Blood on the Horns

by Roland Lazenby

  “The kaddish thing is hilarious,” Krause said, adding that the reason he didn’t want to speak to Jackson alone was because he didn’t trust the coach not to lie. Krause’s answer was a resolution to have a witness each time he spoke with Jackson.

  Asked if he thought Krause had also said the kaddish over Pippen, Jackson again hesitated, then said, “Yes. He hates Scottie. Scottie has become a nonperson in his life because Scottie called him a liar. And that’s the worst thing you could do. Jerry won’t admit that he lies. It’s very difficult because the owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, doesn’t lie. And Jerry Krause also doesn’t want to be thought of as a liar. But when you’re a general manager, almost by virtue of your job, you have to tell lies. It’s unfortunate.

  “You have to recuse yourself, is what you have to do,” Jackson said. “In this job, I’ve tried to make it an issue not to lie, although Jerry has accused me face to face of lying. To which I said, ‘Well, you know, Jerry, there are times I go to speak and I’m caught in situations,’ particularly in front of the press, where they ask, ‘Is Dennis at practice today,’ or something which we’re trying to avoid. I choose not to say something, or I choose not to recuse myself.”

  Jackson suggested that Krause’s kaddish over Pippen had been in place for some time. Apparently, Pippen felt slighted when Krause talked to Jordan in the spring of 1997 about signing free agent Brian Williams but didn’t seek Pippen’s opinion (Krause said he spoke with Pippen about the move). “Scottie basically felt like the Brian Williams thing was cut and dried, and he wasn’t talked to,” Jackson said. “Michael was talked to. By virtue of Michael being talked to, it was assumed that Scottie had been talked to. And Scottie was not addressed as an individual, he felt, which again was another symbolic thing where Scottie doesn’t have the same kind of status as Michael, which he deserves as a co-captain.”

  Asked if he thought Krause had said the kaddish over Jackson, Tex Winter said, “Yes, he probably has.”

  With their internal conflicts flaming up before their eyes, the Bulls found a way to lose two spectacular games in Indiana over the Memorial Day weekend. Each time, Chicago had a solid lead in the fourth quarter only to see the Pacers take control in the closing minutes. In Game 3, Indiana won 107-105 to cut the series lead to 2- 1. The Pacers’ bench, led by forward Jalen Rose and guard Travis Best, had helped sink the Bulls. Reporters asked Jackson about his opponent’s bench and he answered gamely “Wait until we get to Utah,” suggesting that the Bulls were indeed headed to the Finals and that the Jazz subs would be even tougher.

  Jackson created further controversy on the eve of Game 4 by telling the press that Chicago’s dynasty was on its last legs. “Right now, it’s an end of a basketball team that had a great run,” he said.

  Certainly the Pacers were trying their best to make that happen. Game 4 came down to an unusual series of events that left Jackson fuming about the officiating and countering that Bird’s politicking in the media was turning the tide with the referees.

  For the packed house at Market Square Arena, the officiating only boosted the drama. Miller hit a 3-pointer with 0.7 seconds remaining to give the Pacers a 96-94 win that tied the series at two games apiece.

  Jordan got one last shot, but his 26-footer at the buzzer hit the backboard, rolled around the rim and out, bringing a thunderous celebration. “There were so many debatable calls late in the game, but Reggie still had to make that shot,” Jackson told the gathered media. He blasted the officiating by likening it to the 1972 Olympic gold medal game when the United States lost to the Soviet Union on a bad call.

  The Pacers had fought the whole game to catch the Bulls and finally took the lead, 88-87, with just over four minutes left when Derrick McKey hit a 3-pointer.

  The Bulls, however, led 94-91 and seemed in control until Travis Best scored on a drive with 33 seconds to go. Then Rodman was whistled for an illegal offensive pick, sending the ball back to the Pacers. “The offensive foul by Dennis was an awful call,” Jackson said. What angered the Bulls coaches were the illegal down screens the Pacers had set all day long trying to free Miller from Harper’s cloying defense. The Pacer big men were constantly stepping out and giving Harper a forearm, which had Winter fussing. The officials, however, made no illegal pick calls until the one on Rodman in the final seconds.

