The Jordan Rules (35 page)

“No way,” said Hopson. “You're crazy. You know what it's like there? People booing you, the few that do come to games. Losing every time. No, I just want to get a chance to win some games again.”

After the Bulls won their NBA title, he was asked jokingly whether he'd rather be in New Jersey. He answered “Yes” without hesitation. And he wasn't joking.

Despite the loss to San Antonio, the Bulls found themselves division champions when the Pistons lost to New York on Saturday night. There wasn't much celebrating; Pippen didn't even know. “I wondered why we had these division-championship T-shirts in the locker room,” he would say later. Jordan hadn't celebrated, either; he had a 7:00
A
.
M
. tee time. After all, game time Sunday against Philadelphia was 2:30
P
.
M
., and that gave him plenty of time for a round of golf. His golfing mania had become nearly insatiable and he was now playing often during the season.

Jordan had even found a way to use his golf as a psychological ploy against the 76ers. Jordan made a point of telling Sixers assistant coach Fred Carter about his game, knowing Carter would try to use it to motivate Hersey Hawkins, who'd be playing Jordan. The Sixers, Jordan hoped, would be driven to distraction by the notion that he was so confident about playing them that he actually spent the morning on the golf course. A few days later, Barkley would complain about Jordan's early-morning golf game on his Philadelphia radio show, saying the Bulls hadn't taken the 76ers seriously. “If I had done that,” observed bad boy Barkley, “I'd have been killed.”

Despite the golf flap, which left Jordan's teammates predictably annoyed, Jordan managed to score 41 and steal 4. If Jordan had indeed intended to distract Hawkins, he succeeded: Hawkins shot just 3 of 10 in the first half for 6 points. But the 76ers were proving stubborn, even though Barkley wasn't playing because of a knee injury; he had come to Chicago to watch the nationally televised game, however, and he was clearly enjoying himself.

“Hey, Stacey,” he yelled at King, who was being booed by the fans during a rare game appearance, “what time's practice tomorrow?

“These guys ain't winnin' no title. They're too soft,” he'd shout occasionally, and when lead referee Jess Kersey would call a foul, Barkley would continue, “Don't help these guys out, Jess. They're soft.”

Of course, there was some truth to Barkley's assertion; many around the league still questioned how long the Bulls could last in the playoffs with guys like Grant and Cartwright as their power players. And the 76ers were whacking the Bulls around on the boards in this game, just as San Antonio had done a few days earlier. The Bulls' weaknesses were beginning to show. They could be pushed around, as Detroit knew, and sometimes you could get them out of their game that way. Rick Mahorn was doing just that, as he went on to grab 14 rebounds, and even Armon Gilliam, who was being called “Charmin” Gilliam by his teammates because
he
was so soft, was muscling inside for offensive rebounds.

There was plenty of theater in the game: Pippen dunked over 7-7 center Manute Bol, sending the 76ers' bench into convulsions of laughter, and Bol entertained them further by dribbling between his legs after a rebound. But the game got serious down the stretch, and the 76ers would force it into overtime. The street-clothed Barkley grabbed Hawkins in the huddle and shouted at him as the overtime period was about to begin, “If you want to be an All-Star [which Hawkins was that season for the first time], now's the time you've got to take over.” And he did, scoring 6 straight 76ers points, including 2 baskets on brilliant drives against Jordan. The 76ers refused to surrender the lead, and won 114–111 when Armstrong came up short on a last-second jumper.

John Paxson watched from the bench, shaking his head. Armstrong had played the last twenty minutes of the game, almost the entire second half. He seemed tired and, predictably, his shots were short at the end. Jackson told the coaches he was leaving Armstrong in to see how he would finish a game; the Bulls would need Armstrong in the playoffs, and Jackson wanted to see how he fared in a pressure situation. It wasn't the best strategy, given Armstrong's obvious weariness, and the coaches also knew it, but they understood: It was another experiment out of Jackson's behavioral laboratory.

