The Bulls have met the enemy, and it is not Jerry Reinsdorf or Jerry Krause. At least not yet.
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The Utah Jazz will suffice as an adversary.
“We need to get re-energized, remotivated and refocused,” Michael Jordan declared Monday.
But not rebuilt. Unfortunately, if the greatest basketball team ever assembled somehow bungles this NBA Finals exam, movers and shakers within the organization could cite enough evidence to render these Bulls the greatest basketball team ever dismantled.
To delay any such prophecy floated by a management mulling over an endangered future, the labor faction favoring status quo might want to concentrate on Malone and Stockton now, then worry about Jerry and Jerry later.
Reinsdorf, after witnessing Sunday night’s atypical defeat, evacuated. He’d rather be in Philadelphia for a baseball meeting than here, where Todd Musburger, agent for Bulls coach Phil Jackson, is ensconced.
“I made the trip, just in case something were to happen,” Musburger said. “I’ll talk with them when they’re ready. That’s fine.”
Krause remains on the scene. He relates that wife Thelma wore earplugs throughout Game 4, and not because she was sitting next to him. The Delta Center again held noise well, despite missives from the league that the Jazz go easy on the fireworks, if not bells and whistles.
“I didn’t even notice,” said Jerry the general manager. “Good players play through that stuff. Bad players bitch.”
Once again, Krause has a point, and not atop his head. If the Bulls aspire to take the crowd out of the equation, they should feel free to hold onto a 71-66 lead within the last three minutes.
It would be just like the Bulls, of course, to destroy the local frolic by crushing the Jazz in Game 5 Wednesday night. But then, it would have been just like the Bulls to curtail all revelry Sunday night.
“We gave the game away,” realized Jordan, who admitted being mentally and physically exhausted. Meanwhile, Jackson again said that the Bulls’ plan for the week all along was to win just once here.
These are not the usual ramblings of a dynasty with a famous killer instinct, but six months of devotion does afford the Bulls a Game 7 in Chicago, if necessary. Those 69 regular-season victories come in handy, though the Jazz is still neither disliked, nor intimidated, by the champions.
“What momentum do we have winning two straight here?” Bryon Russell repeated a question. “I don’t know. What momentum did they have after winning two straight there?”
That’s fairly representative of Utah’s businesslike approach, his task being to guard Jordan. Russell welcomes challenges, for he is a die-hard Cubs fan. He could have succumbed after Jordan scorched him at the buzzer in Game 1, but that’s a problem. The Jazz isn’t just happy to be here.
Neither is Dennis Rodman, who feared he would have nothing to do in Salt Lake City. That’s close to what he’s done, nothing, though he veered off to Las Vegas in the wee hours after battling a tummyache throughout Game 4. Critics presumed that Rodman, having turned so many stomachs, finally zeroed in on his own as some sort of mea culpa.
“Might be all the liquids from the altitude,” Jackson said, rapidly adding that he meant water.
Rodman, moderately aroused in Game 4, got a technical after Karl Malone stepped on his head following a basket. But that’s what Utah wants, more points by going to the paint.