There's Just No Doubting Thomas

Game 1: In the series opener at Atlanta , the Worm turned on the Hawks as Detroit won 112-111. The Worm is Dennis Rodman , the fanatically exuberant 6'8" Detroit rookie, whose cheer-leading style has been the comic relief of many Hawk film sessions this season and has earned him the sobriquet of "Rah Rah" Rodman. Future screenings of Rah Rah will be less humorous to the Hawks if they include the nine offensive rebounds he grabbed in Game 1. That was bad news for Atlanta , whose bench was supposed to get the better of guys like Rodman and John (Spider) Salley, Detroit 's other cocky rookie.

But it was still Isiah (game-high 30 points, 10 assists) who hammered the Hawks' coffin nails—a 19-foot jumper that gave the Pistons a 111-108 lead and a free throw with 16 seconds left that gave them the win.

Game 2: Hours before tip-off, Rivers sat in Hawk director Bill Needle's office, opening a piece of fan mail. Three collector cards spilled out.

"Who did you get?" he was asked.

"Well, I got Doc Rivers ," he said, "but I was hoping for Eric Davis ."

There are few more self-effacing guys in the NBA than Rivers , whose playoff performance to that point had been an unremitting nightmare. Spraining an ankle in the first game against Indiana hurt his quickness, but nothing could explain his miserable foul shooting. In the first game of the Detroit series he had clanged five of eight free throws off the iron, bringing his postseason total to 19 of 40. This .475 percentage was more Kafkaesque than Chamberlainian, considering that Rivers was an 83% foul shooter during the regular season.

"I've got to play better tonight," he said, severely understating the case.

And he did. In the first five seconds of Game 2, Rivers stripped Thomas of the ball along the baseline, setting the tone for an evening that ended with a series-tying 115-102 Atlanta victory. Defensively, the Hawks controlled Thomas (20 points, including a l-for-6 first half) and forward Adrian Dantley (9 points), and offensively, they found the open man (Rivers had 14 assists) when Wilkins was double-teamed, which was most of the time. That open man was usually guard Randy Wittman , who drained 34 points.

The series took a distinct physical turn in this game, so agitating Hawk owner Ted Turner that he executed an out-of-rhythm boogie to Jumpin' Jack Flash during a timeout. To the Hawks, neither Bill Laimbeer nor his fellow muscleman, Rick Mahorn , was a gas, gas, gas. The teams' frontcourt players pushed and shoved one another all evening, and Laimbeer had words with four different Hawks ( Levingston , Wilkins , Carr and Tree Rollins ), believed to be a playoff record.

Laimbeer on Atlanta : "They pump iron, and they all want to show how strong they are."