I’m not sure exactly how the conversation between Bulls coach Scott Skiles and Ben Gordon went.
But the word was it was something like this: “You’re 23 years old and there’s a 50-year-old man guarding you and you can’t get the ball! C’mon!”
Gordon did with a team-high 24 points Thursday night in the Bulls 109-90 victory over the Miami Heat in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference playoff series at the United Center. And the rest of the Bulls followed to pull within one game and leave the Heat looking like the inexperienced playoff team. Miami suffered a late-game meltdown of technicals and a flagrant foul for a James Posey cheap shot cross-body block on Kirk Hinrich.
It was a bad night all around for the Heat as NBA disciplinary chief Stu Jackson was in the crowd and told broadcasters he watched Posey sizing up Hinrich for the blow all the way down court and that the league certainly would look at the possibility of a suspension.
The Bulls hardly expected that frustration, but it was something of the message Skiles was sending: We’re younger, we’re quicker. Let’s use our advantages.
The Heat is old. When a team like that wins, it’s veteran savvy. When it loses like it did Thursday, there’s a reason for doubt.
All the talk was that the Bulls are a perimeter team and would have to beat the Heat from outside.
So instead the Bulls outscored the Heat in the lane 40-32.
Heck, three of their guys standing on top of one another aren’t as big as Shaquille O’Neal.
Well, you get the idea. It helps when O’Neal is in foul trouble and scores eight points. He and Luke Schenscher were even at two points at halftime. That won’t happen again.
But it was the Bulls with a 19-4 edge on fast-break points and a laser line to the basket.
The Bulls had seven layups or dunks in the first quarter, 15 through three quarters.
“We had trouble guarding the drive,” Heat coach Pat Riley acknowledged.
It’s what you do with youth. The Bulls are not big enough or strong enough, but they are quick enough against the Heat with Gary Payton on the perimeter. Maybe he’s not 50 yet, but he’s almost old enough to be Gordon’s father. Antoine Walker, James Posey?
The symbolic picture of the game was Posey running up from behind Hinrich and hitting him.
The Bulls ran and all the Heat could do was chase this time and react in frustration.
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“We’re not saying this series is over, by far,” Mourning said before the game.
He returned to action after a five-week absence with a calf injury. That returned to the Heat, who held a 2-0 edge, their two best interior defenders, Mourning and Udonis Haslem, who had been suspended for Game 2.
“We’re still in a dogfight because those guys keep coming at you for 48 minutes,” Mourning said. “If it’s God’s will for us to get out of this series, we have to prepare for other teams whose front lines are more of a factor than the Bulls’.”
But this Miami team isn’t quite the ’96 Bulls.
The Heat dominated the Bulls with inside scoring in Games 1 and 2, an edge that switched to the Bulls in Game 3, though it was difficult to find anyone among the Bulls practicing post-up offense. But the Heat perimeter is about as sturdy as a South Beach bikini. And from what we all saw there last weekend it isn’t solid that often.
And Miami’s defense doesn’t look that good without O’Neal. Mourning was back but hardly in playing condition after missing more than a month. And Haslem was back from his suspension, though his aim seemed about as good as when he was tossing his mouth guard.
The Bulls did what they couldn’t in the first two games, which was get to O’Neal around the shaky perimeter and force him into fouls. O’Neal obliged, and without O’Neal, suddenly the sides don’t seem so unfair anymore.
By the time he returned late in the third quarter with four fouls, the Heat was trailing by double figures and had abandoned its deliberate post-up offense.
Playoff experience for the Heat meant less in savvy and more in senior citizen speed-walking as the Bulls were sprinting by. The Bulls may have made more baskets in the pregame layup line than in the game, but not many.
It’s the weak point in the Heat’s defense. You attack the lane by getting by the perimeter and challenging the citadel. It had no defenses Thursday.
“I’m thinking way down the road,” Mourning said before the game about his return. “If we’re fortunate enough to get through this series, then I’m thinking down the road to the next series, getting my timing back. We have to prepare for the future.”
Though not quite yet because at least for one night, the future looked a lot better than the present.
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