The Jordan Rules (47 page)

The Bulls defeated the Cavaliers and then went home to receive their championship rings the following night before playing Atlanta. “A dynasty,” Reinsdorf responded in answer to a question about what the Bulls were becoming. “We're not there yet, but if we were to win three in a row …”

The Bulls would lose that night, but the best sign they were on the way to becoming that dynasty was just before the ring ceremony in the adoring Chicago Stadium. Reinsdorf, again, had rings made for the entire Bulls staff, numbering about one hundred, instead of just for the players and basketball staff.

“There should be twenty rings, tops,” Jordan complained in the locker room before the game. “Everyone else should get something else. We were the ones who sweated for it.”

Embittered and resentful. The Bulls were at the top of their game.

The league's dream matchup to close the regular season never occurred, as the Knicks recovered from an ugly brawl in Phoenix, which reinforced their reputation as the league's reigning bullies, to wrap up the best record in the conference when the Bulls suffered losses down the stretch in Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Charlotte.

The Suns had long locked up the best record in the Western Conference. Charles Barkley had broken out early and would easily win the Most Valuable Player award for the first time. The Suns looked like the likely Western Conference representative in the Finals. But the Bulls were not looking like they'd represent the East. In an anticlimactic finish, the Bulls closed the season with an 89–84 loss in New York to finish the regular season 57–25, the first time they failed to win at least sixty games in the last three seasons.

Which only provided the impetus and motivation Jordan was seeking. “We're the underdogs,” he said with only the slightest trace of hyperbole. “It's not a bad position to be in. We thrive on that. Teams feel we're weaker and we're cracking a little bit. We've shown some signs of vulnerability. But it's a matter of championships now. Winning again would add to the legend of this team. The last time it was done, you had eight teams in the league. Now you have twenty-eight. And there's more parity. Along with the fact that the same guys who are here might not be here next year. So we've got to enjoy this opportunity while we can. The only reason I still play is because I want to win championships. How many? I don't know. It depends on how long I still feel I love the game.”

The Hawks, not unexpectedly, turned out to be just a bug flying around a zapper light. They'd kill themselves if someone didn't get there first, and they went out in three straight. Meanwhile, the Knicks were struggling with the Indiana Pacers, again losing their composure when John Starks head-butted Reggie Miller during Game 3 and the Knicks lost.

In the Western Conference, Phoenix was on the verge of losing to the Lakers after dropping the first two games of the best-of-five miniseries. They recovered to win in five games, but suddenly looked vulnerable. And so the Bulls were favorites again, driving the point home by sweeping the Cavs in the conference semifinals.

Say it twice: New York, New York. It was time.

Pat Riley had recalled when before the 1992–93 season the Knicks' marketing department was looking to come up with a campaign for the coming season. “The first artwork they had me look at,” said Riley, “was looking down on a basketball court. There was a hoop, and inside the foul circle was a chalk outline of a dead person. I said I didn't know if we wanted to go that far.” But that's what this Eastern Conference finals series was to be, a test of survival. Both teams knew that the winner, undoubtedly, would be the next NBA champion. It would be best-of-seven for the entire season.

For the first two games, the series was a stark—perhaps Starks—contrast. John Starks, the often maniacal Knick shooting guard, would twice best the holiest guard of them all, Michael Jordan. In Game 1, Jordan would shoot 3 of 13 in the second half and not score in the final 6:32 as the Knicks won, 98–90. One New York newspaper headlined: J
ORDAN
; G
OAT
. Meanwhile, Starks scored 25 points, including 13 in the final quarter. The media were full of stories about how the former CBA player who bounced in and out of colleges was now dominating the world basketball stage. “Just like anyone else,” Starks conceded, “I've always been in awe of Michael Jordan. But I always dreamed about situations like this, being in an important game, and I knew 1 could surprise people.”

The surprises would continue in the Knicks' 96–91 Game 2 victory that Starks sealed with a thundering dunk along the baseline over Horace Grant to assure a victory after the Knicks had let a 14-point fourth-quarter lead dwindle to 3 even after Scottie Pippen had been ejected from the game for throwing the ball at referee Bill Oakes.

