by Sam Smith
For about a month or so, Jackson had been able to implement his plan to get Jordan to run upcourt ahead of the ball, bringing defenders with him and making the ball handler’s job easier. But that, too, had been a struggle. “We had to try to trick him,” Jackson acknowledged. So he persuaded Jordan that he could get easier scoring opportunities as a post-up player. Jordan, unsurprisingly, quickly became the best post-up player on the team, scoring easily against smaller guards, especially now that he had built himself up to around 210 pounds. But Jordan eventually caught on to the ploy, and the Bulls were able to run that way less and less as the season progressed.
The trouble with putting Jordan on the top of the floor was that when he gave up the ball he’d often step back instead of cutting through. “He could make the offense so much more effective,” Jackson lamented. Yet Jackson needed a happy Jordan to win, and he knew how Jordan chafed under the so-called equal-opportunity triangle offense. But tonight against the Nets would be a good time to experiment.
Jackson had one of his tips about the Meadowlands baskets. In watching the tapes, he had seen too many balls rattle out on the rim in front of the Bulls’ bench. The Bulls would be shooting at that basket first. “Everything comes out of that basket,” Jackson instructed the team before the game. “Let’s stay with every shot even if it looks like it’s going down.”
By halftime, the Bulls had 18 offensive rebounds on the way to a season-high 29. Horace Grant had 9 in the first half. The Bulls had a 69–56 lead and were pulling away. It had been a Jordan show; when the cat’s away, Perdue joked, Michael gets to play.
Winter was at the NCAA Final Four, a perk the Bulls annually allowed him as a veteran college coach, while Krause was out of the country with Reinsdorf on yet another trip to Yugoslavia. Jackson spread the floor, put Jordan on top, and he went left, right, left, dancing all over the Nets on the way to a 28-point first half. He scored 19 points in the last five minutes of the second quarter. Everybody else could have taken a seat. Jordan was thrilled; he took 26 shots in thirty minutes. His teammates weren’t as happy, even though the Bulls pulled away to an easy 128–94 win. It was the kind of game that tended to corrode the relationship between Jordan and his teammates further because it was a game in which he could have deferred to the other players, but didn’t.
“He didn’t have to score that many,” noted Cartwright about Jordan’s 42 points. Yet even Jordan wasn’t thrilled, since Jackson took him out after three quarters.
“He’s not going to let me get fifty this season,” he would say afterward.
But Cartwright couldn’t understand. “We’re going to beat this team anyway,” he said. “This was a game we all could have gotten twenty [no other Bull scored more than fourteen]. That’s the thing that gets me.”
“Hey, Hodg,” Grant yelled across the room as about two dozen reporters made a thick circle around Jordan. Hodges had been calling Jordan’s act “the show” for some time and the term had caught on. “What were you doing during the show?” Grant asked. “I went out and got some popcorn. Did anyone miss me?”
The Bulls moved into the Washington, D.C., area the next day, a stormy Good Friday. When they left for the Capital Centre from their suburban Maryland motel, Stacey King wasn’t on the bus. He arrived in the locker room about forty-five minutes later and said he’d been stuck in traffic, that he’d gone to see his agent on a promotional deal and traffic was bad. It was; Washingtonians handled rain-slicked highways about the way a lady in high heels navigates an icy driveway. Jackson took King aside and warned him about such violations of team rules.
What Jackson didn’t know was that King hadn’t gone to see his agent, who wasn’t even in Washington. King had begun his own little campaign. He pretty much figured his days with the Bulls were over—or should be—and he decided he’d help them end. He’d outlined the plan to a friend. He’d force the Bulls into trading him by coming late for meetings, games, team buses, and so on. He’d become too much of a distraction. He felt his plan was validated that night when Horace Grant played forty-one minutes (and King eight) even though Grant had a painful stiff neck and could barely hold his head straight. “Now I know I’m finished with this team when I can’t even play when Horace is hurt,” King would tell teammates later.
The Bulls won by 18 even though the Bullets, playing without leading scorer Bernard King, made one hard run in the second quarter, cutting a 17-point Bulls lead to 1. Jackson had instructed the Bulls before the game to pack in their defense. “This is the worst three-point-shooting team in the league,” he said. The Bullets hit 4 straight three-pointers in the second quarter in their run. Oh, well, Jackson thought.
