Tired? Old? Bored?
None of the above. Not when it matters.
And the last 50 seconds of an NBA game can be the longest month in sports.
For no other reason than they could, the Bulls managed to stop standing on their tongues long enough to beat Seattle in overtime Tuesday night, alerting the Sonics that nothing has changed since the Bulls beat the same team for the NBA title last summer.
As long as there is Michael Jordan, the Bulls will be blessed.
“Just an awful basketball shot,” said Seattle coach George Karl. “You don’t shoot with three guys on you. That’s all I’m going to say.”
That would be Jordan whom Karl is talking about, Jordan throwing the ball somewhere toward the basket with time running out in a tie game, getting a call on Gary Payton.
“He lost the ball,” Payton said. “I didn’t foul nobody.”
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That’s his grammar and he’s sticking to it.
“Anybody who shoots in double or triple team shouldn’t be rewarded,” Karl said. “I’m not saying any more.”
Three seconds to play. Plop. Plop. Two free throws from Jordan, two of six free throws in overtime. Bulls win.
“I mean, unless it is a definite foul,” said Karl. “I don’t think that thing falls in the realm of the definite.”
But he won’t say anything more about it. Oh, maybe this.
“Of course there is a double standard,” Karl said, “everybody in basketball knows that.”
If it had not been Jordan with the ball, heaving it or flipping it or flinging it, or whatever Jordan did to get to the free throw line, there would have been no call is what Karl means.
“There is no double standard,” said Jordan. “Hey, when they are playing aggressive defense, they get away with a lot. They called me on Payton just before, and it wasn’t a foul.”
What this sounds like is the beginning of a nice little grudge, to be held from now until June.
If the Sonics want to make a rivalry out of this, the thing to do is be there at the end. The Bulls are ready when the West is.
Through eight games with the four contenders from the West, the Bulls finish 5-3, splitting home and away with Utah, Houston and the Lakers, sweeping the Sonics.
From here to the playoffs, only the East remains, save a mercy meeting with Dallas, which doesn’t count, even in Dallas.
With scant scores left to settle, few messages are unsent, maybe another to the Knicks, the unavoidable annoyance of Pat Riley and Miami, the Bulls have only to tend to business while the East roils beneath them, trying to avoid the Bulls as long as possible.
But this was the last real measurement of how the Bulls may do when the season has been spent and they meet ambition head on. Will the Bulls be up to it then?
“I’m not tired,” said Jordan.
Pippen was as hard to find as the Comet Hale-Bopp. Until he fouled out, you had to take it on faith that he was actually there, just below the horizon.
“He suffered from tired legs,” said Phil Jackson.
Until the furious finish, the whole game looked like Cleveland was playing for both sides. The Bulls turned the ball over 21 times.
“Our fault more than Seattle’s,” said Jackson.
The Bulls handled the energetic press of Seattle as if they had just been presented a plate of hot snails.
Other than Luc Longley early, the Bulls clanked the ball off areas around the basket not often bruised by battle, and Dennis Rodman survived his predictable incident, this one with benign Terry Cummings, though Rodman managed to shoot his free throws with the finesse of a camel cleaning his ears, and with as much success.
“You have to knock out the world champion in boxing,” said Karl.
But that’s all he’s saying.
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