The Jordan Rules (43 page)

Jordan then drove the ball toward the middle, but the Lakers, playing an umbrellalike zone against Jordan as they would throughout the series, forced him to drop off the ball. It went out of bounds off the Lakers. With nine seconds to go, Jordan again found himself going against Perkins, as a high-pitched buzz flowed from the stands. Jordan shook him and put up a jumper from about eighteen feet. It hit the back of the rim, then the front, then the back again and out. The Lakers rebounded and added a free throw for the 93–91; final.

“It wasn't meant to be,” Jordan said softly as he slumped into his chair in the locker room.

For the Lakers, it was what they had come for. They'd wrestled away the home-court advantage and seemed to establish that their experience was going to defeat the Bulls' youth and athleticism. But Jackson felt the Bulls had much going for them, despite the loss. They'd gotten a poor refereeing crew with Jack Madden, who'd blown a crucial call in Game 6 in the Boston-Detroit series that denied the Celtics a chance to win the game. He'd make a highly questionable traveling call on Jordan early in the game and was censured at halftime by chief referee Darell Garretson, who was at the game but not working it. The Lakers had shot 34 free throws to 18 for the Bulls, and Jackson knew that would change. And the Bulls had come close, with Jordan's shot rattling in and out, even though Grant, Cartwright, and Paxson had played almost no role offensively. That would change, Jackson knew.

So Jackson wasn't all that dismayed as he joined his wife, June, who was deeply depressed over the loss.

“Wasn't it a great game?” Jackson said when he saw June. “Close, coming down to one shot, could have gone either way. That's the way it should be.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Phil,” she pleaded. “We lost!”

As the Bulls prepared for the collective game of their lives on Wednesday—perhaps the first “must-win” game for the team all season—several among the Bulls had plans.

First was Pippen. He would finally sign his contract extension. It had to be done before the team left for Los Angeles because the Bulls wanted to use the salary-cap money they had been holding for Toni Kukoc, and the NBA rule is that any salary-cap money remaining in a season has to be used before midnight of the last day of the Finals. No one among the Bulls thought the series would end in Los Angeles, but they couldn't take the chance. And by using that cap money now for Pippen, the Bulls could pay Pippen less in the later years of his $18 million five-year extension, so they'd have cap room to take another run at Kukoc if he eventually decided to come to the NBA. Krause insisted the signing be done in secrecy so Pippen wouldn't be questioned by reporters for the remainder of the Finals about his new deal.

Krause told Pippen's agent, Jimmy Sexton, that he didn't want Pippen coming downtown and that they should meet at some remote location to be determined by Krause. It was typical Krause in his best cloak-and-dagger mode. Billy McKinney, when he was an aide to Krause, used to call him on his car phone and say jokingly when he was bringing a college prospect in, “Agent X2 reporting in. I have the package.” But Sexton would have none of that; the signing would take place in the Bulls offices.

To celebrate his newfound security, Pippen went to Bennigan's for a cheeseburger.

Grant, meanwhile, was bitterly disappointed and embarrassed about his play in Game 1, in which he had 6 points on 3-of-8 shooting. Already, it was being said in the media the Bulls really were a one-man team after all, and many of the Bulls were annoyed, for they knew Jordan had missed open players throughout the game.

“Hey, if Sam Perkins was on our team, he'd be Stacey King,” Grant said after Game 1—less a condemnation of Perkins, whom Grant respected, than a comparison of the style of play of the two teams: Magic Johnson was looking to get the ball to Perkins to try for the game winner, or at least a tie, while Jordan once again looked primarily to himself.

Cartwright was not any happier, though he tried to be diplomatic about the way Jordan tried to rule. “Everyone likes to shoot twenty times, but in reality that doesn't happen,” he told a reporter. “Ideally, we want a better dispersal of shots than we had Sunday, at least I know I do, but you guys ought to remember, we were one shot away from winning that game.”

Later, a few of the players grumbled about Jordan's insistence on still calling them his supporting cast. Perdue noted that Jordan had scored 36 points, his third-highest-scoring game of the playoffs. The Bulls had lost two of those three games—their only losses of the playoffs so far. “He needs us,” Perdue said. “We're not as good as he is, but he's got to start to realize he needs us to win.”

