Jordan Rules

This article is about the Detroit Pistons basketball strategies. For the book about the Chicago Bulls, see The Jordan Rules (book). For the Canadian Supreme Court rule, see R v Jordan (2016).

The Jordan Rules were a successful defensive basketball strategy employed by the Detroit Pistons to limit scoring by the Chicago Bulls' Michael Jordan.

History

After the Chicago Bulls’ Michael Jordan scored 59 points against the Detroit Pistons in a game in April 1988, Pistons coach Chuck Daly and his assistants, Ron Rothstein and Dick Versace, devised a strategy "to play him tough, to physically challenge him and to vary its defenses so as to try to throw him off balance." Key players were Dennis Rodman and Bill Laimbeer.

The Jordan Rules became part of the rivalry between the "Bad Boys" Pistons and Jordan's Bulls in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Sometimes the Pistons would overplay Jordan to keep the ball from him. "I don't think Chuck Daly wanted to hurt him, he was just looking to wear him out." Sometimes they would play him straight up, more often they would run a double-team at him as soon as he got the ball to force him to go left, which he was less successful in doing. Detroit would instruct whichever player Jordan was guarding to pass the basketball, forcing Jordan to work hard on both ends of the court, tiring him out. This style of defense limited players from entering the paint and Jordan never wanted opponents to think they were good enough to affect him or his play. Winning the psychological battle was as important to Jordan as the physical one.

They sometimes used the strategy against other prolific scoring guards.

The Jordan Rules were most effective for the Pistons during their first three playoff meetings with the Bulls. Detroit beat Chicago four games to one in 1988 then defeated the Bulls in six games in 1989 and seven games in 1990. The Pistons won back-to-back championships after eliminating the Bulls.

Response

To counter the Jordan Rules, Jordan bulked up to 215 pounds to withstand the physical play of his opponents. When the Bulls promoted Phil Jackson to head coach in 1989, they implemented Tex Winter's triangle offense to spread the scoring among its players.

These strategies would bear fruit during the 1990–91 season, when the Bulls won a franchise-record 61 games and finally swept the Pistons in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals. Soon after, the Bulls captured their first NBA title, beating the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals 4 games to 1. The Pistons qualified for the playoffs again in 1992, 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2000, not advancing to the second round until 2002.

This strategy was used by the New York Knicks from 1992 to 1998. However, the Knicks were not successful as Detroit in containing Jordan and the Bulls. Jordan faced New York in the NBA Playoffs in 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1996. The Bulls eliminated the Knicks and captured NBA titles in all four of those seasons.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated, then-Detroit Pistons coach Chuck Daly described the Jordan Rules as:

If Michael was at the point, we forced him left and doubled him. If he was on the left wing, we went immediately to a double team from the top. If he was on the right wing, we went to a slow double team. He could hurt you equally from either wing—hell, he could hurt you from the hot-dog stand—but we just wanted to vary the look. And if he was on the box, we doubled with a big guy. The other rule was, any time he went by you, you had to nail him. If he was coming off a screen, nail him. We didn't want to be dirty—I know some people thought we were—but we had to make contact and be very physical.

When doing an ESPN 30 for 30, Joe Dumars said:

It was like the Da Vinci Code, the formula to Coca-Cola and the Jordan rules.