The Jordan Rules (26 page)

“I'm not the same player I was when I came here,” Armstrong told his agent. “All I want is a chance. Stacey got a chance when Horace was out and now Will is going to get a chance [Cartwright's hip was acting up and Jackson had decided to start Perdue against the Lakers]. But they won't give me a chance here. I know I can lead a team. It's what I've always done, but they keep telling me I don't fit in. I've just got to get out of here.”

King, meanwhile, was doing little to lose weight since his diatribe against the team. He was back to playing sparingly and had decided he'd be better off elsewhere. Jordan's anger toward him continued to grow; the two ProServ clients barely spoke. Falk would call Jordan and ask what was wrong with King, and Jordan would tell him that King stinks. Falk, though, told King that several teams were pursuing him and it was time to get him out of Chicago. He'd do all he could to get him traded, but he wasn't sure Krause could pull off a deal.

With all of this in the air, Jackson's words to them on Sunday were hardly surprising.

“You guys are not bonding,” Jackson told the team at a breakfast meeting before the afternoon game. “It's midway through the season and you're not playing like a team. You're not coming together as a team. You're still looking out for yourselves.”

The game with the Lakers showed clearly what Jackson meant. The Lakers would win 99–86 even after Magic Johnson went out with a concussion late in the third quarter; Johnson, backpedaling against a Bulls rush, had gotten kicked in the head as he was falling over teammate Terry Teagle's leg, and his head bounced as it hit the floor.

Pippen scored 18 points in the first half. He always does well against the Lakers since he's much too quick for James Worthy, and he hit 9 of 15 shots for the half, but got just 5 more opportunities the rest of the game and was fuming afterward. “I guess my teammates didn't realize how good I was playing,” he said. “The ball didn't come my way and I wasn't too happy about it. The ball gets in certain people's hands and doesn't get moved.” Jordan had moved to point guard in the second half, but rarely passed to Pippen, who had outscored him 18–9 in the first half. Jordan was angry, too; he'd been out at the start of the fourth quarter again when the Lakers went on an 11–4 run to retake control of the game. He was trying to be a good soldier, but Jackson kept calling for his triangle/motion offense and Jordan wanted to drive. The offense was costing the team the game, he felt. The Bulls got the score back to 89–86, but rookie Tony Smith, replacing Johnson, drove for a score, and then Cliff Levingston missed a wild outside jumper and the game slipped away. “We don't seem to get the right people the right shots,” Jordan said afterward. He yelled at Paxson for passing to Perdue, who shot 2 of 11. “He can't do anything with the ball. Don't give it to him,” Jordan demanded of Paxson during the game. The bench had scored a combined total of 4 points in sixty minutes among six players. Perdue had done reasonably well as a starter with 11 rebounds, although he hadn't blocked the middle like Cartwright, and opposing center Vlade Divac had gotten loose for 12 points and 13 rebounds.

The team headed right for the plane and left for Sacramento, where everyone knew they'd get a win and make it a 2–2 trip. At Sacramento, the Bulls led by 17 points in the first quarter and 22 by halftime. Ralph Sampson, pretty much given up on by the Kings because of his bad knees, gave the team and the crowd a lift with an aggressive performance to open up the second half as the Kings cut the Bulls lead to 4, but Chicago went on to win by 11.

Jordan was still angry from his meeting with Reinsdorf and remained in his shell. Bach finally told him, “The team needs your energy. You've got to be happy. You're sending the wrong message.”

“I just can't be, coach,” Jordan replied.

Bach, too, had gotten angry earlier. He was a devoted military man and a patriot and the nation was in a patriotic fever with the war in the Persian Gulf going so well. Teams began to celebrate with a wide variety of national anthems. This night, a man came out and whistled the anthem. The veins in Bach's neck began to tighten, and although he stood at attention, it was clear he was growing angrier and angrier at the disrespect being shown. His eyes drilled holes in the whistler and his nostrils flared.

“I suppose they'll have five guys come out and fart it the next time,” he spat after it was finished.

But the fireworks were just beginning.

