It will be a rivalry as long as the Bulls bother, and for reasons unexplained–apathy, spite, habit–the Knicks can still nettle the Bulls.
If it isn’t New York forward Larry Johnson refusing to acknowledge his inadequacy, or the little old odd sock of a coach, Jeff Van Gundy, chewing on his own foot, it is Patrick Ewing guaranteeing victory in the final regular-season game.
It takes a lot of active passion to trouble with such things, and the wonder is that the Bulls spit back.
This is like the hammer caring about the thumb, the 18-wheeler about the deer, the dentist about the molar.
“It’s a long season,” Scottie Pippen explained.
Pippen’s special amusement is Johnson, a cheap diversion but not without some peril. Although Johnson is not the natural brute that Anthony Mason was or Charles Oakley is, even a falling pacifist can hurt if you get caught under one.
Johnson called Pippen a bum, not an original opinion, and Pippen called Johnson garbage, possibly an olfactory as well as a critical judgment. They do rub up against one another a lot, so Pippen would know.
And Johnson has friends who seemed to take turns whacking Pippen with extra emphasis Saturday night. Even Buck Williams, a pleasant afterthought of a player, clouted Pippen to the floor in the first half, was called for a flagrant foul and caused Pippen to be withdrawn from the game for his own well-being.
Who started all this cheap chirping is unclear. Johnson says Pippen. Pippen says Johnson. Which came first the elbow or the scab?
“I’ve accomplished things accidentally in my career more than he’s accomplished on purpose,” Pippen has said.
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“Pippen’s best play is to get the ball to No. 23,” Johnson has said.
On this night it seemed it was everybody’s best play. Before the game Michael Jordan suggested he might score 65 points. He needed 62 in order to get his season average to 30, where it has been for every full year he has played in the NBA since he was a rookie.
If you can’t indulge Michael Jordan, whom can you indulge?
Jordan benefited from the hair-dresser defense of Allan Houston, who mostly seemed anxious to step back and admire his contribution to Jordan’s magnificence.
The Bulls were missing again the injured threesome of Dennis Rodman, Toni Kukoc and Bill Wennington, each healing at his own rate, Rodman and Kukoc promised back for the playoffs.
Rodman’s health is of greater concern, an intrigue kept active by Rodman himself. Rodman refused to confirm that he would be ready for the playoffs or even that he would be ready for practice for the playoffs.
It is left to Rodman’s agent, Dwight Manley, to reassure the world that Rodman is, to use Manley’s phrase, totally on track, though not specifying if Rodman is a caboose or a circus car.
Judging by Rodman’s bench attire for the Knicks, shiny shades of chartreuse, it is the latter.
Manley insisted that it made no sense for Rodman to come back and play a meaningless game.
Meaningless to Rodman, maybe. The NBA considers any game on the schedule otherwise, and NBC made room for it in prime time. Even Tiger Woods showed up. Nothing about the Bulls is meaningless.
And each team had actual incentives: 70 wins for the Bulls, a better playoff seeding for the Knicks.
Because the Knicks defeated Indiana Friday night and Toronto beat Charlotte, the Knicks got the first-round home court. By beating the Bulls they would get the third seed in the East, meaning they would not have to face the Bulls again until the conference finals.
The prospect so inspired Ewing that he promised a victory.
“They’ve showed they’re beatable,” John Starks agreed.
Not when they care.