All the important advice in life must be reduced to T-shirts, or what’s the use? Scrawled on bedsheets. Stenciled on bumper stickers. Stitched on baseball caps.
Have a nice day. Just do it. Baby on board. If the gloves don’t fit, you must acquit.
Even the Bulls, a team as much in need of inspirational mottoes as a shark for a hairbrush, will accept slogans when they find them in their lockers.
“It helps keep us focused,” said Michael Jordan, wearing a cap with the season record of 72-10 bracketed by, “Don’t mean a thing Without the ring.”
Well, of course it doesn’t.
Wisdom as doggerel. It has fueled presidential campaigns and incited wars and liberated double murderers, so a modest enterprise such as the NBA playoffs is just another customer.
Alonzo Mourning and the Miami Heat have spent several days trying to explain why they should not throw themselves under a train and end their misery early, instead of being publicly humiliated by the Bulls beginning Friday. Here’s what it all means.
Zo’s got a mouth, as big as the south.
In fact, all information could be reduced to the essentials in this fashion.
Jordan addressed the rivalry between Phil Jackson and Pat Riley, two coaches contemporary in age and achievement. How two men could grow up at the same time, end up in the same profession and be such total opposites is a beguiling conundrum.
“I think you want to show well against somebody totally different from you,” Jordan said. “You can be a competitor as a coach too.”
In others words, Pat can’t win Against Phil’s zen.
Jackson sees the Miami series as a muscle grope, as it was with the Knicks when Riley was there, as, in fact, most playoff games are.
“Kukoc is going to have to be physical,” Jackson said. “This is going to be a very physical series.”
If Toni don’t bang The Bulls don’t hang.
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No such encouragement is necessary for Dennis Rodman. Physical is Rodman’s kind of basketball. Rodman will be guarding Mourning. Throughout the playoffs, Rodman will likely be guarding the other team’s best front-court offensive player.
“Dennis has the ability and the willpower to do it,” Jackson said.
Bashful ain’t Rodman in the paint.
Jordan doesn’t care about going undefeated in the playoffs, going 15-0, something that has never been done, something that would further separate this Bulls team from their antecedents.
“I just want to get to 15 wins,” Jordan said. “It doesn’t matter how many games it takes to get there.”
3-4-4-4, No more.
Jordan feels an enthusiasm for the playoffs that was missing in the second and third championship years.
“The same intensity as ’91,” Jordan said. “There was a hunger there. We felt we had something to prove.”
On the court, Don’t come up short.
Jordan has convinced himself he has more to prove than any other Bull, since his return last year failed to bring a title to the Bulls.
“The difference this year is Michael’s a basketball player,” Jackson said. “Last year he was a converted baseball player. Now he has re-emerged as the best player in the game.”
Give Mike the ball. He can do it all.
“They’re going to focus on me,” Jordan said. “They’ll design defenses to stop me. I think that’s when Scottie and Toni will have to step up to the plate. Those guys are a more important factor than me.”
And Tinkerbell is a Teamster.