Apparently I'm not the only one who was underwhelmed with the Pistons/Lakers matchup. Rasheed Wallace, on the Pistons' supposed "rivalry" with the Lakers.
"What rivalry?" Rasheed Wallace asked. "It might have been one back in the day with Joe D, Magic, Kareem and those guys."
With the Shaq/Kobe Lakers disintegrating so soon after the 2004 finals, there really never was time for a rivalry between the two squads to develop. Nowadays when the Lakers are in town, aside from the Kobe curiosities, they're just another team in purple. Kobe agrees:
"Rivalry?" asked the Lakers' Kobe Bryant. "If we want to get this back to the old days of Pistons-Lakers, we have some catching up to do."
Pistons 102, Lakers 93 recap [ESPN]
Kobe can't match Pistons [Detroit News]