The Jordan Rules (40 page)

Jordan stayed in his room to get treatment on his knee. He had planned to go to Atlantic City with Barkley after Game 3; Jordan had gone last season after Game 3, had stayed all night, and had driven back directly to the team's practice the next morning. He and Barkley had been at the craps table for a while playing with $500 chips.

Jordan's knee was bothering him, but he would still go in for some gambling. Barkley came by his room with TV personality Ahmad Rashad for a long afternoon of blackjack. Jordan seemed happy the next morning about the results.

He would be no less happy about the game.

Jackson walked into the locker room, looked at Jordan and said simply, “Jake.”

“All right,” Jordan said, making a fist and thrusting it into the air. “We win.”

Jake, of course, was Jake O'Donnell. There would be no rough stuff today, no great disparity in foul calls, no intimidation by the home crowd. The best team would win. Jordan was certain it would be the Bulls.

Jackson had convened an unusual pregame breakfast for the team. He'd done something similar back in February in Los Angeles when he'd felt the team was splintering, and the chaos of Game 3 was worrying him. Paxson would need to get more shots, Jackson said. And as for Horace, he'd broken the chain of the group, in Jackson's words.

It was a Native American expression. Growing up in Montana and North Dakota, Jackson's family had lived on Sioux land at times. As a child, Jackson had become envious of the Indian culture and heritage and often daydreamed about being an Indian, becoming involved in Indian crafts and woodworking. Jackson also read volumes about the Indians and remembers telling his parents once that he was an Indian child adopted by them. He became a great believer in tribal circles and often saw his team in tribal terms. He'd read Hanta Yo for psychological messages and spliced scenes of Indian villages and ceremonies into his game films. The Indians were warriors, the scenes would show, but they were also a group that stayed together and supported one another. The Bulls had to do this to remain successful, Jackson felt.

To conclude the meeting, since it was Sunday, Jackson asked Grant to read to the team from the Psalms. The chain was reforming.

Grant stormed out like an angry bull in Game 4 and the team followed. He grabbed 5 offensive rebounds in the first quarter as the Bulls pulled out to a 26–20 lead after one quarter, they were up 52–38 at halftime. The 76ers looked like a beaten team. Grant would score 22 points, Pippen 20, and Jordan 25 to go along with 12 assists. In the third quarter, Barkley would hit Cartwright and find the lumbering center chasing him. “What's his problem?” Barkley said to Jake O'Donnell as O'Donnell called technical fouls on both. “He have his period?” Cartwright overheard this and went at Barkley again. The Bulls would lead by 23 in the third quarter en route to a 101–85 win, just another Mother's Day Massacre.

But Bach, the veteran assistant, would see it as more. Bach was a student of military history and tactics and he saw the Game 4 effort as more than just the virtual elimination of the 76ers. Bach saw the Bulls finally responding to physical threats boldly. It could only bode well, he thought, if the Bulls had to face the Pistons in the conference finals. The Bulls were under fire, especially Grant, and he'd thrown himself on the hand grenade. The 76ers offered as much physical danger as the Pistons, as much verbal intimidation, and the Bulls had taken it and played well, even with Jordan not at his best in an 1 l-for-27 shooting performance in Game 4. It wouldn't be enough to get to the Finals, but it was a start.

Game 5 went mostly as expected, with the Bulls back in front of their adoring home crowd, assaulting the 76ers early behind 24 first-half points by Pippen. The Bulls would take a 10-point lead after three quarters and then weather a storm down the stretch as the 76ers pulled to within a point with less than a minute to go. But Jordan, who had a playoff career-high 19 rebounds in the game, drove for a basket—he was the game's best ever at that time of night—and Philadelphia would not score again as the Bulls won 100–95. Jordan would score the last 12 Bulls' points. “That's when we need him to attack,” agreed Cartwright. “He seems to understand more,” noted King, who'd suffered much from Jordan's wrath during the season. “Where he used to signal the coach to get you out, he's been coming over and patting you on the back when you make a mistake now.” King was still making plenty of them, so he knew. Barkley was magnificent again with 30 points, but Mahorn would get only 2 and Ron Anderson only 4 while the Bulls grabbed 23 more rebounds. And rebounds win playoff games. It is written in stone in the NBA: Rebounding and defense equal rings. Effort and hard work. The Bulls had more talent, and they worked harder. It was a tough combination to beat.

