The Jordan Rules (50 page)

The talk about 70 wins had subsided with four losses in six games, but with the trading deadline approaching, there was other discussion. Rumors sprung up around guard B.J. Armstrong again. He wasn't happy in his backup role, but had vowed to keep his complaints in house this season.

“I don't think individually I'll ever attain here what I'd like,” admitted Armstrong, “but team-wise there are things to achieve. I'm never going to accept not being a starter, but I have my role on this team.”

And Armstrong would play it well, averaging 16.7 when called upon for John Paxson in three starts, keeping his overall average at about 10 to become the only consistent scorer off the bench. But he still failed to mesh with Jordan and Paxson, and Jordan would continue to ride him for mistakes. Against the Magic a few weeks later, with Sam Vincent scoring 18 points early, Jordan was screaming at Armstrong: “The guy hasn't played all year and he's killing you. Get on him!” Likewise, Armstrong was growing more independent, choosing now to pull up more often on the break and shoot even with Jordan to his side. It was a tactic that often earned Armstrong a quick hook from Jackson, and produced a few bench blowups between the coach and player. Armstrong would finally open up in the playoffs after Jackson criticized the bench: Armstrong promised not to complain publicly, so Jackson shouldn't, either. But for the record, Armstrong was remaining a team guy.

Only occasionally were there other rumbles, mostly from Scott Williams and Cliff Levingston, who complained about lack of playing time. “I'm tired of them trying to stroke me,” said Williams. “You play hard, but then are pulled because player X or Y [namely King] has to have so many minutes.”

The Cavaliers finally broke a long losing streak to the Bulls with a narrow win in the Stadium on Feb. 17, and the Pistons finally got on the board against the Bulls later that month in Auburn Hills. But still, the Bulls were 45–11 after that Detroit game, with the rest of the league battling to be a playoff sacrifice.

And the Bulls made that point clearly in what they believed would be the last meaningful game of the season, against the West's best, the Portland Trail Blazers, in the Stadium on March 1, on national TV. It wasn't even close, the Bulls winning 111–91. The Trail Blazers virtually self-destructed again, following the script Jackson had offered in pregame interviews, when he said Portland would come apart if the Bulls were patient and showed them how.

“No offense,” said Pippen, “but we're a much smarter team and we have role models on the court.”

The comments would infuriate the Trail Blazers, whose coach, Rick Adelman, a week later would note the Bulls' losing a 20-point fourth-quarter lead, falling to Orlando, and say, “They must not have been very smart to do that.” That would be the second big lead in ten days the Bulls lost. Earlier, they'd led Indiana by 22 at home but lost by two after Pippen missed a late free throw and kicked the ball into the stands. Reggie Miller taunted Pippen before the free throw: “Don't shoot it long, Olympian. Don't miss, superstar.”

But these would be mere speedbumps along the way as waiting for the playoffs and watching Jordan's latest drama unfold were the principal activities.

In late March, North Carolina newspapers reported another $108,000 in checks from Jordan, this time turning up in the estate of slain bailbondsman Eddie Dow, who had been the “banker” at that October gambling weekend at Hilton Head.

Jordan, at first, was defiant. “The mistake,” he concluded, “was that it got to be a public knowledge situation. [But] I have a right to associate with whoever I choose.”

No, said the NBA, announcing it would conduct an investigation. On the day the Bulls were to play the Knicks, March 31, Jordan was called into the NBA's Fifth Avenue offices and received what amounted to a warning and lecture: Be careful whom you associate with. And Jordan would be contrite afterward, answering reporters' questions for almost two hours before the Bulls defeated the Knicks for their 11th win in the last 12 games.

“No one's perfect—Michael Jordan, you, or anyone else,” Jordan said. “Sometimes you forget as a public person the things you have to take into account”

He realized he'd gotten off easy.

That behind him, Jordan took his anger to the basketball court with a late-season scoring frenzy, including asking to play almost all of the meaningless final game, and got his scoring average above 30 for the sixth straight season. The Bulls plowed through the end of the schedule and finished with a team-record 67–15 season mark and a chance to start all over again in the playoffs.

