Bulls-Celtics: Like the Bulls-Pistons of the Late 1980s

I am not going to pass judgement on Rajon Rondo's foul on Brad Miller in the closing moments of Game Five. The NBA reviewed it just like they did Dwight Howard's elbow to Samuel Dalembert, and ruled in a way they felt appropriate.

I am also not going to comment on which teacher lied when they passed Kevin Garnett through English class at Farragut Academy 15 years ago; from what I can see, his vocabulary is almost exclusively two words, one of which is "mother."

I am, however, going to tell you that the physical play, trash talking and jacked-up fans in both cities could potentially turn this series into a rivalry for years to come.

I was born in 1980, which means I was in a significant development period of my sports fandom when the Bulls of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen threw down on an annual basis with the Detroit Pistons of Isaiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, and Bill Laimbeer.

There were series against the Pistons, and later the Knicks, in which the refs expected punches to be thrown; for almost a decade there was better hitting between the Pistons and Bulls than there was between the Red Wings and Blackhawks.

But in the Jordan Era of the 1990's, and as we witnessed the advent of the Hack-a-Shaq defense, the league got soft. No longer were bodies flying into the third row of the stands after losing a rebound. No longer was a fat lip a sign that halftime was over and the third quarter was set to begin.

The 1990's NBA protected it's stars in the same way the NFL is now trying to protect quarterbacks—any amount of contact was frowned upon. The hands-off approach the league forced on defenders, coupled with the Bulls' opening our eyes to the triangle offense, saw scoring across the league distributed more evenly throughout the rosters. No longer did someone like Jordan need to average 38 a night to win a scoring title.

But now the league is young, competitive, and the parody is at what might be an all-time high. With players trying to establish themselves, tempers warm up, and in tight games and series, the extra effort often crosses lines.

Not to mention when someone like Josh Smith establishes himself as a target in front of a national audience (classless moron).

As I watch Game Six between the Celtics and Bulls, as Rondo and Kirk Hinrich go after each other and hands and elbows are flying everywhere whenever a ball is in the air, I remember back to the passionate NBA I fell in love with watching Jordan and Dumars square off.

The marketing mantra of the Bulls has been "Love it live" this year, and the teams in this series are giving fans in every city to do just that. The passion being displayed on the court and in the stands in this series is fantastic, whether it's legal or not.