AUBURN HILLS – Pistons point guard Chauncey Billups was flattered by the notion, but knows it’s too early to anoint them “Bad Boys II.”

ESPN Magazine featured the Pistons on the cover this week, with the headline “The Bad Boys are Back.” Billups, Ben Wallace and Richard Hamilton are posed, with menacing looks.

“I thought it was cool,” Billups said before tip-off for last night’s Game 1 vs. the Nets.

“We got basketball back rolling in Detroit like we had it back then. The difference is, we haven’t won anything yet. The Bad Boys won. We’re trying to make it to that level. Right now we haven’t done anything.”

Isiah Thomas’ band in the late 1980’s won two championships. These Pistons have yet to win a playoff game past the second round, though it seems everyone in the league believes Detroit will represent the East in

the Finals.

“We know how successful that team was,” Billups said.

“All those jerseys hanging up there, we want to be that one day. We don’t expect the same success but we want to get close, give ourselves a chance.

“We feel we have the right personnel and right coaching. We have a chance to do something special. We have to step up and have to do it.”

The Wallaces, Rasheed and Big Ben, give the Pistons that tough image demonstrated when Dennis Rodman and Bill Lambeer ruled Motown.

And Joe Dumars is still very visible as the architect of the franchise.

Hamilton has taken some heat from his teammates for the cover, as he’s shown flexing his biceps. “I think it was airbrushed,” cracked Billups.

Added Big Ben Wallace, “Does he have a permit for those guns.”

Wallace, the shotblocking, rebounding monster, believes the Pistons didn’t have anything left last spring when they succumbed to the Nets in a four-game sweep during the conference finals.

“Experiences always seem to help,” Wallace said.