The Bulls would get a five-day break now. Boston and Detroit were battling in the other bracket and would go for another few days. Boston would be the easier to defeat, everyone knew. But no one really wanted to play the Celtics.

Every move the Bulls had made the last three seasons, in both personnel and offensive and defensive development, had been aimed at defeating the Pistons. It was time.

“They're the albatross,” said Bach. “We've really got to get them, kill them, and end this Detroit thing. That's the only thing that will really get us respect and make us feel like a winner.”

5/19 v. Detroit; 5/21 v. Detroit; 5/25 at Detroit; 5/27 at Detroit; 5/29 v. Detroit*; 5/31 at Detroit*; 6/2 v. Detroit*
*lf necessary.

M
ARK
A
GUIRRE, WHO GREW UP JUST BLOCKS WEST OF THE
Chicago Stadium, had just hit a three-point field goal from downtown to give the Pistons a 59–58 lead in the third quarter, and Aguirre was having the convulsions of a madman.

“Get someone on me,” he screamed at Jordan. “Nobody can guard me. Get someone on me.”

No one really could that day. It was Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals and the Bulls had gotten their wish: They were playing the defending champion Pistons. On Friday the Pistons had struggled past the Boston Celtics; this day, Sunday, was the date with destiny the Bulls had longed for all season.

The Pistons appeared on the verge of stealing the home-court advantage in the Chicago Stadium and sending the Bulls to another ignominious defeat. The Bulls had blown out to a 20–8 lead in front of a roaring crowd, but Aguirre came off the bench hot, getting 13 points in the first half and another 10 in the third quarter. The Pistons had regained some control in the second quarter, trailed by 8 at halftime, and then took the lead in the third quarter. And the Pistons were doing it as they always had: through intimidation.

The Bulls had, for years, been beaten and beaten up by the Pistons. When the emotional Doug Collins was coach, the Bulls often played directly into Detroit's claws—Collins once got involved in a fight and was tossed over a table by then-Piston Rick Mahorn, who smiled. Collins and the Bulls raged and lost. The Bulls, in those years, were living the emotional life of drug addicts; the highs, from wins, were exhilarating and impassioned, the losses so depressing and verging on the suicidal.

But Jackson's message all year was not that the Bulls shouldn't be emotional, nor that they should turn the other cheek. In fact, going into the Detroit series, Jackson had counseled the team to strike the first blow, not to allow the Pistons to hit them with three or four elbows every time they crossed the lane. Strike first, Jackson said; let strength grow out of weakness. But he also knew that his players needed to remain composed.

And, surprisingly, they would throughout the series.

“Phil taught us how to respond to Detroit's aggressive nature,” John Paxson would say after the Bulls victory. “It's something we never had before.”

And the Bulls were learning well. Jordan, of all people, took on the unfamiliar role of enforcer. In the early moments of the game, he popped Joe Dumars with a vicious elbow, a flagrant one really, to the chest, knocking Dumars down in front of the Pistons' bench. There would be no call. The Bulls also felt the league was sending another message: that it was going to let teams retaliate against the Pistons.

Pippen found himself being challenged, too. “You're dead, Pippen, you're dead,” Aguirre yelled at him. “I'm getting you in the parking lot after the game. Don't turn your head, you cocksucker, because I'm gonna kill you. You're fuckin' dead. Dead, Pippen, you're fuckin' dead.” The monologue continued almost all game.

“It actually got kind of funny,” Paxson would say afterward. “Aguirre was calling Scottie into the parking lot all game and Scottie was just laughing.”

Laughing in the face of this kind of pressure was a new experience for the Bulls. It showed maturity, especially on the part of Pippen, who had surprised the coaches with his seriousness. He was watching game tapes now for the first time in his career. He was working hard in the gym and in games; on defense he was now less like a matador, with a wave and an ole, and more like a bull. He made a steal, one of his six in the game, and hit a jumper to give the Bulls a lead in the third quarter, but Isiah Thomas tied the game with a three-point field goal. Pippen would be fouled and hit a pair of free throws to get the Bulls the lead back, 68–65, after three quarters, but a Bulls win was by no means assured. And Jackson intended to stick with his plan, resting both Pippen and Jordan to open the fourth quarter; both had played virtually the entire third quarter, and Jackson didn't believe Detroit was capable of putting the game away in the next few minutes.