But Paxson didn't understand. He sat on the bench, examining both the game and his life. He thought about the technical foul he'd drawn against Orlando in the Stadium a few days before, and the disapproving look his four-year-old son had given him for it. Ryan Paxson had become a big basketball fan, watching his dad on TV, turning off the lights to introduce himself when the pregame introductions came on, and playing his own game with a small basket set up in front of the TV during Bulls games. Paxson would use the game as a means of communication and discipline. When Ryan was naughty, John would call a time-out, and Ryan would have to go sit down. And when he'd really get out of control, John would call a technical on him, to teach him a lesson. But, he asked himself, what lesson was the father learning? Paxson, though slower than most guards he faced, was a tough competitor. It was one reason he stayed in the starting lineup. Armstrong was quicker, yet he couldn't pressure the ball as well as Paxson. “He plays defense better than he's got any right to,” marveled Bach. Paxson did things out of sheer will, and despite chronically aching knees and ankles he had the fourth-best streak of starts in the league. But his fiery desire could bring with it a nasty temper in games. And his ensuing arguments with referees had gotten him labeled a complainer and probably cost him some calls. Paxson vowed to get more control of himself.

But watching Armstrong play the final twenty minutes of the Philadelphia game began to convince Paxson that his Bulls career was at an end. The team hadn't talked to him at all about a new contract. Paxson figured Armstrong would start in 1991–92, but he didn't really mind. “I'm the perfect backup point guard for this team,” he would say. “I can run the offense, I can play with Michael, and I can shoot. I can play both guard positions and I wouldn't mind being a backup. I just want to get paid.” But there were always doubts about guards after they hit thirty, especially white guards. This game, Paxson believed, only showed that his career in Chicago was over, no matter what the Bulls said.

Caroline Paxson was angry about the team's treatment of her husband. She's a delicate blonde, quiet, shy, and loyal to John, who always arranges for a friend to drive her to and from the Stadium for games—he doesn't want her going alone. Krause told associates that she would screw up her face and eye him angrily whenever she saw him. And Bach, whom she liked, said he hated to look at her these days. She would look at him with pleading eyes, as if to say, “Isn't there anything you can do?”

As Caroline and John drove home in silence after the 76ers game, John finally made a decision. “Let's sell the house,” he said.

“I'll call the realtor tomorrow morning,” Caroline said quickly.

Jackson was experimenting again. Jordan had pretty much abandoned the offense, and was scoring in droves. In the last five games, he'd averaged 29 shots per game and 39 points. Pippen, too, was spending considerable time freelancing, and in the 76ers game the two had scored 51 of the starters' 55 points in the second half. Armstrong was the only reserve to score in the last two quarters. So Jackson was trying to figure out how to restrain Jordan without his knowledge. He tried putting him in the corner of the triangle offense where it would be hard for him to get the ball, but when that failed, Jackson just took him out of the game, twice after he'd hit a pair of jumpers.

“Hey, don't take me out after I hit a couple of shots,” Jordan complained. “At least let me miss a few.” He was angry after the April 9 Knicks game in the Stadium, and he was offering unusually curt answers to reporters' questions. The Bulls had managed to survive the Knicks, 108–106, on a Paxson jumper with twenty-two seconds left (the Armstrong experiment had ended) and a Cartwright steal as the Knicks tried to get the tying basket. It truly was one of those games in which victory went to the team making the next-to-last mistake. It wasn't a particularly good performance, but the Bulls were overconfident against the Knicks. They'd beaten them in the playoffs in six games in 1989, and had only lost once to them since in the regular season, when Trent Tucker took an inbounds pass and hit a three-point basket, all in one tenth of a second; the league later ruled that the shot should have been waved off for lack of time but refused to change the outcome of the game. That disputed field goal had become the source of immediate controversy. “You can't shoot the ball in a tenth of a second,” Jackson had complained afterward. The incident reminded Bach of a 76ers-Portland game in which Archie Clark dribbled and dribbled with just a few seconds on the clock and finally put up the game winner. Portland officials tried to find the timekeeper later, only to be told they couldn't talk to him. “I don't want to talk to him,” said one Trail Blazers executive. “We just want him to time the rest of our lives.”