Levingston, having played just ten minutes against the Lakers and averaging little more than that on the season, was angry because he was warned again about taking bad shots—during the film session before the Kings game. He was having trouble fitting in with the team; he was a poor passer and Jackson had lost faith in him quickly. Levingston's passes to the wingman in the offense would either be stolen or end up in the stands—fans were said to have caught more of his passes than his teammates. The frustration finally boiled over in Sacramento.

“Why did they bring me here?” he exploded on the bench during the game. “If they weren't going to play me, why'd they get me? What the hell am I doing here?”

Teammates turned as Levingston continued his monologue.

“What the hell's going on here? Put me in the game. I'm not getting to play. What's going on? Why am I here? Who's running this show? I want out. Get me out of here, get me the hell out of here.”

“Cliff,” whispered Hopson, “P.J.'s gonna hear you.”

“Fuck him,” yelled Levingston. “Who cares? He's not playing me. Fuck him. Let him kick me out of here.”

The discourse continued for almost thirty minutes.

Then, during a time-out, Jackson counseled the players, “Let's hit the open man, let's move the ball and get it to the open guy.”

“I'm open,” said Pippen, still seething over his 5-shot second half against the Lakers.

“You can't hit your shots when somebody throws it to you,” Jackson shot back at Pippen.

Pippen lunged at Jackson and Grant jumped in between.

“Okay, okay,” Grant said to Pippen. “Let's just play ball. Let's just go out and play ball.”

“Who the hell does he think he is saying that to me?” Pippen shouted at Grant. “He better not say that to me again or I'm gonna go after him. What's he saying that for?”

At that point, Cartwright, who was not in the game, leaned over to assistant strength coach Erik Helland. “I like our team unity,” Cartwright said. “How about you?”

On the bench, Jordan took a seat at the end and didn't talk to anyone. That wasn't a comment on this particular evening; even at home, Jordan sits at the end of the Bulls' bench with a space between him and the rest of the team. In many ways it's symbolic of the gap between Jordan and the rest of the Bulls in talent and communication.

When Jackson calls for Hodges or Hopson to get up and replace Jordan, the Bulls' bench sometimes resembles a game of musical chairs, with players scrambling away from the end of the bench. “Nobody likes to sit next to him and listen to him complain and scream to get back in the game,” Cartwright explained.

Were they having fun yet?

Next would be the rematch with the Pistons in Detroit. The reporters wanted to know afterward not about the Kings, but about the Pistons. Could the Bulls win in the Palace?

Reinsdorf checked the box scores and the schedule at home the next morning. “The season is over,” he thought, “if we can't beat the Pistons in Detroit without Isiah.”

Jackson thought the time was right to beat Detroit. Thomas's absence would help, because he was a great clutch performer who had changed his game to help his team win. Although he clearly was the better player, he had given up some of his shots to accommodate Joe Dumars and others; the Pistons had improved and become champions. But Thomas still ranked among the best guards in the game and he could break down the Bulls' guards any time. But now Dumars would be playing point guard, and Jackson could have his guards attack Dumars, taking away his offense and forcing the ball to Vinnie Johnson, who was not an All-Star performer and whom the Bulls felt they could handle.

Jackson hoped his outburst after the last game in Detroit in December had finally gotten the attention of the league; perhaps the Bulls would get a break with the officiating. But one thing concerned him: the basket in front of the Pistons' bench.

The Bulls coaches had inspected that basket and believed the Pistons had tinkered with it. A rubber-and-foam piece usually found behind the rim appeared to be missing. Jackson had studied tapes of the Pistons games and noticed that whenever the Pistons were shooting at that basket, they had their best rebounders in the game and crashed hardest for offensive rebounds. Jackson knew the Pistons were one of the greatest teams ever at screening and hitting the boards, but this was different. It was almost as if they expected to miss more on this particular basket. The visiting team gets its choice of baskets to shoot at and Jackson, like most coaches, liked to have his team playing defense in the second half in front of his bench. But he changed this time. He wanted the Pistons shooting at the basket in front of their own bench to close the game.

Actually, such tactics are not all that uncommon around the NBA. It's why Jackson always carries an air-pressure gauge with him.

“I used to laugh at him,” said Bach. “But we've seen it necessary more and more the last few years.”