“Basketball is not a wrestling match,” Jackson complained and warned afterward. “They're not going to be able to play their style on our floor.”

Thanks to the TV schedule, the Bulls had a break before going home. They'd have three days off until the series resumed on Memorial Day weekend in Chicago Stadium.

Jordan was not about to give up, despite another poor shooting game, the Knicks bumping and pushing him into a 12-for-32 night. “It's a great challenge,” said Jordan. “We just have to win one and then concentrate on the one after that. We'll look at one game now.”

Not content to wait out the three days,
The New York Times,
of all newspapers, offered up a hysterical story about Jordan's going to Atlantic City until 2:30
A
.
M
. the night before Game 2. An angry Jordan said he was back in his room by 1
A
.
M
., which few of his teammates even believed. “The surprise,” said one, “was that he might be in by two-thirty. Or many of us, for that matter.”

What the media and fans often forget is that basketball players live like night-shift workers. They sleep by day and work at night. They have to be at their most productive between 8 and 10
P
.
M
. So one doesn't do his best work at that time and then get to bed by midnight. Virtually all NBA players nap in the afternoons, so staying up late is routine. Jordan rarely got to bed before 4 or 5
A
.
M
. and usually was involved in long card games in his room. As a change of pace, his father, James, suggested they take a group and ride down to Atlantic City. After all, Jordan can't casually walk the streets in New York.

Linked with that came
Michael
&
Me: Our Gambling Addiction,
a book by Richard Esquinas, a gambling buddy of Jordan's. Esquinas claimed he was a compulsive gambler looking for help and had won $1.3 million from Jordan gambling. Jordan denied the size of the wager, but not that he lost money to Esquinas. Friends close to Jordan said the $1 million-plus figure was not out of line, and Esquinas had decided to write the book because Jordan would pay only $300,000 of the debt. Jordan, in fact, had a well-earned reputation around the Bulls for not paying his gambling debts and was always dashing off after losing at pool and leaving $50 or $100 unpaid. Corey Williams, a rookie, always beat Jordan at pool, but was always afraid to ask for the money. For the younger players, it was worth the money to play with Jordan. The veterans never did much with him, anyway.

But the media feasted on the morsels for a few days, since there was little of basketball significance to report. Did Jordan have a gambling problem? Did he need counseling? In retrospect, it turned out to be the turning point against the Knicks. The New York newspapers, as the Bulls left town after Game 2, were filled with theses on how the Bulls had lost their cool, pointing to Pippen's ejection; how Jordan couldn't stand the pressure defense; how Horace Grant was folding up, complaining about injuries. So Jordan stopped talking to the media, and the Bulls, as usual, followed. “It was really just a way for us to relax,” said Grant.

But the media boycott seemed to allow the Bulls to unite as a group in a sort of us-against-the world mentality at a time when even they had begun to doubt whether they could recover from a 2–0 deficit. And they did it as a team. Jordan, again shooting poorly, penetrated and passed, allowing Pippen to hit for 29 while Jordan came up with 11 assists. The Knicks played tentatively, almost expecting defeat, and were blown out by 20, trailing by 19 at halftime and 26 in the third quarter, when most of the starters took off for the rest of the game.

Then it was time for Jordan to get his payback. The Bulls were back in the series, so Jordan put an end to the John Starks story, if not the Knicks. With Starks jumping in his face and trying to push him around, Jordan flicked him off and scored 54 points as the Bulls evened the series with a 105–95 win. The NBA was not amused by the Bulls' silent treatment, and fined the club $25,000. “It was a good day for the Tar Heels on our team,” said Bulls backup Scott Williams. “I think me and Michael combined for fifty-five.”

And so it came down to Game 5. The Bulls won it, fighting off a furious Knicks rally down the stretch. Charles Smith had the ball and was about to make what seemed like the game-winning layup. But Smith and the Knicks came up short, losing 97–94, as they missed fifteen free throws in the game.

There would be no more after Game 6. “We didn't know if we could win,” said Knicks president Dave Checketts. The Bulls, predictably, won Game 6 back home, 96–88, for a four-game sweep after dropping the first two, and all the Knicks really could hope for now was for Michael Jordan to retire.

