This beating the Bulls is nothing new for Grant Hill.
He figures he has probably done it a dozen times before.
And he especially loves the time he scored 50 on them.
“I have a Sony PlayStation at home,” Hill explained. “And I’ve beaten them before, even scored 50 points on them.”
Sunday, he finally did it before an audience of more than one.
“I’ve always felt like Scottie (Pippen) and Michael (Jordan) played with me and laughed at me,” Hill said. “It was frustrating. They’re so good, you want to compete, but no matter how hard you try, they always win. Now I can finally say I beat Michael at something. It feels good to beat those guys and the Bulls. I’m happy for our team. I’m happy not to be slapped around.”
Not by a long shot. Hill and the Pistons never gave the Bulls much of a chance Sunday. They took a lead 8 minutes into the game and never trailed.
They led by seven after one quarter and by 14 at halftime. It was down to five late in the third quarter, but they pulled away behind Hill and center Terry Mills, who had five three-pointers.
Sure, the Bulls were without Dennis Rodman and Toni Kukoc, and Michael Jordan and Brian Williams suffered twisted ankles during the game, and Scottie Pippen jammed his fingers.
But that shouldn’t take anything away from the Pistons, and Hill, whose 27 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists gave him his first triple double against the Bulls and his 12th triple double of the season. That’s three times as many as anyone else in the NBA has. Hill bounded around like Jordan and Pippen used to, often faking Pippen and blowing in for layups and once grabbing a rebound and putting it back over a jumping Jordan.
The game didn’t change the Pistons’ playoff fate much–with their 52nd victory, they moved into a tie for for fifth with Charlotte.
The thinking is it’s better to get sixth to avoid a potential second-round playoff match with the Bulls. But the Pistons haven’t won a playoff game in five years and would be happy just to get to the second round.
“We’ll see how we react to this,” Hill said. “It’s funny how things are. I probably would have given us a better chance to beat them earlier in the year than now, when we’ve been struggling. They’re a great team, the team picked to win it all. But hopefully we can now get on track and continue to play this way into the playoffs.”
The Pistons are a building team, one of those teams waiting for the Bulls’ run to end, and Sunday they got some help from Mills, who scored 29 points. A free agent, he’s talking about rejoining Isiah Thomas in Toronto next season.
That would put Detroit in the market for a postup center like Brian Williams, who is not expected to re-sign with the Bulls because of salary-cap restrictions. He is said to be interested in Detroit, and after watching what Hill did to the Bulls, Williams had to be impressed with the Pistons’ possibilities.
“We hope to do what (the Bulls) did,” Hill said. “It’s fun for me to compete against Scottie. He’s known as the best small forward, point forward, and the last time in Chicago he ate me up and embarrassed me. Most teams sag off me, but Scottie gets under me and doesn’t give me room. I just tried to be aggressive. Regardless of what happens, we feel good about ourselves. This kind of game is a confidence booster.”
Because it was for real.