Despite the stiff neck that had him running like a scarecrow, Grant scored 22 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, and Pippen performed an impressive Jordan act, swooping down the lane for 22 points while Darrell Walker was harassing Jordan into a 7-for-17 shooting effort.
The Bulls could now enjoy Sunday’s last-day-of-March national-TV game. They’d won the easy two and Boston had even lost in Miami to fall two and one-half games behind with twelve to go. The Celtics had to have this one. Jackson watched the NCAA Final Four UNLV-Duke game in the hotel-lobby bar in Boston with some reporters. He admired UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian for his methods, if not for his reputation. “He gets those kids to play hard,” Jackson marveled. That was what coaching was still all about. He thought UNLV’s Stacey Augmon would be another Scottie Pippen. He had some Sam Adams on tap, smoked a cigarette, and fended off a request from the bartender for two tickets to Sunday’s game. “For me and my kid,” the bartender said in his flat New England accent
“How old is your kid?” Jackson asked.
“Twelve,” the bartender replied.
“I can’t help you,” Jackson said softly, staring hard at the man. “But it’s nice that you thought of your son.”
Chip Schaefer, the young rookie trainer of the Bulls, still marveled at the Boston Garden. The famed parquet floor looked like a collection of lumberyard throwaways to him. “If you bought a new house,” Schaefer was remarking before the game, “and you had this floor, you’d say the house was great, all except for the floor, that you needed new hardwood. This thing’s a mess. It’s got cracks and bumps and even looks old.”
The visitors’ locker room in the Boston Garden was equally appalling. Foil-covered pipes snaked around overhead so the players could barely straighten up, and the heat was turned up so high you had to run in place to keep from falling asleep. “Same old stuff every time you come here,” said Craig Hodges.
“This is great compared to the way it used to be,” said Bach, who played for the Celtics in the late 1940s. “At least you’ve got a urinal in here now. We used to have to go out in the hall with the fans and they’d be yelling at us, ‘You piece of shit, you mother-fucker.’ It was unbelievable. At least you get to stay in here until the game starts.”
But if the accoutrements were intolerable, somehow the games played here always seemed special. And this one would be ever so special. It was one of those games that you might want to hang a banner for, like Jordan’s 63-point explosion that forced a double-overtime playoff game a few years back. Again, the teams would play overtime and again the Celtics would win. But it was a memorable day on national TV for both teams.
The NBA provides a sort of itinerary of the game’s events to visiting teams. On it are listed the pregame presentation, the celebrities expected, and halftime events. On the one distributed by the Celtics, all the categories were empty except the one that read, “Halftime events.” It read: “A ballboy rolls the ball cart to center court.”
But these were not the mighty, feared Celtics anymore. Larry Bird would probably have been retiring after this season if he didn’t have a $7 million contract for next season under a salary-cap quirk. McHale, as the Bulls expected, suited up after missing six games, but was limping. Brian Shaw and Reggie Lewis were also hurt, but all the players would forget the pain a
nd strain every breath out of themselves and the hot, stuffy arena before the afternoon was over.
Chris Ford had done a terrific job remaking the Celtics with Shaw back after a year in Italy and Dee Brown providing help despite being a rookie. In this game, Brown would be remarkable, hitting 10 of 12 shots for 21 points. The Bulls, though, felt they could collapse on the Celtics because they didn’t believe the guards posed enough of an outside-shooting threat.
Bird’s balky jumper—this year’s version, anyway—was falling early, and when the Bulls gave Grant a break and brought in Cliff Levingston, Bird posted him up and went to the hoop for a pair of easy baskets. The Celtics held a 53–47 lead at halftime. King hadn’t played and was restless at halftime, looking around the locker room as Jackson was going over some of the team’s first-half breakdowns. “Pay attention, Stacey,” Jackson snapped. “We’re going to need you in the second half.”
Bird kept firing and Jordan started answering back, but the Celtics weren’t missing much, 16 of 22 in the third quarter, as they went ahead 86–78. They led 96–82 early in the fourth quarter when a three-point shot by McHale danced all around the flexible Garden rim and fell in. Both the rats and the leprechauns were still around the old building. The Bulls cut the Celtics’ lead to 10 and Jackson called a time-out.