Bill Cartwright thought the team was tired, both physically and mentally. It was a long season and most of the team's goals had already been accomplished; the games just seemed to drone on and the Bulls, Cartwright felt, needed the playoffs to revive them. He was worried, too, about players like King, who was still blaming everyone but himself for his problems. Horace Grant had come in and worked hard to earn his position and respect with the team, but King seemed to expect it to be given to him. Cartwright had also listened to Armstrong complain about his lack of opportunity, as had Perdue and Hopson. And he had grown weary of Levingston, who was often late for practice and complained often and loudly about his lack of playing time. Levingston would sit around telling the other players about the big parties he was throwing and purchases he was making, even though everyone knew about his financial problems.

Cartwright felt some of the veterans on the second unit did little to help the younger players, which accounted somewhat for King's drift. “The kid's all screwed up now and we're going to need him,” Cartwright lamented.

Jackson thought the same thing, and despite King's felonious behavior, he was receiving an amnesty of sorts. Jackson felt he had to try to get King ready for the playoffs, even if King continued to play poorly. Krause had also warned Jackson that the less King played, the lower his value would be and the harder it would be for the Bulls to trade him after the season.

The Bulls moved into Indianapolis for a game the Pacers were treating like a grudge match, after that wild affair in the Stadium a few weeks earlier. This was a possible first-round playoff matchup, and it was a game the Bulls wanted badly to win, having lost six straight in Market Square Arena. The Pacers, a good three-point-shooting team with Reggie Miller, fell behind quickly, but regained the lead and went ahead 57–51 at halftime as they ran and fired long. It appeared that the Pacers had fiddled with the nets: They were shorter than most, which allowed the ball to come through faster for quick outlet passes and fast breaks. The Bulls had to extend their halfcourt defense to the three-point line, which put pressure on their rebounders. The Pacers had a 27–13 rebounding margin at halftime.

The Bulls needed to slow the game down and get it into a halfcourt pace, which they finally did in the third quarter, showing some versatility that would prove useful at playoff time. The Pacers went cold, shooting jumpers from a set offense and falling behind by 7. Indiana started to charge back in the fourth quarter, but Jordan decided to take over, if not in scoring then on the floor. He told Jackson he wanted to play point guard, so Jackson shifted him to the top of the floor. Jordan said Armstrong was pushing the ball too much, and he wanted him out of the game; Jackson obliged. This was a game for pace and patience, and Armstrong wasn't adept at either quite yet. Paxson dropped into the corner and Jordan started to work on top of the floor.

The Bulls, trailing by 1 with six minutes left, scored 12 of the next 16 points, taking a 7-point lead with two minutes left, and held on the rest of the way to win 101–96. Jordan had scored under 30 for the second straight game, but his leadership on the floor had been crucial.

It was an encouraging victory for the Bulls, since they were out-rebounded but still managed to win. It would be essential for them to be able to control a game like that, particularly because they lacked a shot blocker. Bach felt it was a breakthrough of sorts. “They seem to be coming together as a team again,” he said. And just in time: The Bulls were heading to Auburn Hills to play Detroit and Isiah Thomas was back in the lineup.

Two nights later, Jackson was smoldering, and it wasn't from the smoke of his postgame cigarette. “I've got a stupid team, a stupid team,” he repeated furiously after the Bulls' loss, as he looked for a place to finish his cigarette and have a beer after talking with reporters. “I don't know what they were thinking about,” Jackson raged. The staff had never seen him like this.

The Bulls had shot 51 percent in the first half to trail 50–49 behind 24 points from Jordan. But the team shot only 40 percent in the second half, and 29 percent in the fourth quarter, which they entered tied, to lose 95–91. It had been an important game, Jackson felt, because Isiah Thomas was back from his wrist surgery and the Bulls' only win in the Palace had been when Thomas was out.

But what upset Jackson the most was this:
The Bulls had taken the wrong basket.
After pregame shooting drills, the players said they wanted to shoot at the basket in front of the Pistons' bench in the second half. That was the basket, the coaches believed, that had been “adjusted.” Jordan said the team didn't want to get a complex about that basket, so they would try it in the second half.