Devised by Chuck Daly and his assistants at the time, Ron Rothstein and Dick Versace, after Jordan scored 59 points against them in April 1988, the Pistons' strategy was "to play him tough, to physically challenge him and to vary its defenses so as to try to throw him off balance.
[3] Additionally, whoever Jordan was guarding on defense, Detroit would force that player to pass the basketball in order to make Jordan work extremely hard on both ends of the court, thus increasing his fatigue level and rendering him less effective.
This style of defense limited players including Jordan from entering the paint and was carried out by Dennis Rodman and Bill Laimbeer.
To counter the Jordan Rules, the Bulls changed its philosophy after promoting Phil Jackson to head coach in 1989, implementing Tex Winter's triangle offense as means of spreading the scoring wealth amongst its players.
In an interview with Sports Illustrated, then Detroit Pistons coach Chuck Daly described the Jordan Rules as:[7] If Michael was at the point, we forced him left and doubled him.
When doing an ESPN 30 for 30, Joe Dumars said:[8] It was like the Da Vinci Code, the formula to Coca-Cola and the Jordan rules.