All of what happened in the last half-minute of the Bulls’ loss to Indiana Monday is glorious sauce to the final feast, all of it welcome and all of it wonderful.
Bad calls. No calls. Pushoffs. Grab-ons. Punches thrown. Punches held. Moving picks. Standing room.
Missed free throws. Made three-pointers. Missed buzzer-beaters.
Whew. Indeed, whew.
This is a series. This is a rivalry. This is going at least six games.
“Holding, hitting, pushing,” Reggie Miller said, summing up. “Them of all people shouldn’t be talking about holding, hitting, pushing.”
Them would be the Bulls. And the Bulls certainly did that, did it and talked about it.
“This is hard to fathom,” Miller said. “You have to understand that they get every benefit-of-the-doubt call, so how can they say anything?”
Well, actually, they said it very well.
Phil Jackson said the finish of the game reminded him of the Munich Olympics, when the Soviets kept getting more chances to beat the U.S.
He was wrong, but he was vivid.
“They had eight men on defense,” Jackson said, which should cost him a bit of money, unless he meant it as a compliment to Indiana and not as addition, five Pacers plus three officials.
Michael Jordan, sounding uncharacteristically crabby, recalled something the Pacers’ Antonio Davis may or may not have said, that everyone wants to finish off the Bulls.
“It’s us against the world,” Jordan said.
Once again, this is too self-motivating to take seriously. Had the Bulls won, as they certainly could have, as they should have, the world still would be on their side. It is still on their side, and it will remain on the Bulls’ side until this is over, until it is resolved man-to-man, player-to-player, Malone-to-Jordan.
This is not how it will end, not with the Bulls grubbing in their own regret, Jordan missing at the buzzer, Jackson flashing back to the Cold War politics, not with Reggie Miller prancing on two legs after playing a game on one.
How it ends for the Bulls will not result from the decisions or the indecision of amateurish zebras, nor from the residue of professional hostility.
The finish will not be determined by bad calls or good luck, by league desires or by imagined conspiracies, never mind that for the first time in memory, Jordan has had three offensive fouls called on him in two games.
“I’m on a roll,” Jordan said.
Maybe it will end by missed free throws. Yes, it might end with Scottie Pippen clanking gifts off iron.
“Pressure can get to anybody,” Miller said. “Pressure can sneak up on you and jump on your back at any time. Today it got to Scottie.”
The details of the end of the game, from 21.8 seconds on, are a delightful series of little dramas, too absurd to be part of any conspiracy, too memorable to be dismissed as “tough to stomach,” in Jackson’s view.
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Dennis Rodman was called for a moving pick, barely moving at that, but he did lower his shoulder. Jordan and Harper made excellent defensive stops before Harper hauled Miller off the court into the Bulls’ bench.
The question then became, did Miller throw a punch at Harper. There are definite rules against punching, none against hauling.
“I was right there,” Jackson said. “He threw a punch.”
“I’m not dumb enough to do that,” Miller said. “I was just trying to push my way out of the ruckus.”
Maybe Jalen Rose got off the bench to join in the fray. Automatic suspension.
“He was going in the game on defense,” Larry Bird said.
Down one point, Bird always substitutes for defense.
Jordan got a rebound off Pippen’s second missed free throw that looked like it went off Derrick McKey out of bounds. Bulls’ ball. Or a jump ball as first indicated.
“That’s what I saw,” Jordan said, “and then everybody (the other officials) got eyes.”
Clearly, Miller pushed off Jordan to get free to hit his game-winner, a much more obvious foul than the one on Rodman.
All of this made the Bulls angry and sullen. But what it has done for the rest of us is make it impossible to wait for the next game.
“We have some control over what happens from here,” Jordan said. “We’re mature enough to know that.”
Doubt lives. Oh, boy.