  Chicago was still leading 94-93 when Jordan blocked a jumper by McKey with 6.4 seconds left. Indiana retained possession, but Pippen then stole the inbounds pass after Harper tipped it. The Pacers quickly fouled Pippen, and there was an extended debate over whether Miller threw a punch at Harper.

  No technical was called, leading Jackson to say the officials “backed off, acted like they were afraid,” words that would bring the coach a fine from the league.

  Pippen went to the line to shoot his free throws and promptly missed both, a dreadful lapse in the clutch. He squeezed his head in anguish frustration as he came off the floor for the ensuing timeout.

  The Pacer coaches then called for Miller to come off yet another down screen, which he did. He ran to the top of the key and shoved Jordan backward and out of the play to get open for the winning three. The Bulls coaches screamed for yet another offensive foul, but the arena was already awash in pandemonium.

  The Bulls returned to Chicago and responded with a 106-87 blowout victory to regain the lead in the series, 3-2. Jordan scored 29 in the rout, which pushed his career totals to 35,000 points, including regular season and playoffs, third behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain.

  That week, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce estimated that with each game the Bulls added $10.5 million to the area economy. The estimate included about $1 million spent directly on tickets, food, souvenirs and such; a $1.5 million payroll at the arena; and an $8 million “induced” from local residents watching TV, patronizing sports bars and making Bulls-related purchases. And none of that even addressed Chicago’s growing international image, fueled by Bulls memorabilia sold globally. Diane Swonk, deputy chief economist at First Chicago, told The Financial Times: “Chicago is now known for Michael Jordan rather than Al Capone, so it’s positive that way.”

  The net result was only more pressure on the two Jerrys.

  Unfortunately, the Bulls couldn’t enjoy such glowing reports. They had to return to Indiana for Game 6, where somehow the Pacers again managed to win with a late-game turnaround. This time the drama came when Jordan tripped on his way to the basket in the final seconds. There was no call, and the Pacers scooped up the ball and headed off with a 3-3 tie in the series.

  “It was an obvious foul at the end,” Jordan said afterward. “People may think I tripped over my feet, but I’m not that clumsy.”

  The turn of events only brought more debate about the officiating, which Bird tempered with a bit of levity. “If I see David Falk reffing the next game, I know we’re in trouble,” he told reporters.

  “All teams are just kind of tired of all the things Chicago has done,” Indiana’s Antonio Davis said before Game 7. “They’ve beaten a lot of people—embarrassed a lot of people—so I’m sure there are a lot of teams out there that would like to see them lose.”

  Past embarrassments, though, had little to do with it. The key factor would prove to be Chicago’s homecourt advantage. They were 27-2 in playoff games in the United Center dating back to 1996. That didn’t stop the Pacers from pressing the issue. Indiana took an early 13-point lead, which prompted Jackson to abandon the six-man rotation he had used for most of the series. First he inserted Rodman for Kukoc, which produced a 7-0 Chicago run. Then Jackson turned to Steve Kerr and Jud Buechler. Kerr would finish with 11 points and Buechler with five key rebounds and plenty of scrambling hustle.

  “We were behind, so he wanted some offense. He kind of took a chance because Best outplayed me this series,” Kerr said of Jackson. “Then he went on a hunch and went with Jud, who had a great game. It says he tr
usts us, he trusts his bench.”

  “I learned something about our bench: To stick with our bench and not back away from it,” Jackson acknowledged. “I think that’s what I have to consider and keep considering that we can still find ways to win ballgames, even though sometimes we feel a little short-handed.”

  By halftime, the Bulls had eased back in front, 48-45. Then Kukoc took over in the third quarter as Jordan continued to struggle offensively. The Croatian would finish with 21 points, shooting 7-of-11, including 3-of-4 three pointers. In the third period when Jordan had sunk to the bottom of a 9-for-25 shooting performance, Kukoc hit all five of his shots, including three triples, for 14 points.

  Chicago opened the fourth with a 69-65 lead, yet even when Jordan returned with under 10 minutes to play he continued to miss shots. Finally, he began attacking the basket, driving into the Pacer defense and drawing fouls. “His jump shot didn’t work but his free throws did,” Bird said after Jordan’s show of will in the final minutes pushed the Bulls to the win. “He put his head down, went into traffic and drew fouls.”

