Give Us This Day Our Daly Dead

Chuck Daly, whose thuggish approach to basketball with the Detroit Pistons was the palate cleanser between the Los Angeles Lakers Showtime and Michael Jordan’s artistry with the Chicago Bulls, has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 78. What do you expect from a guy who coached at Boston College? In addition to the back-to-back titles with the Pistons in 1989 and 1990, Daly coached the Olympic Dream Team to the 1992 gold medal, and earned a spot in the Basketball Hall of Fame and the NBA 50th anniversary team as one of the 10 top coaches.