The Bulls returned home late last month from a seven-game road trip that saw them go 18 days between dates at Chicago Stadium. That’s not quite 40 days in the wilderness, and only James Worthy knows what temptations they were faced with and overcame on the road, but there was no denying that something happened out there that transformed the Bulls, quite suddenly, into the real thing. They departed in confusion and returned with a unity of purpose, and in their next two home games, as it’s written, there went out a fame of them through all the region round about, making believers of us all.
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Leading the way for the Bulls were, once again, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Last season, when Pippen blossomed into an all-star, he began to complement Jordan in a way that was continually amazing. Ever since he joined the Bulls, Jordan has had streaks where he elevates his game and carries the team for 5 or 10 or even 20 minutes at a stretch. Pippen, last year, began to try to raise his game to keep pace with Jordan during those stretches, and the two took control of the team. They dictated the Bulls’ style: tough defense, always on the alert for the steal, and opportunistic basketball, always hoping to trigger the fast break and the easy– or startling–hoop. It seemed sometimes they knew each other’s thoughts, or that some basketball muse was whispering the same orders to both. Basketball played at the level Jordan and Pippen were playing it last season cannot be dropped and then picked up after a three-month vacation; even for players of their skill, it takes time and practice. And Pippen, in the first few games of the season, found himself in frequent foul trouble. When they arrived home from the road trip, however, they were beginning to show flashes of their mid-season form.
Even so, Jackson’s strategy had little to do with the intricate play of Jordan and Pippen. They displayed their mastery early and often. Jordan hung out a long, wide, tantalizing sideline pass to Pippen, enticing Washington’s Bernard King to lunge for the steal. Pippen pulled the pass in as King dove out of bounds, and he drove for an uncontested dunk. Later, Jordan got the ball in the backcourt on the transition and, while seemingly issuing orders to John Paxson, passed long to Pippen under the basket on the fast break for another dunk. Then, early in the second half, in their most amazing sequence of the game, Pippen stole the ball under the Bulls’ defensive basket and, falling out of bounds, lofted a saving pass to Jordan. He dribbled the ball upcourt on the double, with Pippen returning to play and circling wide down the sideline. Jordan cut quickly into heavy traffic in the middle of the court at the Bulls’ free-throw line, sacrificing himself to the play, and–with a blank look in his eyes, glancing at nothing and everything–dished blind to Pippen cutting to the hoop to give the Bulls an 80-58 lead. They led another fast break moments later, with Jordan again dealing Pippen a wonderful pass. The Bullets blocked the dunk with a frustration foul, which only left Jordan and Pippen smiling at one another as they met at the free-throw line for a high five.
What was most impressive about the Bulls, however, was that while they aimed to play “naturally” as individuals, as a team they played according to a clear set of tactics. That was the remarkable thing about the 155-127 victory over the Suns. The Suns, like most teams from the Western Conference, prefer an up-tempo pace, a running game of rebounds and fast breaks. “They continually tried to push the ball at us,” Jackson said afterward, “to see if they couldn’t get us in a running game, because they feel comfortable in that and they wondered if we feel comfortable in that–and we do. There’s no doubt about the fact that we want to run, we want to push the ball. We wanted to run with them if they wanted to run.”
At one point in the fourth quarter, the Bulls’ blimp broke free and, lifted by the updrafts from the overheated crowd, wafted up to rattle around in the rafters of the Stadium. When the crowd began to disperse it drifted down to the second balcony, where an usher pulled it in by the ring of its nose, but for most of the final period it was up there, bouncing back and forth, a symbol of the Bulls’ season. The Bulls can rise to amazing heights. They may drift from time to time, but no team in the league can stay with them when they’re right.