“It’s only five baskets,” he said coolly. “We can attack this team.”
And that’s what the Bulls set about doing. Jordan and Pippen took a cue from Raymond Chandler: When in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns blazing. They drove and jumped and pierced the Celtics with their deadeye marksmanship and daring elan. The Bulls knew their strength remained in their youthful alacrity and the Celtics weren’t quick enough to handle their slashes to the basket. John Paxson hit the third of his 5 three-pointers of the day with 5:19 left to make the score 103–97, and that sent the Bulls on a 13–2 run that gave them a 3-point lead with fifty-five seconds left. Lewis missed a jumper, and then Jordan missed a drive that could have ended the whole thing. Bird missed a three-pointer, but the ball was tipped back to Lewis, who tied the game at 110 with a three-pointer with nineteen seconds remaining. It was his first of the season. It was just one game, but it was becoming a special day, filling with golden moments as the tension grew. Boston basketball fans were considered the most sophisticated in the NBA, but they were as loud and excited as a high school crowd by now.
Cartwright, standing in the right corner, flipped the ball to Jordan, but Lewis had a hold on him. No call, and the ball dribbled out of bounds off Jordan’s fingertips with three seconds left. “You don’t get that call in Boston Garden,” Cartwright agreed later. With three seconds left, Bird flipped the ball in to McHale and then stepped gently on the court. The Bulls inexplicably collapsed on McHale, who dropped the ball back to Bird for an open three-pointer. The ball hit the back of the rim, bounced straight up and headed back down to the basket. Behind Bird, the cameras caught several Boston newspaper writers jumping up and using their own body English to try to wriggle the ball in. One more wonderfully beguiling moment for the great Larry was all they were asking, even the ones who weren’t supposed to care. The ball refused to cooperate and leaked off. Overtime.
Robert Parish hit two jumpers and a drive before fouling out in the first overtime as the Celtics took a 118–113 lead. But Jordan got two back with free throws and Paxson spotted up for another three-pointer to tie it at 118 with thirty-two seconds left. Grant then blocked a Bird shot, but Jordan drove and threw a wild runner off the rim. Boston had the ball with 1.1 seconds left. Bird threw a lob that was intercepted by the Bulls. Time-out.
It was miracle time. It was Jordan time. Cartwright found him deep in the right corner. Jordan knew he had to be quick, but he also had to square up and see the basket. He grabbed the ball, leaned back, hung, and shot falling away. The Garden crowd froze. Jordan had made such moments delicious and painful before. As the ball nestled softly through the net he was colliding out of bounds with Ford and celebrating an apparent Bulls victory. “No good, no good,” screamed referee Mike Mathis, waving off the basket. “Good, good, yeah,” Jordan screamed, “yeah.” The clock had expired before Jordan had released the ball, Mathis said. Jordan ran immediately to the press table to watch the replay on TV. Mathis was right. “Damn,” he said. It was one time that hang time had betrayed Jordan. If only he had shot it more quickly, he counseled himself. The game would head for a second overtime, and with Grant, Pippen, and Jordan each playing more than fifty minutes, the troops of energy looked as if they would reinforce the Celtics’ side.
The Celtics again went ahead by 5 in the second overtime, but back came the Bulls. Jordan hit two free throws after rebounding a Cartwright miss and was fouled by McHale, his sixth. But Bird drove for a three-point play to keep the Celtics lead at 5, 127–122. Bird had summoned all of this up from somewhere, and he was “Larry Legend” again. Bird’s painful back problems would require surgery after the season, putting his career in jeopardy. He had missed most of the 1988–89 season after heel surgery and his return in 1989–90 had been painful as he tried to adjust to diminishing skills. He shot a career-low 47 percent and rumors abounded of conflicts with angry teammates, some of whom began to resent Bird’s preeminent position, which was based on his prior skills. But he was no less a competitor than Jordan, and despite the searing pain he snaked his way through the defenses and lofted his deft fallaway jumper as if he’d gone back in a time machine. And his teammates, grown used to his absence, had begun to look for him again and to expect the moments he so often had produced. On this day he was back up front leading the way, rolling imaginary dice after baskets and even taunting the youngsters again. One sign of age, it has been said, is a passing from passion to compassion. The fire of passion was back this day in Larry Bird.
