Dennis Rodman came down with one of his awkward, rag-doll rebounds and flipped the ball to Michael Jordan. Jordan immediately went on the attack–shoulders low and forward on the dribble, head up and studying the court–but the defense got back so he pulled up shy of the basket. He passed the ball to Rodman trailing the play, and Rodman signaled for Jordan to post up. Jordan ignored him. He went out and took the ball back from Rodman. Rodman didn’t pout. He circled down into the corner, then continued discreetly under the hoop, and Jordan hit him with a bullet pass. Rodman banked the ball up and in and was fouled, and he trotted out of the tangle of players under the rim pumping his fist in the air as the crowd roared. Rodman searched out Jordan at the top of the free-throw circle, gave him a hug and a pat on the ass–a gesture returned by Jordan with some hesitation–and then he lined up to shoot his free throw.
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With such a volatile, talented bunch, coach Phil Jackson appears sometimes to be a Faust toying with the very stuff of creation. His decision to welcome Rodman to the team has given him, from a purely tactical standpoint, a roster he can adapt to almost any situation. The Bulls can go big, they can go small, they can play run-and-gun offense or clamp-down defense. Yet with that talent has come the most explosive mix of personalities Jackson has ever had to manage. So far he has made it look easy. As explained in his new book, Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior (which we highly recommend), Jackson has found a way to motivate highly paid, high-profile athletes intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. In short, he challenges them as human beings.
All NBA squads struggle with the concept of teamwork at this time of year, after the rust has been scraped off and before they’ve fallen into a comfortable rhythm; but after reading Jackson’s book it’s hard not to see the Bulls in a larger context, as a group trying to capture the intangible spirit of ecstasy that figures so often in works of art as diverse as Henry James’s The Ambassadors, Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities, and John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. To see the Bulls running a fast break in which all five players on the floor touch the ball, completed with a lay-in by Rodman, is to find utopia attainable. To see them struggle, of course, is to be reminded of how elusive utopia can be.
The final was 101-94, and the only important rebound Rodman didn’t come down with was one where Luc Longley beat him to the ball with an elbow to the face. When Rodman saw it was his own teammate who had elbowed him, he briefly felt his lip then slapped Longley hard across the rump in affirmation. “Isn’t that unreal, when your teammate gets excited when you hit him?” Longley said afterward. “He attracts so much attention. Guys go to his body and he creates avenues so you can get to the rim. He also keeps a lot of balls alive that he may not rebound but he just keeps them going.” To break the game down numerically, Longley and Pippen each added 7 rebounds to Rodman’s 20 as the Bulls outrebounded the notoriously physical Knicks 48-39, and Longley had 13 points. Jordan and Pippen each had 22 points and 8 assists, and Kukoc added 18 points and 5 rebounds.
With its tremendous collection of three-point shooters the Magic are never out of any game, and Orlando rallied down the stretch. But Pippen answered with a clutch three-pointer that gave the Bulls a 106-97 lead with a minute to play and sealed the victory. The final was 112-103.