  “It’s about heart,” Jordan said, “and you saw a lot of heart out there on the basketball court.”

  His first five points of the game had pushed him past Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the leading scorer in playoff history, with nearly 5,800 points. He finished the night with 28 points, nine rebounds, eight assists and two steals, enough to seal Chicago’s 88-83 win. “That’s why he’s the best player in the league and probably the greatest player ever,” Bird said.

  “I’m pretty sure people are going to say that some of the swagger is gone,” Jordan said of his team’s narrow playoff escape. “Maybe. But nobody has taken anything away from us so far.”

  Their next stop was the NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz, who had swept the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference championship series and had been forced to wait 10 days for the Bulls to advance. “We may be a little tired, but our hearts are not tired,” Jordan said when asked if his team would be ready to travel to Utah for the next round. “We haven’t lost in the Finals, and that’s a great confidence to have. Sure, it was a battle to get there. But we’re there. Now let’s just do the job.”

  UTAH

  At the NBA Finals, time always seemed elastic for the Chicago Bulls. “This time of year each game is like a season in itself,” Tex Winter observed. It was in this last championship series that the players finally seemed to gain a full understanding of what Jackson meant when he encouraged them to inhabit the moment. None of them, after all, wanted those moments to end. “There’s 15 guys in that room who want this to go on forever, or as long as it can,” said Bill Wennington, nodding toward the Bulls’ locker room. “They all want to come back. No one wants this to end. It’s a great thing. This unit of people gets along really, really well. So the chemistry is there. Whether we’re at home or on the road, we’re having fun together. And we’re playing well.”

  If nothing else, the push of the Indiana series had left the Bulls feeling that they’d lifted their play to a higher level. While there was much media speculation that they might be too weary to take on the well-rested Jazz, Chicago’s confidence was high. Utah had homecourt advantage in the Finals format, which called for the first two games in Salt Lake’s Delta Center, the next three in Chicago, and the final two in Utah, if necessary.

  Winter, however, was concerned about Chicago’s matchup with the overpowering Karl Malone, at 6-9, 252 pounds. The Bulls assistant predicted that Longley would quickly get into foul trouble and the issue would fall to the mercurial Rodman, a shade under 6-7 and packing about 220 pounds. Malone had traditionally proved tough for Rodman to defend, Winter pointed out. “That’s his big complaint all the time, that he’s had to play guys who are 50 pounds heavier than he is. And my answer to him is, ‘What do you think you’re getting that fabulous salary for? No one told you it was gonna be easy.’”

  Illegal screens were one of Winter’s pet peeves, and he complained that Indiana had set plenty of them against the Bulls. “That was amazing. You’ll see a lot of illegal screens here, too,” he said, referring to Utah. “Backpicks. Stockton running up and running into you.”

  During the 1997 championship series against the Jazz, Winter had even gotten a rare technical for complaining about illegal screens and picks. “I kept hollering, ‘Watch Stockton on the back picks. Watch Stockton on the back picks!’ Finally,” Winter recalled, “the official came over by the bench during a timeout, and I said, ‘Watch the back picks!’ He looked at me real sternly. I was gesturing. He said, ‘That’s enough out of you.’ I said, ‘Well, read page 44, section 3, of the rule book.’ He said, ‘That’s a technical!’”

  The league later rescinded the technical and Winter didn’t have to pay the customary $500 fine. NBA vice president Rod Thorn explained that officials had to fill out reports explaining each technical and on rare occasions they would back off a call they made in the heat of a game. Winter figured that Thorn had told the officiating crew, “Just ignore that old guy. Hell. Don’t pay any attention to him.”

  “Thorn knows I try to help the officials a great deal,” the assistant said. “That’s all I do. I don’t cuss or anything like that.”

  After defeating Indiana on Sunday, May 31st, the Bulls practiced in Chicago on Monday, then jetted to Utah for Game 1, set for Wednesday the 3rd. The Jazz admitted they had been driven toward distraction by the 10 days off. The Bulls, meanwhile, were in game shape and figuring that they merely needed to win one of the first two games in Salt Lake City. The Finals format always seemed to put immense pressure on the home team to hold serve in the first two games.

