Using NBA math, talk is cheaper than silence.
The Bulls get docked $50,000 for keeping quiet, and then Phil Jackson gets fined $10,000 for speaking up.
What’s the lesson here? You can’t cry fraud in a crowded press conference, I guess.
If these absurd and rapidly conspicuous fines are what caused the Bulls to return to the splendor of their game–a double-digit drubbing of the Pacers on Wednesday night–the money is well spent.
This may be the best value since the Louisiana Purchase. Ooops. Didn’t mean to make a historical reference. I anticipate being fined tomorrow.
“That was unexpected dominance,” Michael Jordan said. “We took it to them to see how they would respond. They didn’t respond, so we took it to them.”
Look out. That kind of double talk might cost double.
“Basically,” the Pacers’ Reggie Miller said, “we played awful.”
That’s one word for it. Appalling is another. Odious. Awful is a little generous for 18 straight missed shots, a full 14 1/2 minutes without a basket.
The appropriate gesture is fingers down the throat, or around it. Just an opinion. For what it’s worth. Even less costly than honest opinion is physical malice, as expressed by those two notable hoops pugilists, Ron Harper and Miller.
Suspending Miller and Harper would have been the fair solution for what happened in Game 4, and a push in terms of loss. While Miller had hit the two winning shots in Indianapolis, had he played as well as Harper has, there would have been no need for last-second dramatics.
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As it turned out, Miller’s presence in Game 5 Wednesday night was as handy as a parking meter.
“All 11 guys who were suited up tonight should be embarrassed,” Miller said, spreading the burden.
In prizefights the winner gets the bigger share. So if Harper gets hit for $3,500 and Miller for $2,500, who’s the winner?
Well, the Bulls are the winners, and huge, putting into motion the emotions of the lost weekend in Indianapolis, as if there could be any other kind.
“It has been a tough 48 hours,” Scottie Pippen said.
No complaints, no conscience. This was rebuttal, reprisal and punishment. This was lesson-giving time. The Pacers took it commendably.
“I’m surprised they came out and played passive like they did,” Larry Bird said. “Deep down I thought they’d come in here and they were going to lay it all on the line.”
Curious how Bird refers to his team as “they,” while Phil Jackson, defender and truth teller, leaves no doubt that he and the Bulls are in this together.
And speaking of Jackson, his fine is the silliest and most unreasonable of all, since he is the one who should have been paid for the entertainment value of his observations.
Comparing what happened with the U.S.-Soviet game in the ’72 Olympics was an inspired bit of mockery. Jackson could have used the assassination of Rasputin or Larry King’s weddings, any example of never-ending ordeals, but apparently the more clever you are, the higher the cost, so he stuck with a familiar basketball reference, just so the hoops heads would get it.
And Jackson’s offhand mention of an eight-man defense by the Pacers certainly drew the biggest laugh of the day, the exact effect Jackson wanted.
No groans, no gasps, just sympathetic mirth for a well-aimed quip.
I asked Jackson directly if he meant any more than that and he said no, and passed out the proper praise, including admiration for Miller’s ability to make the shot.
From all of this, the Bulls, and Jackson in particular, were made to be crybabies who can dish it out but who cannot take it. And by the same folks who were saying silent “thank yous” under their breath while Jackson filled their dead air and their notebooks.
Free of charge, it might be mentioned.