The opening-round Miami Heat would be the two-foot “gimme” putt for the Bulls. Will Perdue would score 16 points and grab 10 rebounds in the 113–94 playoff-opening win, which was led by Jordan's 46 and prompted the Michael-and-the-Jordanaires queries again. But Heat coach Kevin Loughery, Jordan's first NBA coach, chose not to double-team Jordan, allowing the games to become the basketball version of an easy putt for him. The Bulls then “bounced back,” in Jordan's words, to pummel the Heat 120–90 in Game 2, as Jordan and Pippen combined for 63 points and 17 rebounds.

The Heat took an 18-point first-quarter lead in Game 3, but the outcome was never really in doubt. Just after halftime, Heat center Rony Seikaly told Bill Cartwright, “good luck in the next round.” The Heat were happy to have made it closer this time, losing 119–114, as Jordan put up 56 and Pippen added 31.

“I was geeked up,” Jordan explained.

June Jackson, Phil's wife, said she never could remember her husband being so anxious before a playoff series. Grant said Jackson seemed more nervous than he'd ever been. No one really understood why, since fans and some media were saying the Bulls would go undefeated in the playoffs. But they began to understand Jackson's concern early in Game 1 against the Knicks in the second round of the playoffs, when Charles Oakley was called for a flagrant foul for elbowing Cartwright and then at the end, when the scoreboard read 94–89 Knicks, putting the Bulls down 1-0.

After that hard foul, Jackson yelled to Oakley, who some had said played softer against his former teammates, “You don't have to prove you're a tough guy. We know it.” Oakley told Jackson he wasn't trying to hurt anyone, but Jackson later found out Oakley was fined for talking to the other bench—a Pat Riley rule.

Jackson had heard about Riley's penchant for control, like the time when the Lakers trained in Hawaii and Riley would have the rims repainted, for no apparent reason, before practice. But Jackson also was becoming an admirer.

“He's got those guys playing hard and believing,” he warned his team. “That's a dangerous combination.”

And, Jackson felt, the league and referees were allowing the Knicks to get away with more holding and pushing. The net effect was to slow the Bulls' game, because such tactics rendered their triangle/movement offense ineffective and the Bulls became a team running in quicksand. They just had to make sure it didn't envelop them.

But Jackson could see that this was becoming the kind of series that could wear his team out. Pippen had come up with a sore ankle in Game 1 and also was complaining about a sore back and left wrist. And then there was Xavier McDaniel. The fierce small forward with the shaven head had been a disappointment much of the season, but he matched Detroit's muscle tactics in the opening playoff round to help New York get by the Pistons, three games to two. Curiously, Pistons center Bill Laimbeer predicted the Knicks would upset the Bulls if allowed to use the physical tactics they used in defeating Detroit. Few believed, but McDaniel was one. “If the officials let us play, we can beat them,” promised McDaniel, who also taunted the Bulls by saying that their supposed balance was hooey and that when there was trouble, it was Michael Jordan and everyone else. It was a notion long dismissed around the league, but McDaniel always was an instigator. The most famous picture of McDaniel was of him choking Wes Matthews during a fight and Matthews turning colors. And McDaniel never stopped taunting Pippen when he saw early in Game 1 how Pippen backed off after a hard forearm. “Quit whining and play the fuckin' game,” McDaniel screamed at Pippen. Even teammates were beginning to worry, and no one would joke with Pippen about McDaniel's tactics.

“We thought we might lose him,” Jordan told a friend.

The Bulls won Game 2, a pattern that would extend through the playoffs.

“We won every game we had to,” said Grant. “As the games went on, I knew we'd win any seventh game we had to, so we weren't worried about losing. But we didn't have enough to win like we did last year.”

The Bulls then seemed to take control of the series in Game 3 with a searing 94–86 win highlighted by Jordan knifing in for a layup late in the game—between McDaniel and Patrick Ewing and screaming “yeah, yeah,” and thrusting his fist at the pair as they lay on the floor after the basket.

But the Knicks won Game 4 in New York to even the series at 2-2. Jackson was thrown out by referee Dick Bavetta late in the third quarter and got the message. Jackson yelled at Bavetta, who is from Brooklyn, after some questionable calls, “You afraid they won't let you go home,” and he was thumbed. “I knew then,” said Jackson, “it was going to be a seven-game series.”

