Isiah Thomas refused to praise Michael Jordan for scoring 59 points on the Pistons in 1988: "You have to tell the truth: they lost"

It’s no secret that Isiah Thomas was never a fan of Michael Jordan. In fact, even if Jordan was undeniably torching almost everybody on the court during his prime, Zeke still refused to acknowledge that MJ was the great player everybody thought he was.

During an interview with The Detroit News back in 2020, Thomas was asked to comment on the time MJ dropped 59 points on the Detroit Pistons in a regular-season game in 1988. Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to a 112-110 win over the Bad Boys and shot 21 out of 27 from the field with 17 points coming from the foul line.

It was a spectacular performance indeed, but instead of agreeing, Zeke chose to talk about how the Pistons thumped MJ and the Bulls in the playoffs that year.

“[The] Pistons beat the Bulls in that playoff series, 4 games to 1,” the Hall of Fame point guard said.

“Yeah, he got 59 and did all that, but at the same time, you have to tell the truth: they lost,” he added. “When you put us all head-to-head, the ’80s era is among the best in basketball ever. We were all young and in our primes.”

Zeke never competed with MJ

As it turned out, there were no lies detected in Thomas’ remarks. The Bad Boy Pistons really dominated the Bulls in five games in the Eastern semis that year. However, it was also true that Jordan played some of the highest-scoring games of his career against the Pistons. In fact, a year before he scored 59 in Detroit, MJ also exploded for 61 against Zeke and the Bad Boys.

Despite that, Thomas has always been candid and adamant about his perception of Jordan. For Isiah, it was clear as day that Mike had what it takes to be a superstar in the NBA, but he never once viewed Jordan as one of his rivals.

As Thomas put it down on more than one occasion, he never lost sleep thinking about how to beat MJ and the Bulls during the Bad Boy Pistons’ heyday.

“Dr. J [Julius Erving] was five years older than me, so they had something on me, [Larry] Bird, Kareem [Abdul Jabbar], they were a little older than me,” the legendary point guard said. “But in terms of like Jordan and Chicago, they were never my competition because they hadn’t won anything.”

“So I was looking at how can I beat Magic and Kareem,” Isiah said. “How can I beat McHale, Parish, Bird, Dennis Johnson — how can I beat those guys? They were all the champions.”

The bad blood between Zeke and MJ is real

Many are convinced that it was always sour grapes whenever Thomas was asked to talk about MJ. They believe Zeke never really moved on from the time Jordan and the Bulls swept them in the playoffs in 1991.

Since then, it became common knowledge in the league that Thomas and Jordan had been feuding even to this day. Mike made it official when he took a shot at Zeke in the highly-acclaimed ESPN docuseries, “The Last Dance.”

For Thomas, Jordan’s harsh comments in The Last Dance made it clear that he was still mad about what happened back in ’91. Zeke hit back and called MJ out for disrespecting him and vowed to never end their beef until Jordan publicly apologizes to him.

This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Feb 18, 2026, where it first appeared in the Old School section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Isiah Thomas refused to praise Michael Jordan for scoring 59 points on the Pistons in 1988: “You have to tell the truth: they lost”

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