Scottie Pippen, preparing to pass inbounds from just to the side of the Bulls basket, motioned for the photographer sitting at his feet to move back a little on the apron. With his back to the floor, he thanked the photographer for his cooperation by saying, “Check this out.” Then he turned, took the ball from the referee, and, right on cue, lofted an inbounds alley-oop pass to a leaping Michael Jordan. Jordan missed the dunk–it’s December, after all, perhaps the sloppiest month of the basketball season, and besides he was fouled on the play–but that was almost irrelevant. It was another moment to file away under the heading “Jordan-Pippen Highlights.”
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The Bulls returned home last Friday after their annual long early-season road trip dictated by the circus’s run at the Chicago Stadium. They played well on the west coast, losing only to the Los Angeles Lakers in overtime, but staggered in a couple of tacked-on east-coast games in New York and Boston. Jordan sprained his left arch early in the game against the Knicks. He returned to play, but his shot was flat, his movement was restricted, and the Bulls had looked stiff from the get-go. The result was one of the worst defeats of the Jordan era, 112-75. Then Jordan sat out the game with the Celtics, another loss, 101-96.
“I don’t think we’re where we finished the season last year,” Jordan said afterward. “You can sense that even with the intensity of this game.” Yet he and Pippen had been enough.
The Celtics tried to rally in the fourth quarter but could never quite get over the hump. Both teams had played the night before, both looked tired, and both hunkered down with defense toward the end. The Celtics’ Reggie Lewis had scored 32 against the Bulls in Boston, but with Jordan back his defensive responsibilities encroached on his offense (he finished with 12 points), and he also got into foul trouble. With five fouls, he was kept on Jordan, and the Bulls–as if they needed any added incentive–kept pounding the ball at Jordan until Lewis fouled out. Boston head coach Chris Ford was irate, telling one referee to “stick it right up the butt,” an almost comical attempt to siphon a vicious sentiment through relatively innocent language. He avoided a technical foul that time, but not when McHale was whistled for an offensive foul in the final minute. McHale, who had been caught holding his arms up like an offensive lineman in football, drew a technical for protesting the call, and Ford was thrown out of the game moments later. Almost lost in the flurry was Pippen’s great job on defense against McDaniel down the stretch, when he forced him into a traveling call one time down the court and swatted away his shot the next.