And it would be, the home teams winning in the next two, the Knicks in dramatic fashion in Game 6, with Ewing hobbling back from a sprained ankle to lead a fourth-quarter charge, thus setting up the climactic seventh game in the Stadium. Suddenly, a sure second title was one game away from elimination. Jordan said afterward he was nervous and discussed the game with his father, who told him to come out fast. He did, scoring 18 in the first quarter and 29 by halftime, as the Bulls cruised into the conference finals against Cleveland, 110–81.

After that Game 7, Jackson's mentor and former Knicks coach, Red Holzman, came by the Bulls' locker room to congratulate Jackson. But the conversation turned to Riley and what a terrific job he'd done with the Knicks, how good a coach he really was. Jackson listened intently for some time, and then Holzman looked in his eyes.

“Phil,” he said, “you're a good coach too.”

And Jackson would have to be. “At some time now,” June told Phil one night, “it's going to come down to coaching.”

It didn't seem like much would be needed against the Cavaliers, long a Bulls' playoff victim and a passive 103–89 loser in Game 1 of the conference finals. “But they can all eat crow,” Mark Price said after the Cavaliers walloped the Bulls in Game 2 in Chicago, 107–81.

There had been much talk about the Cavaliers' being too weak, but their defensive schemes confounded Chicago. They packed the middle, forcing passes over the top of the defense so that they could steal them, and shut off the inside penetration the Bulls desire. They made up for their lack of talent to match Jordan and Pippen, who was still feeling the effects of the tussle with McDaniel, with heady play and aggressive switching.

The Bulls split Games 3 and 4 in Cleveland, losing 99–85 in Game 4 and hearing Pippen complain afterward about Jordan taking too many shots, hearing Armstrong rush to the defense of the bench, telling Jackson and Jordan to keep their critical comments private, and assistant Tex Winter publicly chiding Pippen: “If you're not scoring, so what? Play defense, play the boards, make things happen.”

Same old Bulls, it would seem.

Then they returned to their 1991 championship ways, riding the Cavaliers out of the playoffs in the next two games and setting up the Finals that had been envisioned for the past two years.

Jackson was wary this time, but not as worried as he was against the Knicks. He believed the Bulls could force Portland into a halfcourt game, and force them into the poor shot choice they were known for.
They'll self destruct if we show them the way.
Those words echoed from the March meeting and annoyed the Trail Blazers, who thought themselves much superior to the Bulls after defeating them twice in the 1990–91 season and then not making the Finals despite a league-best sixty-three wins.
That should have been us,
was their chant about the 1991 champion Bulls, and many around the league believed their talent superior.

“I'm a gestaltist on this,” said Jackson, who felt his team at a man-for-man disadvantage. “The sum of the parts can be equal to or greater than the whole. That's the game of basketball. We don't have a great rebounder, but Pippen and Jordan pick up the slack, and if guys box out and do the right thing, we can find a way to bridge the gap against more talented teams.”

Even without Jackson's direction, the Bulls would do so. Once again Paxson, like he did in 1991 against Byron Scott, would be credited with shutting down a point guard—this time Terry Porter—one of the big keys to victory. But what he did was hatch a little plot with Horace Grant, calling for Grant to run back downcourt with him after every shot and then station himself inside of Paxson so that Porter's penetration would be blocked. Paxson could then shut Porter down outside and help neutralize the Trail Blazers.

But there would be some stumbles. The Bulls smothered Portland in Game 1, 122–89, as Jordan, making quick work of almost a week of favorable comparisons between Clyde Drexler's and his ability, scored 35 first-half points, with six three-point field goals.

The Bulls, playing to their pattern, then let a 10-point lead slip away in the fourth quarter of Game 2, and then lost in overtime, even with Drexler out of the game on fouls.

The Bulls won Game 3 in a rugged defensive effort, again refusing to fall behind in the playoffs, but lost Game 4 after blowing another fourth-quarter lead, the oddest excuse coming from Jordan, when he said the Bulls needed to find Cartwright more on offense with Portland employing small, quicker lineups. Advised of the remarks later, Cartwright offered a big smile. “What do you know,” he laughed.