The Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas rivalry runs deep and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to end anytime soon.
Thomas recently added fuel to it during an appearance the Cedric Maxwell Podcast. Thomas said Jordan cried a lot during their battles.
“Every time you hit him, he was crying,” Thomas said. “Going to David Stern’s office, going to the Commissioner’s office, having a meeting about getting hit, getting fouled, you gotta change the rules. I’m like ‘Wait a minute. I watched Dr. J get beat up, I watched Magic get beat up, I watched Max get beat up, I watched Bird get beat up, I done got beat up. Everybody get beat up but wait a minute. Now we gotta change the rules because he get hit.”
The battles between the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls were always physical but the intensity increased when the Pistons formed the “Bad Boys.” Not only were they responsible for repeatedly preventing Jordan and the Bulls from winning a championship, they did everything possible to hurt them.
In the Netflix documentary The Last Dance, Jordan admitted the Pistons were much stronger than the Bulls.
“They made it personal,” Jordan said. “They physically beat the s**t out of us.”
It was also revealed Jordan had to train his body and bulk up to withstand the Pistons’ physicality. As a result, the Bulls were able to defeat the Pistons in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals en route to their first championship.
Even though Thomas and Jordan were successful in their own ways, the past still carries on.