Like that night in Miami in the 1989–90 season. Jackson always tests the poundage in the game balls before the game. The balls this night in Miami were well below the required 7½ to 8½ pounds. An innocent oversight? Unlikely. With a softer ball players can't dribble as fast and the game slows. It was what a less talented team like Miami wanted against a running team like the Bulls. Jackson got the balls pumped up and the Heat were deflated. It works the other way, too; Jackson has caught the Lakers trying to sneak balls with 15 to 17 pounds of air into the game. Why? Magic Johnson likes a high dribble, and a livelier ball results in long rebounds that key the kind of fast break the Lakers love to use, especially at home.

It was no coincidence that Jackson knew what to look for. He had played on the 1973 championship Knicks, regarded as one of the smartest teams ever to play the game, and such tactics were not beyond their ken.

“We used to deflate the ball because we were a short team and didn't want long rebounds,” Jackson said, adding that most of his teammates carried pins in their belts to deflate the ball when they'd get a chance. “It also helped our offense because we liked to pass the ball, and other teams couldn't run on us as well because the ball wouldn't come up so fast when they dribbled.” The nice word for it all is
gamesmanship.

Jackson knew these were some of the hidden reasons it was so hard to win on the road. When the Bulls were in Portland, they found the balls softer. Why, since the Trail Blazers liked to run? Because they crash the boards, and soft balls will stay on the rim longer for offensive rebounds, which was an advantage they had over the Bulls, who also liked to run. The lighting is usually poor in Washington, where the Bulls always shoot poorly, and the backboards are suspended in an awkward way in the L.A. Sports Arena, causing unusual bounces that favor the familiar home players. And the Celtics are notorious for overheating the opponents' locker room to make them more tired. You had to be prepared for the enemy in pro sports, especially when you were in hostile territory.

The game couldn't have gone better for the Bulls. They rarely shoot well in Detroit against the Pistons' quickly rotating defenses; Dennis Rodman bumps and battles against Pippen and refuses to give him the lanes, and Dumars and Laimbeer or Thomas drop off against Jordan and quickly hurry back. But even with Jordan missing 5 of 8 shots in the first quarter, the Bulls trailed just 26–25 by hitting half their attempts, and Rodman drew 2 early fouls and had to leave the game. By halftime, the Bulls had climbed ahead 44–41 as Detroit hit just 5 of 17 shots in the second quarter. The first test had been passed. The Bulls now would be shooting at the softer, more forgiving basket.

Laimbeer, the cur who seemed more suited to the World Wrestling Federation, pulled off a classic in the third quarter, grabbing his face and falling after Cartwright hit him with an elbow in the chest. The referees missed the exchange, and when Cartwright started to complain about the call, he was ejected. It was rare for a player to be ejected without a warning or two technical-foul calls, but the referees had been warned about Cartwright since he'd knocked Olajuwon out for two months with that inadvertent elbow. This was exactly what Jackson was worried about when Thorn asked Cartwright to wear elbow pads. But the bench wasn't playing scared this time, especially Armstrong. With no Thomas there to harass him, Armstrong started breaking toward the basket with confidence and converting clutch jumpers. Despite the concerns about his play and his status, Armstrong could still carry himself with pride and defiance, and this time his confidence was justified by his play; he found himself still in there at the end of the game—crunch time, as the players like to call it.

The Pistons, though, took control in the fourth quarter. Rodman and Laimbeer rebounded missed jumpers and scored. “There they go,” Jackson thought, “hitting the boards on that basket.” The Pistons took a 5-point lead with five minutes left. It looked like their game.

Armstrong hit a jumper, but after James Edwards missed two free throws, Pippen missed a jumper when Detroit sent two defenders at Jordan and he had to pass off. Laimbeer then rebounded a miss for another basket: 87–82 Detroit with four minutes left.

But Pippen came back with a smart, leaning jumper and then one of two free throws on the next possession after Aguirre missed a jumper. Pippen had 20 and had begun to shake some demons. The Bulls had narrowed the Detroit lead to 87–85. But Detroit crashed the boards again and Laimbeer was fouled going for a rebound. He converted two free throws for an 89–85 Detroit lead. With just over two minutes left, Grant rebounded a Jordan miss and got it back to Jordan. Jordan drove and scored while being fouled for a three-point play to bring the Bulls to within 1, 89–88. And then strange things started happening.