A specter haunted the Bulls this season, and the better they got the more haunted they were. It was one thing to lose the first nine games on the way to a 2-13 start. But as the team turned its season around to finish 47-35, post the third-best record in the Eastern Conference, and end six long years as losers, they summoned the ghost of Michael Jordan’s Bulls.
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But when the series moved to Washington I found myself recalling more of the qualities that distinguished the Bulls’ championship seasons, qualities the new Bulls failed to demonstrate. The championship Bulls would typically take a 2-0 lead in a playoff series knowing that when they went on the road the NBA would bring in its most timid officials, ones sure to favor the home team. It took mental toughness to put up with the biased calls and antagonistic crowds and still cut out the opponents’ hearts, and they had it. This season’s Bulls were never in the third game, and they got off to a miserable start in the fourth. They winnowed the Wizards’ lead at the end, but not enough to put themselves in a position to win. The championship Bulls defended their home court, but these Bulls came home for the fifth game and again fell far behind. They rallied in the fourth quarter as coach Scott Skiles went with his most effective lineup–Gordon, Hinrich, Chris Duhon, Andres Nocioni, and Tyson Chandler–for almost the entire period. But eventually the Bulls gave out, and the Wizards reclaimed a ten-point lead.
The championship Bulls never beat themselves, not even when Jordan and Scottie Pippen played poorly enough to call themselves “Doo-doo” and “Shit.” They forced an opponent to defeat them, and usually it was the opponent who found a way to lose. The Bulls led for most of the sixth game in Washington, but the Wizards rallied to tie it at 91. Even so, the Bulls had the ball and a chance to go ahead with 31 seconds to play. But when Duhon turned away from Hinrich’s inbounds pass, the ball bounced off his back and Wizards forward Jared Jeffries scooped it up and dribbled in for a slam dunk. In the final seconds Nocioni missed a game-tying three, and when Chandler got the rebound he didn’t pass back out but instead took a shot inside the three-point line. It was stupid basketball. The shot missed, but the Bulls would have lost by a point if it had gone in. Promoted to the starting lineup when Duhon struggled with back spasms, Gordon played miserably throughout and didn’t score a point.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Doug Pensinger–Getty Images.
