Scottie Pippen and Toni Kukoc worked a give-and-go in the open court, with Pippen steaming in for a one-handed slam dunk. Then Michael Jordan dunked on a sweet assist from B.J. Armstrong, cranking the crowd up to full-throat hysteria, even though it was still only the first quarter. Then Kukoc stole the ball, dribbled down the left sideline, and passed long to Armstrong, who was barely able to get a hand on it and tip it back toward the basket as he sailed out of bounds under the backboard. Jordan was sailing behind, directly under the hoop, when the ball came his way, and he quickly grabbed it and tucked it over the front rim, but too hard off the back iron. Yet who should be following right behind him but Pippen, who stuffed the rebound. Shell-shocked Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Fratello called a time-out, but on the next possession Kukoc slapped a rebound out past center court, where the only two players standing around were Pippen and Armstrong. Pippen grabbed the ball, handed it to Armstrong, and quickly spun around to make sure no one was following them, as if they were two punks working a scam. Armstrong then graciously handed the ball back to Pippen, who dunked it through the hoop. Then, at the head of a three-on-two fast break, Kukoc made a flashy backhand trailer pass to Pippen, who passed to Jordan on the right wing, who threaded a pass through traffic back to Kukoc, who by this time was standing just to the left of the basket and threw down a two-handed dunk.
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Five straight baskets on slam dunks, all created by intricate team play and lovely passing, each one going off like a skyrocket in the finale of a fireworks display, almost too close together to compare them. Coach Phil Jackson had been complaining about too many scouts studying the Bulls since Jordan returned to the team last month, but he must have wished that every scout in the league could have seen this sequence: it was beautiful basketball, fearsome in how inevitable it all seemed. Jordan was only playing his ninth game since ending his retirement, but already he was back in sync with Pippen and Armstrong, and Kukoc had now woven his way in. It was once again the Bulls, not just Jordan, who were something to see.
That said, the most important game for the Bulls, where their playoff readiness was concerned, was probably Jordan’s first game back in New York City, against the Knicks late last month. It was only the fifth game of his comeback, but he was at the peak of his powers, scoring 20 in the first quarter, 35 in the first half, and 49 at the end of the third quarter on his way to 55 for the night–a National Basketball Association season high. If his previous game, in Atlanta against the Hawks, had settled the issue of whether Jordan still had a flair for game-winning shots, the Madison Square Garden contest settled the issue of whether Jordan was ready to pick up his game under the heightened pressure and scrutiny of the playoffs. What’s more, he delivered a crushing psychic blow to the Knicks’ John Starks, who watched Jordan soar over and run around him the entire game. And when Jordan finished with the game-winning assist, drawing the double-team from Starks and Patrick Ewing and then delivering a crisp pass to the wide-open Bill Wennington under the basket (only his second assist of the night), it was the piece de resistance, reestablishing that, no matter how much Jordan thrives in the spotlight, he continues to hold the defining attitude of his maturity, the one aspect that completed his game, the willingness to do anything necessary to win–even pass the ball. It would have been hard, beforehand, to construct a more perfect game for reestablishing the Bulls’ credentials as title contenders.
“It’s basically a rebounding, picking position,” Jackson said after Friday’s game, “a guy who eats up space and gets loose rebounds.”