Jordan answered back with an off-balance runner that went in as he was fouled. The Bulls were back within 2. Bird then hit a jumper for his final points of the game, giving him 34, including 9 in the final overtime, and Brown drove for a basket after a Jordan jumper rimmed in and out. The Celtics led 131–125 with 1:17 left. Paxson then floated into place above the three-point circle on the left side and fired. The shot was good and he was fouled by Lewis for a rare four-point play, the free throw giving him a career-high 28 points. There was still more than a minute left and the Bulls were within 2. The Boston Garden was a well of emotion now, a geyser, flooded with a fury of excitement. Shaw hit a jumper and Jordan missed. Celtics by 4 with twenty-eight seconds left. Lewis was fouled, but he made just one. From the deep right corner, Pippen hit a three-pointer. Wouldn’t this ever end? Boston led 134–132 with twenty-one seconds remaining.
The Bulls fouled Lewis again with fifteen seconds left and again he made just one. One more chance. The Bulls trailed by 3. The play was for Jordan to pull up for a three. He weaved his way toward the basket and stopped, the defense falling back, and he shot. The ball rimmed in and out. But Grant rose up from the crowd like a giant beanstalk and grabbed it. As he came down, he flipped back to Jordan. The Celtics had collapsed toward Jordan and the ball as it went back. They had overloaded Jordan’s side of the court. Paxson was wide open on the left, the area from which he’d hit his last 3 three-pointers. “Here! Here!” he screamed. “Here!”
Jordan had to know Paxson was there, but there wasn’t much time. In the huddle, Jackson had told Paxson to stay near the circle on the left side, but Paxson wasn’t too upset or surprised. “I would love to have had that shot,” he would agree later, “but mostly good things happen when Michael’s got the ball, so what can you say?”
Bach would agree. It was what he called “Red October time.” The Bulls shout “Red” for the last five seconds of a possession, a time when it’s difficult to get off a shot and Jordan usually steps forward to take one. “His shooting percentage would be maybe thirty points more if he didn’t have to take all those shots,” acknowledged Bach, “but he somehow finds a way to get those shots off, and his
teammates are always running to throw the ball back to him then anyway.”
Shaw ran at Jordan and Jordan ducked below, hanging and then leaning in and shooting. It was not a good shot, sort of a liner, as Jordan leaned forward. The ball caromed off the side of the backboard like a billiard ball and out of bounds. It was over. The Celtics had won 135–132 and had kept alive their slim hopes to overtake the Bulls in the East.
Everyone around the Bulls felt drained from the game, but not empty, because of its meaning. They still maintained the advantage in the East. Jordan, Grant, and Pippen had played more than fifty minutes and Paxson and Cartwright more than forty. Jackson was asked about the bench, and he said that Levingston was having trouble handling Bird and King didn’t appear to be into it. It was the first game King didn’t play when not injured in his short pro career. But on the whole, Jackson was as satisfied as you could be without winning. If this was a playoff preview, the Bulls had to feel good about pushing the Celtics to double overtime on their home court in a game that Bird would be hard-pressed to repeat in his condition.
April 1991
4/2 v. Orlando; 4/4 at New York; 4/5 v. San Antonio; 4/7 v. Philadelphia; 4/9 v. New York; 4/10 at Indiana; 4/12 at Detroit; 4/15 v. Milwaukee; 4/17 at Miami; 4/19 at Charlotte; 4/21 v. Detroit
WERE THOSE APRIL SHOWERS OR A MAN CRYING OUT FOR discipline?
That’s what Phil Jackson was wondering about Stacey King.
Monday’s workout on April Fool’s Day had been light. The team had a mandatory semiannual league meeting on the dangers of drugs and alcohol, and Jackson had scheduled a workout for only the seven reserves, most of whom had played little or not at all the day before against Boston.
“I’m out of here,” King muttered during the meeting. “I’m not dressing. I’m leaving.”