“They're angry,” Jackson said about his team. “They let one slip away they knew they should have won.”

Chip Schaefer, meanwhile, decided to take still another run at Grant about the glasses. He'd gotten a pair from Orth that were similar to the ones that John Salley wore, clear plastic and designed to fit more snugly. Grant agreed to try them for Game 2. He would shoot 10 of 13, saying afterward he intended never to take the goggles off. From Game 2 through Game 5, Grant would shoot 29 for 43.

Bach also had some persuading to do. After Game 1, he took home the tape of the game to analyze and continued to pore over tapes of the Portland-Lakers series. The Lakers had cut up the Bulls in Game 1 with their post-ups and quick passing out of the post to open spot-up shooters. Bach, though, had seen that toward the end of their series with the Lakers, the Trail Blazers had started to send their double-teams along the baseline, in effect
behind
the Lakers' post-up players, and it seemed to upset them. It would be too late for the Trail Blazers, but Bach felt this was an essential move for the Bulls. He lobbied Jackson hard at practice Monday. Jackson said he'd think about it. But he seemed in a good mood. When asked by a reporter the difference between the playoffs for him now and when he had played, Jackson said, “I went to bed about eleven-thirty Sunday and got up around six. When I was a player, it would have been the other way around.”

Bach was even more convinced after watching tapes again Monday night. The Bulls had been sending their double from the top of the floor or across the court, in full view of the Lakers' post players, and they had time to read it and pass. Bach had Winter on his side; Winter had come up with the same idea but wasn't usually as forward with his suggestions as Bach. Initially, Jackson had reservations. “We only lost by a basket,” he said. “Let's not scrap the defense that has taken us so far.” But by Tuesday, Jackson had agreed. The team practiced the defense for almost two hours.

Like his players, Jackson had been disturbed by Jordan's shot selection, but he decided to be oblique for now. There was no time to waste, but he felt sure the Bulls would win Game 2. Before the game, he instructed the team, “Okay, we've got guys open on the perimeters. We've got to find these guys.”

Everything worked for the Bulls in Game 2.

They got both Cartwright and Grant going early as the duo combined for 18 of the Bulls' 28 first-quarter points; Grant spun left and right by defenders and Cartwright was active on the boards for putbacks and easy jumpers. Even a quick second foul by Jordan proved beneficial to the Bulls; Jackson had toyed with moving Pippen onto Johnson in Game 1, but this forced his hand. And Pippen would surprise even the coaches with his aggressiveness, his long arms distracting Johnson and his bodying tactics bothering the Lakers' star. Pippen had been desperately angry at himself for getting into foul trouble in Game 1 and hadn't slept well afterward. He was determined to make amends.

The Bulls remained in control in the second quarter, and held a 48–43 halftime lead. Jackson liked their togetherness thus far. Before Game 2, he'd spliced together some clips from a movie about Indians,
The Mystic Warrior,
which was a film version of the book
Hanta Yo.
The tapes showed scenes of the tribe working together matched with clips from Game 1 in which open shooters went unnoticed and ball handlers banged fruitlessly into the Lakers' zone defense.

And the Bulls came out smoking after halftime. Several players had complained after Game 1 about the rim at the east end of the Stadium being a little tight; this surprised the coaches, because they'd never heard the team complain about the Stadium rims, as they did about the Detroit baskets. But this night the Bulls would set an NBA record by hitting 17 of 20 shots in the quarter on that basket, with Jordan and Paxson hitting all 10 they attempted, and the Bulls would have a 19-point lead after three. They would go on to hit 61.7 percent of their shots, a record shooting percentage for a playoff game.

The fans in the Stadium were dancing, and so was Jordan, so much so that at one point Lakers assistant coach Randy Pfund had to restrain Dunleavy from going after Jordan. Jordan had started mocking his opponents during the Detroit series, and the practice would carry over to the Los Angeles series as he began to taunt the Lakers' bench after baskets. One time Pippen restrained Jordan as he shook his hands in front of the Lakers' bench as if he were rolling dice, and several times Jordan pumped his arm vigorously after baskets. Jordan's tactics weren't lost on the Lakers, who complained afterward about them; guard Byron Scott warned that such behavior was risky so early in the series.

