The Pistons’ first regular season as defending NBA champions went as smoothly as Chuck Daly could have hoped. They went 59-23, winning 25 of 26 games during one stretch. Daly, Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman were All-Stars. The good times carried into the postseason as Detroit swept Indiana in the first round and knocked New York out in five games. The Pistons were driving in the fast lane to a second consecutive NBA title. And then, for the third straight postseason, they met the Bulls.

At 55-27, the Bulls had the second-best record in franchise history, finishing just four games behind the Pistons in the Central Division. Now under first-year head coach Phil Jackson, the Bulls continued to rise through the NBA hierarchy, but failed to break through against the Pistons. They were 1-3 in the four head-to-head meetings; their lone win had come in the third game of the season - more than six months earlier.

Since then, the Pistons had won at Chicago by 25 and defeated the Bulls on the last day of the season. Their success continued in the early stages of the Eastern Conference finals. The Pistons took the first two games at The Palace in convincing fashion. Dumars led the team in scoring both times, with 27 and 31 points, respectively.

The Bulls, however, had become one of the NBA’s best home teams, setting a franchise record with a 36-5 mark at Chicago Stadium. Michael Jordan, now a four-time NBA scoring champ, delivered a series-high 47 points in Game 3. Jordan and Thomas had a scorers’ duel in Game 4, with Jordan getting the better of it with 42 points to even the series. In defeat, Thomas’ 36 points were a team playoff high.

Back in Detroit, the Pistons again turned to “The Jordan Rules,” the rough-and-tumble tactics that limited His Airness from his usual scoring binges. Jordan scored 22 in Game 5, Dumars led the Pistons again with 20 and Detroit took control of the series, 3-2.

The fact the Bulls won at home in Game 6 wasn’t surprising; how they did it was. Jordan scored 29, a modest total for him, and yet the Bulls put 109 points on the board. Jordan’s supporting cast was no longer “The Jordannaires” they had been two years earlier when Detroit brushed them away in five quick games.

In Game 7, however, the Pistons reminded the Bulls you have to do it every night. Jordan scored 31, but his teammates were awful, and Detroit clinched the series with a 19-point win, 93-74. Only forward Horace Grant also reached double figures with 10 points, and he was 3-for-17 from the field. Scottie Pippen, now an All-Star, had suffered from migraines all series and scored two points in 42 minutes.

Thomas paced the Pistons with 21 points and 11 assists and forward Mark Aguirre contributed 15 points and 10 rebounds off the bench. Thomas continued to perform well in the NBA Finals, leading a furious comeback to take Game 1, and was named Finals MVP.

The Pistons dispatched the Portland Trail Blazers in five games to win back-to-back NBA titles. The last two games in Portland were close - a three-point margin in Game 4 and Vinnie Johnson’s title-clinching jumper with 00.7 seconds left in Game 5 - but there had been no question which team controlled the series.

For the second straight year, the Pistons’ only hurdle en route to the NBA title had been the Chicago Bulls. They had mounted a legitimate challenge, one that arguably came down to nothing more than home-court advantage. For the first time in three playoff meetings, the Pistons did not take a game in Chicago.

The Pistons-Bulls rivalry had reached its peak in the 1990 Eastern Conference Finals. The personal grudge match between Jordan and the Pistons after three physical playoff confrontations was no longer simply a matter of bad blood, but of NBA supremacy.

And after two years at the summit, it would soon be the Pistons’ time to come down from the mountain.