Pistons and Pacers shaping up to be one of NBA's hottest rivalries

Two of the top team's in the NBA Eastern Conference are quickly becoming one of the NBA's best rivalries, and best things, in the NBA this season.

The Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons are vying for the Central Division crown and the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. The Pacers currently lead the Pistons by 1-1/2 games, as the teams split their back-to-back games on Saturday and Monday.

"We are in the same division, and at the top of the division," said Pistons head coach Rick Carlisle following his teams' 88-78 victory over the Pacers on Monday. "They have a big time player like Reggie (Miller). I can't think of a bigger centerpiece."

This started to become a heated rivalry long before both teams rose to the top of this year's Eastern conference. Three seasons ago, when Indiana's head coach and NBA legend Larry Bird stepped down, his top assistant coach at the time was Rick Carlisle. But, the Pacers' organization decided to go with former Detroit Pistons superstar Isiah Thomas as Bird's successor instead.

Rewind: Thomas has been on the outside of the Pistons' organization looking in since he retired from the team in 1994. He wasn't given a job with the franchise like his former teammate Joe Dumars got when he retired five years later. Dumars is now the Piston General Manager. The reasons why Thomas isn't associated with the Pistons anymore are unclear, but it is thought that his brash competitiveness might have rubbed President Tom Wilson and owner Bill Davison wrong.

Fast forward: Two years ago, GM Joe Dumars hired Carlisle to take over the Pistons and they have not looked back. Carlisle was named the NBA Coach of the Year and led the Pistons to the second round of the playoffs last year, the deepest they had been in ten years.

Thomas, meanwhile, now has one of the hottest young teams.

This history and the two teams being on top of the conference are only a part of the now apparent rivalry.

Late last season, the Pistons blew out the Pacers in their building. In the game, the Pistons started passing the ball around in what was sort of a Harlem Globetrotter-like style. Pistons' forward Corliss Willamson got the ball, took it to the basket and was fouled hard by Pacers forward Jermaine O'Neal. Willamson then threw the ball at O'Neal, who then punched Pistons' Michael Curry and Ben Wallace as they tried to restrain him from Williamson.

Then on Saturday when the Pistons visited the Pacers, maybe the most conversational thing to happen in the NBA so far this season occurred.

O'Neal hit a game winning jump shot at the buzzer to give the Pacers the victory 88-86. The shot was so close that the referees decided to review the shot. It took them 18 minutes to decide that the shot would count.

However, the NBA rulebook says that the refs should only take two minutes to decide. Also, the time between the shot clock and the game clock was so close that there is talk about putting decimal points on the shot clock now.

The scene then shifted from Conseco Fieldhouse in Indiana on Saturday to a matinee game Monday at the Palace of Auburn Hills for the second of these two teams back-to-back games.

The Pacers dominated the game for the first half and part of the third quarter, until the Pistons' depth became too much for the Indiana to handle and Detroit won the game.

These two games will make these two teams final scheduled game on April 4th something for NBA fans to salivate over. Many of the young Pacers felt the need to trash talk as much as possible. Ron Artest ran his mouth on Monday afternoon as much as he could. Pacer forwards O'Neal and Al Harrington, after many big dunks, stopped and stared at the crowd, which resulted in many Pistons' fans booing them incessantly.

The Pistons and Pacers also have let a mini war of words happen.

"We're the better team," said Ron Artest, who was four for 20 from the field in Monday's game, and also had a late game altercation with Jon Barry. "They played really good today, but we still beat ourselves."

"We let them talk, said 2001-02 NBA Defensive MVP Ben Wallace. "At the end of the game they said nothing."

This could be a big rivalry for years to come, maybe the biggest one in Detroit since the Colorado Avalanche/Red Wings NHL rivalry.

With the intensity and style that some of the players on both squads play with, these two teams could have more fighting outbreaks in the future.

Corliss Willamson and Jon Barry will never shy away from mixing things up, and neither will O'Neal and Artest. Everyone saw how Artest destroyed a $100,000 camera by throwing it on the ground following a Pacer loss to the New York Knicks.

The other thing that needs to happen to make this a big NBA rivalry is a playoff series between the two teams. This would be a great series, as both teams matchup well enough to play exciting games.

Unlike the Miami Heat/New York Knicks rivalry, which was all defense and inept offense, Detroit and Indiana can score and play exciting defense. A prime example was Wallace blocking a shot into the front row in Monday's game, which was one of the most exciting parts of that game.

Miller can make any game exciting also. He had 13 points in the first quarter of Monday's game and finished with 28. He was able to sneak out on fast break attempts and make great back door cuts for easy layups, along with displaying his patented outside range. At 37, Miller has not shown any signs of slowing down despite many Pistons' fans telling him he is too old.

What is evident is that these teams, and their fans, don't like each other, and with no signs that either team will fall too far from the top of the Central Division and Eastern Conference pinnacles, and memories of the past most likely not being short, this might be the best NBA rivalry going right now, right behind the L.A. Lakers and Sacramento Kings and Yao Ming vs. Shaq.