Team Wants to Detach 'Bad Boys' Label

COURTSIDE VIEW Conrad Brunner

"We are the Bad Boys," he said. "Forget it. That's what everybody wants to call us. We're going to continue to play hard and if that's how everybody is going to take it, then so be it."

He doesn't really believe that. He admitted as much 24 hours later, after the Pacers had put the finishing touches on a 109-100 victory over Boston in Conseco Fieldhouse. It just gets tiring, battling an erroneous perception, particularly in the wake of an altercation with Toronto's Morris Peterson in the fourth quarter, an incident to which coach Isiah Thomas responded angrily, was ejected and hit with a two-game suspension by the NBA on Saturday.

Harrington

"Nah, I didn't mean it," he said. "I was just frustrated. You get tired of hearing that same question over and over again."

This whole "Bad Boys" image is one of those stories perpetuated by the media that simply doesn't align with reality. It's an easy hook, a quick, superficial way to try to label the Pacers. Thomas was the leader of the original Bad Boys in Detroit, helped create and nurture the image that served those two Pistons teams so well. Therefore, the first time a Pacers player was hit with a flagrant foul, they must be Bad Boys II, right? Ron Artest has had some obvious difficulties restraining himself, so he must be Dennis Rodman all over again, right? Brad Miller is a white center, so he must be Bill Laimbeer incarnate, right?

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Listen to Artest's own words, when asked earlier this week if Thomas was trying to reconstruct this team in that image:

Artest

"No," he said. "Most of the time when we get technical fouls, he tells us to go apologize. If we don't, he'll do something to make sure you do it next time. He just wants us to play hard. If anything, he wants us to play real, real smart and intelligent out there. That's the way he coaches, that's what he preaches to us. He wants us to keep our aggressiveness but as far as hurting people or getting flagrant fouls, he's not really for stuff like that.

"It's just how we are. Jermaine (O'Neal) is intense, Al Harrington is intense, I'm intense, Brad (Miller) is tough, (Erick) Strickland's tough, Jamaal (Tinsley) doesn't show too much emotion but he's tough inside. Austin Croshere, he gets in there and he's tough, he's not scared of anybody. The team is just tough. It just so happens coach Thomas is coaching a real tough team."

This is one of those scenarios where the mythmakers aren't letting the facts get in the way of the story. Thomas has been repeatedly asked about the Bad Boys comparisons, and has repeatedly, flatly denied them all. Nonetheless, this is a concept that has taken on a life of its own, much to the chagrin of the Pacers.

Lost in all of this is that the man who built the Pacers, franchise President Donnie Walsh, has a reputation beyond reproach. One of his most critical building blocks is, and always has been, character - not characters.

"I don't want us to think like that," Walsh said, referring to Harrington's moment of weakness. "A lot of it is perception. We have our own team. We can't play like anybody else. We don't play like the Bad Boys and I don't mean any disrespect to those teams. But we're more of an offensive-minded team than defensive, so I just don't see the comparison."

The players don't buy into it either. This is a label they're determined to detach.

"We're not going to feel sorry for ourselves," said Reggie Miller. "We're just going to keep playing tough, physical basketball and let the league adjust to us."

Not a bad philosophy. Not bad at all.