<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">For 90 minutes Friday evening, the Palace was a sea of confusion. A bomb threat targeting the Indiana Pacers delayed the 8:10 p.m. start, leaving fans to watch the Michigan State-Duke game on the scoreboard while police dogs searched the visiting locker room. The incident came 18 weeks to the day after a brawl broke out between the Pacers and Pistons fans in the waning seconds of their Nov. 19 game. Friday's game -- which didn't begin until 9:35 p.m. and which the Pistons eventually lost, 94-81 -- began to unravel at 7:19 p.m. "The Palace switchboard took a call from an unknown subject who made a very specific threat that there was a bomb in the Indiana Pacers locker room," said Auburn Hills chief of police Doreen Olko. "The locker room had been searched this morning with bomb dogs. It was searched again late this afternoon, and then after this threat came in, it was searched again tonight. Security was posted outside the door at all times after the initial search this morning, and continued all day long. "Nothing was found." Thousands of people were in the building, and fans continued to be admitted while the Pacers got on their bus and drove to the far side of the grounds. Police did not order a full-scale evacuation. For Pacers' first visit since the brawl, the Pistons already had what they called "playoff-level security" in place. "We never believed that the building was unsafe," Olko said. "The threat was very specific to the Pacers' locker room, and we never believed that the building was unsafe." After the game, Indiana guard Reggie Miller lambasted the Palace. "We've been penalized so much this year and our team, and nothing has ever happened to the Pistons or the Palace or even the city of Detroit," Miller said. "It's almost like it's always our fault. The league knows it and the league ought to be ashamed of themselves to let security be as lax as it is around here. "We're always going to get the brunt of it as players, especially this year, for this organization. David Stern has to take a hard look in the mirror every morning he wakes up on his decision on the way he penalized us and the way he penalized the Pistons."</div> Source
