ defensive end, took hold of Barry’s jersey and spun him toward the ground, intending to screw him into the turf like a lawn stake. There is only one running back, I’m convinced, who could do what Barry Sanders did next. Instead of allowing his knees to touch the ground, creating an even bigger yardage loss for his team, Barry somehow managed to keep his balance, his left hand suddenly turning him into a human tripod for that microsecond. I swear to you his knees were inches from the football carpet. He should have been down, because 99.9% of human beings would have been down and Barry was human....wasn’t he? The fact that the play still ended up being a short loss took absolutely nothing away from its luster. I can still see that play now, as clear as the computer monitor now in front of me.
In the ’97 game against Tampa Bay at the Silverdome, the Lions, trying to safely kill time before halftime, found themselves 55 yards away from the Buccaneers’ goal line. The play called was a screen pass. Only, the blocking was poor and Barry caught the ball about eight yards behind the line of scrimmage, swarmed over by Tampa Bay defenders. To this day, I’m not sure how he did it, but Sanders juked and spun and scooted, and in doing so he made all eleven Buc defenders look silly, for when it was over with, Sanders had turned the Humpty Dumpty screen into a 55-yard touchdown pass. He went one-against-eleven, and won. It was just more proof that as long as Barry Sanders was in the backfield, the Lions were always one play away from a touchdown -- always. That’s what you can say when one man makes eleven others whiff.
Isiah Thomas and Barry Sanders thrilled Detroit sports fans with individual moments of brilliance better and more often than any other athlete to play in the Motor City. They each captured our hearts, but not before those hearts got caught in our throats. And they each were, in their best moments, masters of their inhabitant, which is all a player can really ask for, isn’t it?
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