Directly behind the Palace of Auburn Hills, home of the Detroit Pistons, is a mammoth garbage dump. This, uh, Motor City Mountain has grown so huge that when you approach the Palace from the south it looks as if a trash tidal wave is about to bury the arena. Only now, for the first time since the Pistons won back-to-back titles in 1989-90, the real stench doesn't seem to be coming from inside the arena.

The Bad Boys are back.

Or at least they seemed to be when I was in Detroit recently working on a Jerry Stackhouse feature for this week's Mag. (Now they have been pushed to the brink by the VC-less Raptors. Is it me? It must be me. A few years ago I was working on a story on former Lions linebacker Stephen Boyd but the team kept losing. So finally, Boyd sees me in the locker room and takes me by the scruff of the neck and, jokingly, escorts me halfway outside. "Go away," he said, "you're bad luck.")

Way back when (a week ago), the Pistons were celebrating their first 50-win season since 1996, a 2-0 series lead against the Raptors and a string of postseason awards. The Palace was absolutely nuts -- to the point that some morons in the stands booed the Canadian national anthem. In Motown it seems the yuppies have commandeered the star-studded Red Wings while the lunchpailers are gravitating towards the overachieving 'Stons. Even original Detroit badass Tommy Hearns (you thought I was gonna say pipsqueak Kid Rock? puhlease) made an appearance at the Pistons' first playoff game.

"This has been one of the best seasons ever," said a delighted John Hammond, the team's director of player personnel. "Because no one, including most of us, would have ever dreamed this could've happened."

Later that same day, after Ben Wallace received the Defensive Player of the Year award by the largest margin in the history of the trophy (which is lacking Big Ben's trademark H-bomb 'fro I might add), former Pistons great and current team president Joe Dumars stepped to the podium. What he said will resonate for some time, regardless of how the team fares Thursday night. Wallace's ferocious, intense style, he said, embodied everything the team was trying to be about.

Look at the current Pistons. Three guys in the starting lineup (Wallace, Chucky Atkins and Michael Curry) were undrafted. Corliss Williamson, who leaves the Big Nasty schtick on the court, just won the NBA's Sixth Man award. Quiet and intense new coach Rick Carlisle has to be a favorite to win Coach of the Year, and after what he's sacrificed to make his team better you gotta give Stackhouse a serious look at MVP.

See a common denominator? Hard workers, ferocious defenders, with quiet intensity and something to prove. This is a team only a town like Detroit could love. Hmmm. Remind you of anyone? Say, a certain contender for NBA Exec of the Year? "That's by design," says Dumars. "We've tried to build this team around guys who are tough physically and mentally. There are a number of guys on this team that could've played on our championship teams."

The only difference being those teams knew how to put people away in the postseason (okay, sometimes that meant into an ambulance) -- something these Pistons better figure out in the next 24 hours. It might not hurt if they also worked on … rolling with their man to the baseline on a pick-and-roll! Sheesh, that defense in Games 3-4 was really bad ... boys.

It is also time for Stackhouse to step up and put his stamp on this team and this town. "Stack's already a star," said Pistons guard Jon Barry before the playoffs. "But now's his chance because superstars are born in the playoffs."

I sat with Stack and watched the first few games of the NBA postseason. At first, he seemed a bit perplexed that I wasn't all that impressed with his Rolls Royce but that I practically shrieked with delight when I found out he had a Ms. Pacman machine. (Tell me, could my priorities be any farther out of whack?)

Dumars has a definite eye for talent, but what separates him from other execs is his ability to perfectly mesh personalities and deftly coax the most out of his people, many of them making guaranteed millions. It was Dumars, Stack told me, who first planted the idea in his head that he needed to taper his scoring and take his all-around game, and the Pistons, to the next level. "He trusted me to grow into this role," says Stack. "Mainly because I think Joe saw a lot of himself in me."

So there it is. It took them 12 years to figure it out, it but I think the Pistons have finally found the secret to rebuilding the Bad Boys.

It takes one to know one.

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at flemfile@aol.com.