Clang, clang. Clang, clang.
Don’t turn that alarm off. Turn it up. Put it on the loudspeaker.
Clang, clang! Clang, clang!
There are wakeup calls and there are heart-starters. What are those things in the emergency room? Those chest paddles? Clear! Zap. Zap. Pulse yet?
“If we don’t find it, we’re not going to win another game in this series,” Scottie Pippen said.
Find what? Energy, intensity, commitment, rhythm. Yeah, like a pulse.
“We’re not doing the things that made us a great team,” Pippen said. “We’re not playing hard enough to win. Not to point fingers, but guys have to step in and do their roles.”
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Whoa. Did the Bulls lose the entire championship in a single night? Is the Drive for Five in a cul-de-sac?
“We lost one game,” Michael Jordan said. “So what?”
For a team that swept the first round and has just lost its first playoff game, and still should win this series whistling and whittling, this all sounds extremely dire.
“We’ve been perched on the edge, waiting for a game like this,” coach Phil Jackson reasoned. “Maybe it will get us motivated, back in sync. They’ve had a good home record. We’re alerted. They got our attention. We have to win one down there. We’re perfectly capable of doing that.”
That will have to pass for optimism.
As for Pippen’s refusal to point fingers, a shrug is enough to identify the most glaring problem: Dennis Rodman. Pippen uses the actual name.
“We have to get a bigger effort from Dennis,” Pippen said. “He can’t stop waiting for the fans to give him lift. He needs to get out of whatever downswing he is in.
“If he’s not going to lead us in rebounding, don’t lead us in technical fouls. We don’t need those.”
The Bulls do not need Rodman. Have not needed him. Ever. This is not the time to try to coax him out of his natural self-interest and all-consuming conceit.
Stop figuring the Bulls need Rodman on the team to win another championship. The truth is, the Bulls will not win another championship because Rodman is on the team.
This is the time to kiss him off. Pay him off. Put him on a bus. He doesn’t deserve a better ride out of town.
“He may be hurt,” Jordan said, applying more doubt than Rodman should benefit. “He may not. If he is, he’s hurting us more by pushing himself.”
On a night when anyone who came to the United Center was given a souvenir Michael Jordan mask, Atlanta’s Mookie Blaylock deserved to wear it.
Blaylock scooted and scurried and scored most of his points over Jordan, causing general damage and genuine alarm.
“I was a little tired,” Jordan said.
Not even Jordan himself was as Jordanesque as needed, pretending to be Rodman instead, without the pastel hair, tattoos and general scruff, collecting 16 rebounds while Rodman was entirely worthless.
“I’m doing all the rebounding,” Jordan said. “That’s obvious.”
Stop pussyfooting. Demand Rodman get out of town.
It will take Jordan, probably Pippen as well, to insist more forcefully than even this that Rodman should be fired. It took Jordan and Pippen to agree before the Bulls hired Rodman.
By trying to hang in with someone who cares not one bit about them or the Bulls, Pippen and Jordan are only fooling themselves, treating Rodman much more generously than he would ever treat them.
“All we’re trying to do is get to 15 wins before anybody else. Right now, it’s still possible,” Jordan said. “This is a loss that sends you home to look in the mirror and ask what could I have done better today? I’m sure we’ll have 12 players go home and ask what they could do.”
I’m guessing the count is at least one less. Not to point fingers.
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