It’s a dangerous time of year for the Bulls. Their position in the play-offs is secure, but the grueling National Basketball Association schedule grinds away for another two weeks after this weekend. That’s just enough time to allow the team the belief that it can coast awhile before sharpening its game for the play-offs. Thus, the Bulls of late have appeared play-off-ready from moment to moment, displaying sharp execution from time to time, but on the whole they’ve been mentally slack. The team has a tendency to drift for entire quarters. That’s not necessarily bad; it’s a long season, 82 games over six months, and if a team can get by for any length of time on autopilot it’s a benefit. Yet bad habits that establish themselves in these slack times can be hard to shake come the play-offs, resulting in an embarrassing early end to the season. Just look at Missouri in the college ranks: the team faded from the number one spot in the polls with a number of late-season losses, then fell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament–from top to bottom in little over three weeks.
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A week ago last Tuesday, the Bulls pasted the Phoenix Suns. The score really wasn’t important. None of the scores these days is important; it’s how the Bulls play and how they work as a team that’s of interest. The games have taken on the feel of exhibition contests; they’re how the team prepares for the play-offs. On this occasion, both teams appeared sluggish at first, but then the Bulls–running easily–wore the Suns down over a long stretch of uninterrupted play midway through the second quarter. The coup de grace here was Pippen feeding Jordan from just to the side of the basket on an inbounds alley oop to expand the lead to 14, which is where it stood at the half. The Bulls then came out strong in the second half, and Pippen and Jordan worked the same play again to make the lead 20.
They have become the Bulls; they dictate the team’s style of play. As Coach Phil Jackson likes to point out, the Bulls run well, but they’re not a running team. They don’t have plays designed to take off on the run on the inbounds pass–in the manner of the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets. Instead, they rely on the tipped pass, the steal (a category in which Jordan and Pippen rank one and three in the league) to spark them and set them off on the run downcourt. Jordan and Pippen can draw almost the entire team into this style of play, and against the Suns they did so, executing a series of long bombs to blow the Suns right out of the arena. John Paxson hit Pippen with an alley oop on the fast break–really, the most exciting play in basketball, the equivalent of the triple in baseball–then Jordan pulled down a rebound and passed long to B.J. Armstrong, who connected with Pippen on a touch pass for another jam. Then Jordan with a steal and–all alone on the Bulls’ side of the court, as the Suns just turned and watched–a mighty pump jam. Then Jordan with another rebound and a long pass to Horace Grant and a frustration foul by the Suns. The fans–apathetic through the early going–were wild with a standing ovation, and Grant’s free throws made it 92-65 and the game couldn’t end soon enough after that.
The Bulls came out strong, playing an up-tempo game and looking fundamentally sound. They ran the fast break almost automatically: Jordan came down, with Pippen on his left and Paxson on his right, passed to Paxson, and Paxson, without pausing, stopped and popped–two points. The Bulls led by as many as 13 and held a 9-point advantage after a quarter. They slacked off, however, in the second period; it was as if, having honed their game and seen it in good stead early on, they could relax. Practice was over. The Heat, however, played with the intensity of young, talented players who don’t know any better. Rookies Glen Rice and especially Sherman Douglas caused the Bull problems, and suddenly, almost as in a dream, the Bulls were behind with eight minutes to play.
The baseball season begins belatedly this coming week. Give me the San Diego Padres, New York Mets, Kansas City Royals, and Baltimore Orioles as division champs, with the Padres beating the Royals in the World Series. The Cubs I pick third, behind the Saint Louis Cardinals. The Cubs look to be improved, but I expect the pendulum to swing back this season, for fewer two-out RBI singles and for more unexpected problems in the pitching staff. The White Sox are a last-place team, but not without hope. Look for them to shuttle 15 or more pitchers through Comiskey Park this season and for them to enter heavily into the free-agent market next winter. That’s how they built a winner before, and it’s how they’ll try again.