But Jordan did have reason to celebrate, for he would perform the highlight-film move of the series early in the fourth quarter. It was a move that could only have been performed by the greatest individual performer ever to play basketball. Jordan had gotten the ball on the run after an A. C. Green miss and started to rise toward the basket for a right-handed slam. But he saw “long-armed Sam Perkins there,” as he would later explain it. So, as only Jordan can, he hung in the air while he switched the ball into his left hand, lowered his left shoulder, and scooped the ball in left-handed. The crowd first gasped, for this was art, poetry without words, an instant for eternity. Then the crowd exploded. Jackson marveled later that it was something even he'd never seen Jordan do before. Dunleavy called a meaningless time-out with almost eight minutes left in the game, the Bulls lead at 26, and the 107–86 rout virtually complete.

The Bulls had accomplished much besides evening the series, as all five starters, led by Jordan's 33, scored in double figures. Jordan again had gone up to the top of the floor, even before Jackson had ordered it, and opened up the offense in a manner that spread the Lakers' packed-in defense. This, perhaps more than anything else, demonstrated Jordan's determination to win the game and do everything he could. He was a brilliant competitor; it was the attribute Jackson most admired in him. “It seems he always needs a challenge,” Jackson had once remarked. “I think that's why he's always hurling these insults all around the locker room, looking for someone to challenge him so he can back them down.” He took the challenge when Jackson moved Hodges into the game for Paxson; Jordan would move to point guard and stay there, even when Paxson came back, telling Paxson to get out on the wing. It worked this time because Jordan virtually willed it to.

The Bulls also quieted Perkins, who scored 11 points, and the Lakers shot 12 fewer free throws than in the previous game. Jordan was phenomenal, hitting 15 of 18 shots and handing off for 13 assists. Paxson got just 8 shots, but hit them all. He'd had 7 in Game 1, hitting just 3.

Oddly, Jordan had singled Paxson out after Game 1, noting the 4 open shots he missed. Paxson thought it curious that Jordan was now counting his misses. But Jordan offered a beautiful anecdote for the media at the press conference after Game 2. He said he had told Paxson that he had to keep Johnson honest on defense, that he had to go down with no bullets, that he had to take his shots. Advised of this, Jackson carefully backed his star. “Michael is a challenging type of guy,” said Jackson after hearing what Jordan had said. “He's not the type of guy who's going to commiserate or put his arm around someone's shoulder. He's going to say, ‘Step up, chump, and make some shots.'”

It was a beautiful story: the big star, the leader, pushing, cajoling his team to greater heights.

Of course, all the Bulls knew it was a fantasy. Jordan had never said a word to Paxson between Games 1 and 2. He rarely spoke to any of the players about their play. But he'd heard Jackson tell Paxson that he was being run off his shot, that he had to step up and take his shots. It was something Jordan did often: He'd hear someone say something he liked and then say that he'd said it. It was much the same with his “supporting cast” comments; the phrase was something he'd picked up and repeated. It hadn't worked out as well as his supposed motivation of Paxson, but he sort of liked the taste of it anyway.

Jackson was restrained as usual after the game.

“All right,” he said, “now we prepare to get two wins in L.A.”

“Three, P.J.,” Jordan yelled back.

Suddenly, the Bulls felt good enough to dream again.

The Bulls coaches had one other advantage as the team moved on to Los Angeles June 6 for Game 3 the next night.

They now had the Lakers' plays.

Of course, they already knew what plays the Lakers liked to run. That was no secret around the NBA. All teams had sophisticated advance scouting teams and films of opponents' games, which they'd spend hours analyzing. So the Bulls could tell in an instant what it meant when a team yelled “Savior”; that was a Dallas play that called for a double screen for a shooter. When Gene Littles cocked his finger as if shooting a gun, that was an isolation play. There's “Snake,” for an action in which a player moves like a snake toward the basket, and there are times when coaches employ colors or hand and arm signals as in baseball or simply words like “Chop,” or “Power,” or “Dive,” all denoting various actions toward the basket. Red Holzman, Jackson's coach in New York, used to run “What the Fuck,” a last-second shot. It was the arcane world of NBA strategy.