Old enemies are the best. They don’t drop by as much anymore. Michael Jordan has outlasted most of them. Or taken them on as teammates.
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On this day Isiah Thomas is behind a courtside microphone, Dennis Rodman is on the floor getting more assists than rebounds for the Bulls, Magic Johnson had to be watching somewhere and Charles Barkley, bless him, is goosing Jordan to a special majesty while jabbering, jabbering, jabbering.
“Charles with his mouth shut isn’t Charles,” Jordan said. “That’s like me playing with hair.”
Anytime Barkley can inspire Jordan not only to greatness but to actual wit, Barkley is welcome here.
After all these years and after never being anything but jester to Jordan’s prince, Barkley is still booed, a compliment earned by none of the newer guys except maybe Alonzo Mourning. There is respect in every hoot, dread in every dare.
The NBA may be diminished without Jordan, but it certainly will be a duller place without Charles Barkley.
A helpful United Center assistant tried to hand Barkley a copy of the final statistics.
“I don’t need no stats, man,” Barkley said, brushing him away. “I know we lost.”
Still, it would not have made bad reading. The Rockets were all Barkley, as the Bulls were almost all Jordan. Jordan had 45, but Barkley had 35 points and 14 rebounds and he eliminated Rodman from any real effect on the game.
Barkley carried the old crusade against Jordan getting favored by the officials.
“I ain’t going to whine about it,” Barkley said, whining about it.
Barkley got 16 free throws to Jordan’s 12.
And Barkley did throw a nasty-looking shoulder into Jordan at the crossover at the end of the third period, not good-natured at all.
“It can’t be taken in a harsh way,” Jordan said. “On the court you’re trying for any advantage you can. We’re friends, and somebody has to lose. I’m just glad it’s him.”
The Rockets are without Hakeem Olajuwon and without Clyde Drexler, contemporaries of Jordan and Barkley, while Jordan now has Scottie Pippen back, and Pippen finally played a game worthy of his name.
Barkley says he wants to play on past this year and that he believes Jordan will not. So these battles are to be cherished. And they are. Not like Jordan’s skirmishes with, oh, Gary Payton or Allen Iverson, those to whom the league will fall soon enough.
“The joy is knowing it is good, solid basketball,” Jordan said. “Not just physical. Not just run-and-gun, up-and-down games.
“These are mental battles. You have to think. It is who can outthink the other guy. These are rare now.”
There is a wistfulness to Jordan’s notion, a man recalling when he was all run-and-gun himself, all physical and full of dare. These are not days to regret, but they are days to count.
“Jordan was phenomenal,” Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. “Every shot they needed, he hit.”
Barkley acknowledged, as he always has, that Jordan is the greatest player ever, but, as in his own case, he cautions against expecting Jordan to be forever Jordan, to be Jordan on demand.
“I know you all have to kiss Michael’s rear,” Barkley told the press, “but you can’t say he is the same guy he was four or five years ago. That is just absurd. Nobody is the player at 34 he was at 27.”
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That would include Barkley, who at 34 is being asked by Houston to do what he did at 27 for Philadelphia: carry a team alone.
“Hey, I’m third in the league in rebounding and I’m averaging 16 a game,” Barkley said. “That’s not bad. But I am no longer a great player. I’m just a good one.”
Barkley’s standards are high.