  To avoid much of the pre-game hype, the Bulls again waited in the visitors locker room at the Delta Center before Game 1, not wanting to take the floor until after the national anthem. Harper emerged first with a scowl. There to greet him were the ever-present camera crews with their kleig lights. Because this was the Finals, there were even more cameras, even more sound technicians lingering in the shadows, the various appendages of NBA Entertainment and the networks, all attempting to document the moment for prosperity and profit. Harper began stretching on the railing along the runway as the first rifts of the national anthem drifted in from the arena. Kukoc sauntered out behind Harper, pausing to squint at the lights. He, too, threw a leg up on the rail to stretch as the other Bulls emerged, all relatively calm. Jordan came out, clapping and juking, popping his hands together rhythmically. “This is fun,” Jordan had told reporters earlier. “It could very well be the last one. So I’m enjoying it with that purpose in mind.” He went over to Harper and clapped three times and began dancing again. The cameras and microphones moved in then, like giant plant pods hovering over the Bulls, feeding off their energy and aura, allowing millions across the globe to vicariously sample that Jordan air. The master on the verge of the moment. Loose. Smiling. Confident.

  Rodman came out next, bringing his new playoff hair, a vibrant green with a grating of black, perhaps in acknowledgment of Jackson’s splices of the green-haired wife in “The Devil’s Advocate.” The new color wasn’t particularly menacing or bizarre. Just very different. He was the last out the door, which meant the Bulls could gather as a group and ask their usual question—“What time is it?”—and give their usual answer—“Game time! Hoo!”

  They turned from there, with Randy Brown leading. Jordan, behind Burrell, reached up and began massaging his shoulders, as if to say, “Relax, fella, this is why I’ve given you all this shit. To be ready to play for the championship.”

  In the arena, the booing had already begun in anticipation of their appearance. In 1997, the Jazz had opened their Finals games with a spectacular celebration featuring thousands of balloons, fireworks and a rumbling motorcycle at center court. In anticipation this time around, Jackson strolled the sidelines wearing ear plugs, and the Jazz game operations crew didn’t disappoint. First thousands
of balloons rained from rafters, then came the fireworks and the snorting Harley, all of which had Burrell jamming his fingers in his ears and looking up in amazement.

  Utah coach Jerry Sloan, who had been known as Mr. Chicago Bull as a hard-nosed guard in the 1960s and ‘70s, greeted team owner Larry Miller, then jammed his hands in his pockets, looking a bit pressed by the silliness and noise. He appeared to try to ignore the unfurling of the Western Conference Champions banner, a strange ceremony for the franchise to conduct in the moments before taking on the reigning five-time league champions.

  As expected, the Jazz seemed tight and the Bulls a bit weary in battling through a 17-all first period. Then Jackson went to his bench in the second period and quickly found disaster and a brace of turnovers. The Jazz jumped to a seven-point lead, and the Bulls starters would spend most of the rest of the game trying to pull close enough to steal a victory at the end. They almost pulled it off. The NBC broadcast crew featuring Doug Collins and Isiah Thomas picked up on a Jordan snit at the end of regulation, apparently because he wanted the ball, but his demanding nature was so much a part of the Bulls’ routine that Pippen and the rest shook it off as business as usual.

  Fortunately, Malone had struggled, hitting only one of his first nine shots in the second half, which allowed Chicago to stay close. But the big power forward found some confidence as the game tightened, beginning with a time-worn pick and roll executed with point guard John Stockton with just under five minutes left. The Malone bucket put the Jazz up by seven. The Bulls, though, answered with a run, beginning with two Longley free throws and a pair of Jordan jumpers. Then Pippen hit a three to tie it at 75, and Sloan, on the sideline, looked like somebody had just plunged a knife in his chest. Pippen clinched both fists as he walked off the floor, but the Bulls’ huddle during the ensuing timeout was animated. They were only screaming over the crowd noise, the Bulls would insist later when asked if Jordan was fussing about not getting the ball.