By Ted Cox
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“The countdown,” of course, refers to the Bulls’ pursuit of a record 70 regular-season victories. The Bulls entered the week 52-6, meaning that they needed only to play .750 ball the final 24 games, or 18-6, to do it. Never mind that up to that point only one other National Basketball Association team, the Sonics, had won three-quarters of its games; when a team is 52-6, playing .897 ball, and has 13 of its final 24 games at home, where it is undefeated, 70 wins begins to look like a fait accompli.
Best of all, though the Bulls–Pippen and Jordan foremost among them–were nursing nagging injuries and enduring occasional bouts of fatigue, they appeared to have plenty in reserve, in both stamina and tactics. Despite missing two of their best players, Dino Radja and Dee Brown, out with injuries, the Celtics stayed within ten points of the Bulls for most of the first half of Saturday night’s game. Then Dennis Rodman, while trying to save a ball going out of bounds under the Boston basket, made a bad pass that Rick Fox converted into two points. Rodman was so irked he threw the ball against the base of the basket, resulting in a delay-of-game call. As a form of tension release coach Phil Jackson then loosed the dogs on the Celtics, and it was as if some rumply peddler was being chased down a dirt road in a roiling cloud of dust. The Bulls threw a ten-point mindfuck at them in the final two minutes, using a full-court press to force three steals that led directly to eight points (including three-point plays by both Jordan and reserve guard Randy Brown). Jackson sat smiling on the bench like a moonshiner who never even had to lift the shotgun from his lap. It was 57-39 at intermission, and that game was over.
It was in the third quarter that the Bulls won the game. They slowed the tempo, dragged the Magic into the trenches, and whipped them in the mud. Aside from one play in which Jordan blew past Hardaway down the baseline for a slam dunk over Grant, it was an ugly 12 minutes of basketball. Yet it left the Magic frustrated and dispirited, not unlike George Foreman in his “rope-a-dope” championship fight against Muhammad Ali. The Magic kept pounding the ball in to O’Neal, and the Bulls kept taking the punishment. O’Neal had 13 points in the quarter, but with Pippen finally wearing down Hardaway the Magic scored only 17 overall. The Bulls, meanwhile, scored 21 to take a 74-70 lead into the fourth quarter.
Over in the Bulls’ locker room, a remarkably pleasant and smiling Kukoc was asked if he had been “in a zone.” “That’s what players call it here when they’re hitting their shots,” he answered. And what did he call it? “A good day,” he said matter-of-factly. He seemed more comfortable and friendly than ever, so it came as a surprise to read in the next day’s papers that Jordan and Pippen had prevailed on him to stay and talk with the media after his best game of the season; otherwise he would have bolted out, as usual, as soon as possible.
He was smiling after he hit that third straight three against the Magic in the fourth quarter, and Jack Haley came off the bench to give him a chest bump at center court at the next time-out. After three straight excellent games Kukoc struggled a bit against the Celtics last Saturday, but even then he pulled off an eye-opening assist. Saving a ball going out of bounds in the backcourt in the fourth quarter, the game long since out of reach, he flung a behind-the-back pass across the court to Jason Caffey out on the fast break. Caffey took it on in, finishing with a reverse slam dunk–a bit of French pastry that seemed to epitomize the Bulls’ gleeful approach to basketball these days.