If the conference finals was high drama, the NBA Finals were situation comedy. Jordan returned to the land of the verbal with an interview on NBC-TV, while Charles Barkley talked to everyone. Jordan continued to brood throughout the Finals, while Barkley was steppin' out. He did so in Chicago, boasting about staying out all night during the break in Chicago between Games 3 and 4. Barkley addressed reports he'd been seen with Madonna; defended teammate Kevin Johnson, who was booed at home after poor games to start the series; defended Jordan's gambling; and chastised the media and generally enjoyed himself through endless rounds of interviews.

The media took Barkley's barbs, because he never stopped saying things to fill their notebooks.

It was Air and Hot Air.

Barkley didn't exactly love Game 1, when Jordan hit for 31 points and the nervous Suns fell behind by 14 in the first quarter and never caught up, or in Game 2, when Jordan's 42 offset Barkley's 42 and the Bulls won by 3. Talk was of a sweep now. It wasn't
if
the Bulls would win anymore. It was
when.
“We're in a big hole,” admitted Barkley. “We could fit into the Grand Canyon now.”

Typically, the Suns played best from behind, with the pressure released. They were certain to lose now. So they came out and defeated the Bulls, 129–121, in one of the most exciting games in NBA Finals history, a triple-overtime thriller. But the Bulls took Game 4, 111–105, to move to the brink of history's ledge. Jordan applied a little more to his personal record book with 55 points, only the fifth time anyone had exceeded 50 in a Finals game. The Suns, once again with nowhere to turn, turned top entertainment, scribbling on their chalkboard in their dressing room
SAVE THE CITY
, thus mocking Chicago's plans to avoid violence again in a championship celebration. So the Suns cruised out by 12 points in the first quarter and won rather easily, 108–98, sending the series back to Phoenix for the deciding game, or games.

“I told Michael we're a team of destiny,” Barkley related before Game 6. “Michael said he's reading a different Bible than I am.”

It was fate that sent the Bulls to the third straight title. Only Jordan had scored for the Bulls until 3.9 seconds were left in the fourth quarter. The Bulls would win despite a Finals record-low 12 fourth-quarter points. The Suns made up an 8-point deficit early in the fourth quarter and then led by 2 as Jordan passed to Pippen to hit Grant going to the basket. But Grant flipped out to John Paxson, alone beyond the three-point arc on the left side, and Paxson sent the ball—and the Suns' hopes for a Game 7 at home—into the basket like it was going down a deep well. “Just like in my driveway when I was a kid, catch and shoot,” said Paxson, who was the fourth-quarter hero of the first Bulls title in 1991. “I've been playing basketball since I was eight years old, and that's what you always dream about, what you play by yourself,” said Paxson, “that shot to win a championship.”

“Three for the three-peat,” as it turned out. Or as Jackson, ironically aware of the controversies the Bulls rode to success, offered: “It was three the hard way.”

As Jordan warmed himself in the spring training Florida sun under the hot glare of media scrutiny once again, his former teammates seemed to coast along without him. Although Jordan's spot in the lineup was taken by one-time Knick Pete Myers—who'd been playing in Europe recently—and the team finally added European sensation Toni Kukoc, it seemed like Jordan had never left. Including in the standings. The Bulls amazed the NBA through most of the '93–'94 season, going into the All-Star break with a brilliant 34–13 record, and taking a Knicks team destined for the Finals to a seventh game in the Eastern Conference semis before bowing out.

Boyish-looking guard B.J. Armstrong had been voted to the All-Star team by the fans; workman Horace Grant was added by the coaches, and the current team star, Pippen, would be the MVP, the best when the best gathered to play. It would be the first time in almost twenty years that the Bulls would put three players on the All-Star team, which helped explain their success even with Jordan gone. They were playing more as a team for the first time since the Jordan era began, back in 1984. They would not be as spectacular, nor as exciting to watch, without Jordan, but by involving more players in the scoring, they were able to surprise teams that were not used to such tactics in the past.