Bad Boy Rick Mahorn urges COVID-19 safety in new PSA

(FOX 2) - The Detroit Pistons are encouraging Detroiters to stay home and stay safe during this health crisis – and that comes with a message from Bad Boy Rick Mahorn.

“The first rule of defeating an enemy is to take them seriously,” he says in a new COVID-19 PSA.

The PSA urges to follow the governor’s order - stay home and stay safe - using your own home court, figuratively and literally.

The governor's order lets you go outside and dribble the ball around; just do it solo. Stay at home and use your “home-court advantage.”

Detroit a hot spot for the coronavirus, disproportionately impacting Black Americans. Fourteen percent of Michigan’s population is African American, but yet 40% of the deaths so far due to the virus have been in the Black community.

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"Not only is it African Americans, but it’s people of color. A lot of times that we don’t have the advantages, you know. We don’t have the economics where we can take a day off and try to survive. Survival is very prevalent because some people live paycheck-to-paycheck,” Mahorn told FOX 2.

He added that prayer is keeping his mind in the right place right now.

"When you’re praying, you’re praying for everyone and not just yourself,” he said. “My thing is the focus is that is the end goal.”

This is the second PSA the Detroit Pistons have been involved with.

Over the weekend head coach, Dwayne Casey participated in a message that included a star-studded list of Detroit sports figures all sending that same point home: stay home, stay safe.