By C. JEMAL HORTON
The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS - Don Nelson yelps in Sports Illustrated. Pat Riley cries so much a hair nearly pops out of place. Ron Artest is sentenced to a four-game suspension for being a menace. His coach gets two games for being menacing. And suddenly, the Indiana Pacers are being dubbed Bad Boys II, though it has nothing to do with the upcoming sequel featuring Martin Lawrence and Will Smith.

This Bad Boys sequel is about hard play and nasty attitudes and flagrant fouls that take silky-smooth basketball players out of their games.

And, uh, the problem with that is ... ?

Hold on, I'm still looking ...

Sorry, but I just don't see a problem with this Bad Boys II reputation the Pacers have now. Not a single problem.

Didn't the first Bad Boys, Detroit's Pistons, win back-to-back NBA championships from 1988-89 to 1989-90?

Weren't those very same Bad Boys the unified team that nobody wanted to face in the postseason?

Well, then the Pacers, who are good but have won nothing, should be flattered when people make such a comparison.

Instead, when the Bad Boys II label hit, the Pacers acted as if someone in homeroom started a rumor they had cooties.

"I've said I have no disrespect for what Detroit accomplished as the Bad Boys," Pacers president Donnie Walsh said Monday. "But we're nothing like that.

"To label us like that, with some innuendo that we're out there beating everybody up, is just not a fair statement. We're not overly aggressive and I thought (the Bad Boys) were."

Well, the Pacers are somewhat like that.

They are an aggressive team. They are capable of playing that oppressive, The-Man-is-keepin'-you-down defense. And they do know that a physical style of play benefits them against most teams in the league.

And, yes, there is one Pacer who has to be regarded as, well, kooky: Artest, the watered-down version of Dennis Rodman of this Bad Boys II team.

Artest and Brad Miller -- Bill Laimbeer, if you will -- have four flagrant fouls each. The duo is the biggest reason so many people consider the Pacers dirty -- and the reason so many teams fear Indiana now.

But every Pacer employs a bump-and-run style. Even point guards Jamaal Tinsley and Erick Strickland.

Although Walsh and coach Isiah Thomas have complained recently about unfair treatment from referees, the bulk of the Pacers' 12 flagrant fouls this season have been warranted.

Other than the suspensions, which also were warranted, the Pacers don't need to worry about unfair treatment from refs. They should embrace their Bad Boy image.

For starters, it was marketing brilliance in the late 1980s. And besides, flagrant-foul calls hardly hurt the Pacers. In the 12 games that have featured at least one flagrant call from either team, the Pacers are 8-4.

The physicality of a game seems to make the Pacers play better. Hence, that Bad Boy feel all over again.

But again, that's not necessarily an indictment.

"I think it should be a compliment, as far as the way we approach the game," said Pacers assistant coach Mark Aguirre, who played on those back-to-back champions in Detroit with Thomas. "A lot of people hated us back then, but people in Detroit loved us.

"You had to play that way to win titles, and we adapted that. But this team hasn't adapted that. We get flagrant fouls, like every other team, but I think it's wrong to label us as hurting people."

But it's important that people think the Pacers will hurt them. It will make them true Bad Boys.

However, Thomas warns of the comparison, "We would have beat the s--- out of this (current Pacers team)!"

Apparently, this Bad Boys sequel will not be better.

Or worse.