The Pistons clearly were tired from their Game 6 overtime victory over Boston less than two days earlier. Their weary starting five would combine for just 37 points in Game 1 as Aguirre would lead with 25 points off the bench while Vinnie Johnson came in and scored 21.

The Bulls reserves had performed reasonably well in the New York and Philadelphia series, but they had never done well against the Pistons. As he always does, Bach had put together an edited tape before the Detroit series on specific players. He had focused on the reserves and showed the tape to Jackson before the series started. It was horrific: missed shot after missed shot, rebounds dropped, turnovers, belly flops. Jackson had known the reserves had performed badly against Detroit, particularly remembering an 0–15 shooting run in an earlier game that season, but it hadn't seemed this bad.

“John, did you just pick their bad plays?” he asked Bach.

“No,” Bach replied. “I tried to make it their highlights.”

“We won't show it to them,” Jackson decided.

The reserves would provide their own highlight film today. They entered the game and all of a sudden the Bulls led by 9 points, 81–72. B.J. Armstrong hit a couple of free throws and Craig Hodges a long jumper and later a three-pointer. Will Perdue hit a short jumper and Cliff Levingston a short jumper and a tip-in. They combined to hit 5 of 7 shots; the Pistons would miss 4 of 7 and the game would slip away, with the Bulls going on to win 94–83.

“The key to the game was when we took that nine-point lead,” Jackson would agree later.

And a surprising key would be Levingston, the lost man. He'd played a little against New York and Philadelphia and was feeling he was done for the playoffs, if not also done with the Bulls. “I figured when I didn't get in against the Seventy-sixers, and those guys don't even box out, that was it,” Levingston had admitted to a friend before the Detroit series began. But Jackson's methods are both sensible and instinctive. Jackson usually sits for a while at home on game days, trying to visualize what will happen in the game. He saw Levingston as someone aggressive and willing to match blows with Detroit, since he had played with the Pistons years before and had endured several physical series with them when he was with the Hawks. Jackson wasn't sure what the result would be, but he felt the enthusiastic Levingston could give the team the kind of emotional and physical lift it needed.

Jordan and Pippen returned to the game with just over six minutes left and Detroit would never get closer than 7 points.

It would not be a brilliant game for Jordan offensively, but it may have marked a turning point for the Bulls franchise. Jordan had led the Bulls with 22, but was just 6 of 15 from the field with a game-high 6 turnovers.

After the game, he slumped into his seat in front of his locker and said, aloud, “Thanks for picking me up.”

No one said anything.

Afterward, Jordan dressed quietly and went to the mass interview session, the national media crowd now growing in anticipation of the Pistons' being dethroned. Jordan's comments there were a little less gracious.

“You have to give credit to my supporting cast,” Jordan said about Pippen coming up with 18, Bill Cartwright 16, and 30 points from the bench. “I basically had a bad game today,” Jordan added. “Maybe I had a headache.”

Jordan's remarks seemed curious to some, insensitive to many. He seemed to be making sure the spotlight would shine on him, no matter what his effort. But it was not surprising to those around the team. He had taken shots at Pippen before, in part out of resentment and in part to motivate the kid some were calling “the Air apparent.” And Jordan had started in recent weeks to call the rest of the team “my supporting cast.”

“I wish I hadn't used that phrase,” he told a friend later, “but, hell, everyone thinks that way, so why not?”

It had been an uncharacteristically emotional game for Jordan. He had always been a quiet player, not particularly animated on the court, except for his slams. He liked to joke with players sometimes, but he always preferred to lead through his play. He often backed away from the traditional leadership role, and while he remained the team leader in the public's mind, he rarely spoke with his teammates other than to taunt them with his rapier wit.

But on this day he was in a curious emotional frenzy. There was that flagrant elbow early on that had even caught the referees by surprise, and late in the second quarter Jordan found himself jawing halfway down the court with Dennis Rodman.

“We're gonna kick your butts,” Jordan bellowed into Rodman's face. “I'm comin' after you.”

Jordan's reactions surprised even him, but he had been unusually somber leading up to the series and had told friends he was determined to defeat Detroit this time.

“We're not winning any title,” he said. “But I want to get by Detroit this time.”

