By Ted Cox
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By that point humility came off as an unnecessary affectation. Still, to a man the Bulls maintained– quite rightly–that records are nice but an NBA championship at the end of it all is the only goal that matters. For most of the first half of the season we took pleasure in the Bulls for the beauty of their play and the force of their personalities, to the point where it came almost as an epiphany to be reminded that a sports team is ultimately judged by a very simple measure: win or lose. Entering this week at 41-4–after a frustrating loss in Denver ended their longest winning streak of the season at 18–the Bulls had established themselves as a team that had lived up to its almost boundless potential at the beginning of the season. Yes, the league talent pool was diluted through expansion; yes, the Bulls caught many of the stronger teams on the schedule conveniently after those teams had played a difficult game the night before; yes, the Bulls were playing with a playoff mentality while the rest of the league was simply coasting. But 41-4 is 41-4, and no other team in league history had ever been 41-3.
But it would be a mistake, even at this point, to focus on the record at the expense of how it was achieved. With Michael Jordan, again the league’s leading scorer, and Scottie Pippen augmented by a ball handler like Toni Kukoc and a deadeye distance shooter like Steve Kerr, the Bulls have the offensive firepower to compete with anyone, including the run-and-gun teams of the Western Conference. In fact, the Bulls completed the first half of the season averaging a league-leading 106.9 points a game; none of the three championship teams ever led the league in scoring. That’s where most of the beauty is with the Bulls, with Jordan, Pippen, and Kukoc running the fast break in an up-tempo game. More important, however, from a playoff perspective, the Bulls were fourth in the league in defense, allowing an average of 94.5 points a game. That is all the more remarkable given the Bulls’ fondness for up-tempo basketball. Of the other four NBA teams in the top five in offense, the Boston Celtics were last in defense, the Golden State Warriors were next to last, and the Washington Bullets and Charlotte Hornets were both below the league average. A team with a 41-4 record might well be expected to have a double-digit point differential along the lines of the Bulls’ impressive 12.4 a game for the first half, but NBA teams usually specialize in either offense or defense, not both. As talented as the Bulls are offensively, their defense has carried the team, especially against stronger opponents.
Those who claim that the Bulls’ record start is simply a matter of their two superstars having more talent than most of the other teams in the league miss the point. The Bulls entered the work week 41-4 because they are the best team in the league. With Rodman they have a stern defender and the league’s best rebounder. He allows their centers–Longley, Bill Wennington, and James Edwards–to lurk outside for short open jump shots. On the bench, Jackson can opt for either instant offense in the form of Kukoc and Kerr, or big bodies and strong defense in the form of young power forwards Dickey Simpkins and Jason Caffey and guard Randy Brown–sometimes alternating offensive and °defensive specialists in the closing minutes of a tight game. If Pippen and Jordan run on autopilot, fine. If they try to dominate the game and disrupt the tempo–as was the case against the Rockets last week in the first half–Kerr and Kukoc are inserted as pacemakers to run the triangle offense.
