SAN ANTONIO — Vince Carter had to be restrained from getting a piece of Bruce Bowen. Kobe Bryant has called him dirty and most recently, Ray Allen used dirty language to describe the San Antonio Spurs' resident defensive stopper.
Bowen's mission, copied right from the Dennis Rodman handbook, is to be in your face and eventually in your head. When you can't shoot much or dribble or pass particularly well, you still can make a living in the NBA by being annoying, relentless — and perhaps even borderline dirty. Few do it as well as Bowen.
"He was one of the best defenders I had seen yet," says Larry Brown, who coached Bowen briefly in Philadelphia. "He had some deficiencies offensively, but I never would have imagined he would be a starter on a championship team, but I thought he could be a defensive stopper."
Brown's Detroit Pistons enter Game 2 of the NBA Finals tonight hoping to find ways to crack the Spurs' vaunted defense. Detroit scored 69 points in its Game 1 loss, including just 49 points over the final three quarters. The Pistons shot 38 percent and made only one of six 3-pointers, and Rasheed Wallace attempted only six shots.
Brown wants Wallace to become more involved, but the Pistons also need better production from Richard Hamilton, who missed 14 of 21 shots on Thursday, including six layups. Hamilton is one of the top shooting guards in the league but with Bowen attached to his hip, Hamilton never found a rhythm. Bowen failed to score a point in 35 minutes and yet Brown called Bowen's performance "dominating."
"He played well," Hamilton said. "He tried to make me go to my second and third options. But the good thing is I got every shot I wanted. Every shot I took I was comfortable with, I just didn't make them. I am just going to try to keep moving. I am going to run him off screens, stay in constant movement and try to use my quickness."
"My thing is I try to make sure that I get a hand up or contest as many shots as I can," Bowen said.
Hamilton will be more active tonight and his aim should improve. But Bowen isn't going away. He loves the challenge of trying to shut down some of the game's elite players and is enjoying a great run in this postseason. Bowen was Carmelo Anthony's shadow in the first round, and he beat Allen into submission in the second round and took out Shawn Marion in the Western Conference finals.
"He's a guy that really takes pride in his defense," Hamilton said. "He's not worried about offense at all. He's a guy that really comes out and tries to use every part of his body. He's not a guy that will reach and try to get steals. He'll try to bump you with his hips, his legs, his knees, everything else.
"You can't let him get into your head," Hamilton said. "Everybody tries to grab and do all of that (physical) stuff. You can't feed into that. Once you feed into that, he's got you."
Charles Oakley was the same way with the Knicks. He played great team defense but he also knew a few tricks that would frustrate opponents and he had a knack of using them when the referees weren't looking.
"(Bowen) is smart enough to realize he has a unique ability," says Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. "He knows he's limited in other ways. He doesn't let that diminish anything about him, and he concentrates on that strength. He takes great pride in it and is professional beyond belief, and it's because he knows that this is his career. He's like the guy who wants to be the best doctor, the best plumber, the best lawyer, the best whatever. He wants to be the best at what he does, and I think Dennis (Rodman) was exactly the same way. That's Bruce Bowen."