Even Jordan's teammates had never seen him rise up in this sort of volcanic fury, and the coaches, though unprepared for it, were pleased. They believed Jordan was behaving the way he was, in part, to embolden Pippen and Grant.

“Is he trying to make Horace braver?” Bach said. “Is he trying to make Scottie more confident? Sure. He's trying to make these guys better, but also braver. That's the difference in playing Detroit.”

The Bulls believed a year ago they were more talented than the Pistons, but were not sure they were better.

“They knew we were more talented than they were a year ago,” said Armstrong. “But they also knew they could beat us. This year, they talked and we talked, they hit and we hit. The big thing about the game was we answered some questions about ourselves.”

The respite between Games 1 and 2 would be brief, just a day, before the May 21 second game. Then the teams would wait four days, until Saturday May 25, Memorial Day weekend in Detroit. The TV networks chose the dates for playoff games to accommodate their schedules, and while players and coaches groused a little, Jackson tried to put the situation in perspective for the team.

“That's why you guys are earning as much money as you are,” he said.

John Paxson wondered if that meant
his
games were being televised on local cable access. But things were looking up; Paxson was starting to believe he might be back, and unbeknownst to him, Reinsdorf had been thinking the same way with Kukoc now out of the picture.

“1 always felt we hurt the White Sox when we let Jerry Koosman go,” Reinsdorf told an associate. “There are these kind of chemistry-type guys who you just need around. I think Paxson may be one.”

All of this led to an entertaining conversation with Cartwright, also a free agent. Cartwright had been telling Paxson about his experiences as a free agent when he was with the Knicks, and he said that if Paxson could get an offer in Chicago he probably was better off staying, for Cartwright was now also leaning that way.

Cartwright had had five successful seasons in New York, making the All-Star team as a rookie, and there had been some demand for his services, since centers remained a rare commodity. He was a restricted free agent, which meant the Knicks could match any offer made to him. But Cartwright thought he would test the market.

Cartwright, along with his agent, Bob Woolf, and an old friend and adviser, Dan Risley, went to meet with the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks prided themselves on their committee approach to personnel matters, so general manager Norm Sonju, basketball operations director Rick Sund, and owner Don Carter were there.

Carter, an iconoclastic owner, a garrulous man with a deeply religious side, spoke. Everyone else listened. For fifteen minutes Carter went on about the evils of free agency. He said his team would never sign a free agent, that it wasn't right for a man to sell his services like that, like a vagabond or prostitute, to the highest bidder. It wouldn't be done in a Don Carter organization. Free agency was going to kill sports and he wasn't going to have it. His voice rose and trembled. Finally he stopped and stared at Cartwright. No one but Carter had said a word the entire time.

“Son,” Carter said to Cartwright, “do you love your mother?”

“Sure,” Cartwright responded.

“Are you faithful to your wife?” Carter asked.

“Yes,” Cartwright said, now beginning to wonder just what was going on.

“Do you believe in God?” Carter demanded. He stared into Cartwright's lazy, liquid brown eyes.

“Yes,” Cartwright said.

Carter thought for a few moments. Then he turned to Sonju, said, “Sign him,” and got up and left the room.

“You've got to be ready for free agency,” Cartwright said. “It's crazy.”

Both Jordan and Jackson had work to do between Games 1 and 2. For Jordan, it was a chance to expand his realm, as the league announced that he had won the Most Valuable Player award for the second time in his career. For Jackson, the effort was to limit Jordan's world and expand that of Jordan's teammates. Jackson was proud of Jordan's aggressive play in Game 1 as a signal to his teammates, but Jackson was also worried about some of Jordan's choices on offense. Paxson had gotten just 5 shots in Game 1 and Grant, 2. The distribution had to be better.

So Jackson put together a tape of Jordan, focusing on his choices when in the post and where his teammates were. Jackson remained subtle with Jordan, but the message was clear: Don't fight the double- and triple-teams. Pass out of them.

Jordan went to accept his MVP trophy Monday May 20 and took the occasion to both praise his teammates and bash the media about its voting for such awards in what some saw as an I-should-have-won-this-every-year vein. Jordan addressed the long-held belief that he doesn't make his teammates better, one reason given for why he didn't win the MVP award more often. “I'm no baby-sitter,” he said sharply. “You've got to step up and get your own respect. They've got to want to play better.” Brilliance could truly be a curse sometimes.