The Malice at the Palace will go down in NBA lore as one of the wildest on court incidents of all time. Isiah Thomas says he could have prevented the whole altercation.

Thomas was on ThePivot Podcast talk about all thing Bad Boys and Pistons. The topic about Malice at the Palace came up and Isiah did not hold back.

The feud between Isiah, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson is well known amongst NBA fans. The trickle down effect went all the way into the 2004 season for the Pistons.

Thomas was recently removed as head coach of the Pacers by Bird. Thomas feels that Bird was trying to undercut all the hard work he had done to build a championship caliber team. Zeke got fired, Carlise got hired. And history played itself out.

Isiah said he would have known better than to have Ron Artest in the the game vs Detroit when The Pacers had a 15 point lead. Knowing the temperament of his players and how he had “put a little pepper in”

Take a listen to how Isiah describes how he could have prevented The Malice at The Palace.

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Could Isiah have stopped the fight? I don’t really know and I guess we will never know. One thing is for sure, the whole night and perhaps the whole season would have been different with Thomas as head coach of the Pacers.

Karma took care of Isiah’s dirty work. That Pacers squad never went on to win a thing. They even came out with a documentary trying to convince themselves that without The Malice at the Palace they would have been NBA champions. n theory, if Isiah could have prevented it, The Pacers would have won if they kept him.

I am thankful for Larry Bird being a spiteful guy. The Pistons have won several championships because of Bird’s ego.