Now, Says Jordan, Bulls Know the Way

There has been a bittersweet quality to watching the Chicago Bulls the last couple of seasons. They’ve had the best basketball player on the planet, yet through many of his years of service, they haven’t had a clue as to how to win an NBA championship.

But this year, much like the Communist Eastern Bloc that crumbled, all the great powers of the Eastern Conference have fallen at the Bulls’ feet. Boston, with Larry Bird’s bad back, is vulnerable. New York implodes. Philadelphia disintegrates with injury.

That leaves the Detroit Pistons. They’ve taken Chicago out of the playoffs the last three years, including a seven-game epic in last year’s Eastern finals.

“We know we want to get back to where we were last year, and take it a step further,” Michael Jordan said. “So the confidence is there. The intensity and enthusiasm, I think, is there. As well as the experience. We’ve been through it for the last couple of years. We know what to give. And we know what to expect.”

“We have the maturity, the unselfishness,” forward Horace Grant said. “The unity that we somehow came up with. I wouldn’t (be able to) explain it.”

To be sure, the Bulls have hardly been one big happy family this season. Relations between Jordan and General Manager Jerry Krause couldn’t be cooler. Jordan thought a midseason deal was in order. Krause didn’t, or couldn’t, find the salary-cap room to put something into action.

That has run parallel to the ongoing contract woes of Scottie Pippen, who would like to be paid what he considers commensurate with his averages of 17.8 points, 7.3 rebounds and 6.2 assists.

Krause has been pursuing Yugoslavian star Toni Kukoc and has committed funds in that direction; Pippen can’t figure out why a team that was 61-21 in the regular season and has home-court advantage until the Finals doesn’t have all the pieces it needs.

So Krause doesn’t need to hear comparisons of his club to the Oakland baseball teams of the early 1970s, which warred internally and still won three straight titles.

“It has not been a problem,” he said. “It has not affected us. And it has been blown way out of proportion. ... One story gets repeated and repeated ... and people think it’s true.”

That’s playoff talk. It’s true. But a championship creates amnesia in the most angry of men.

Last year the Bulls’ significant additions were rookies -- guard B.J. Armstrong and forward Stacey King. Center Will Perdue was just in his second year. Yet they played big minutes in the playoffs, and were smashed by the Pistons at all the important moments.

Jordan let it be known he wasn’t thrilled about going into the playoffs with kids. This year Chicago went with veterans, signing free agent Cliff Levingston and acquiring Dennis Hopson from New Jersey. Hopson has barely been a blip this year, but Levingston has toughened the Bulls off the bench (remember Brad Sellers?) and the youngsters have grown up a little.

“They basically had the team settled,” said Levingston, who turned down a better deal from Atlanta to come here. “They just needed a little more experience and a little more positive reinforcement. You always think about where you can improve, what you could have done this year to make it to the Finals.”

Sunday, Armstrong was glue on the Knicks’ Maurice Cheeks. Perdue brought the house down with an alley-oop layin, blocked two shots in 10 minutes and did hard defensive work with Bill Cartwright on Patrick Ewing. King has been booed most of the year after reporting to training camp heavy, and he got the treatment again Sunday. But he had some big rebounds in the second half.

“On a team where you’ve got a guy who’s averaging 30 a game,” Armstrong said, “and you have Scottie, and Bill and Horace ... you just go out and fill your role. I can’t even begin to explain how much of a difference it is from last year to this year. This year I know what to expect. I feel so much more comfortable.”

Second-year coach Phil Jackson junked former coach Doug Collins’s offense this season, going to a textbook system of assistant Tex Winter. The new system requires constant adjustment and readjustment to the situation on the floor, something different from the freelancing Chicago used in the past.

But it also got the ball in more hands, for better shots. Cartwright had his best field-goal percentage in three years. Guard John Paxson shot 54.8 percent from the floor; Chicago’s .510 team percentage was second only to Boston.

“It took me half the season to figure it out,” Levingston said. “I think it took a lot of guys the whole year. It’s a difficult system, especially if you’re not used to a slashing, moving-type offense.”

When the Bulls lost their first three games of the season, there were grumblings about this not being the best way. But soon after Chicago righted itself. It started a home winning streak that reached 26 games. The Bulls began pounding people, winning 11 straight during February.

“It just took a little time for us to read the defenses instead of just going through the motions of the offense,” Pippen said. “It’s an offense designed for you to read. We just weren’t reading it. It’s definitely helped us. With a guy like Bill playing inside, he needs the ball in there to create for us.”

Jordan has had fewer and fewer flights of fancy as the years have gone on. This year’s 1,837 field-goal attempts were his second-lowest figure in the last five years. Yet he led the league in scoring for a fifth straight season at 31.5 per game.

But the Bulls haven’t won with his gaudy numbers. He needed a second and Pippen has taken over that role. There’s no question Jordan is the team’s most valuable player. But Pippen may be the most important.

He still has to convince skeptics that he can take on the responsibility. One Eastern Conference assistant has said that as long as Pippen plays, the Pistons will have the upper hand against Chicago.

“We’re capable of stepping up and being leaders,” Pippen said. “Everyone on the court.”

Yet the Pistons lurk in the background. They beat the Bulls as much with will as with talent.

Jackson is a poetic man who played 13 years in the NBA. He did it despite using words like “symmetry” when describing the normal flow of a game. And he doesn’t like what the Pistons do in the postseason.

“I don’t like to see it,” he said. “I don’t think the league likes it. But they allow it. ... It’s not an appealing game. But Detroit’s gotten away with it for four years now, just stepped up the physical nature of basketball to where hands-on defense is allowed.”

That is not the style you want when you have an aviator such as Jordan. Detroit’s “Jordan Rules,” in a nutshell, are to make Jordan go left and beat the daylights out of him every time he has the ball.

The Bulls don’t have many bangers on their team, though Cartwright’s elbows have claimed a few more victims this season. They are self-described finessers who would rather not go to a roughhouse style. But they have gradually become what they are.

“Fans like intensity,” Jackson said. “I don’t think Detroit has had any problem bringing fans into the arena. But I think it takes away from what the game of basketball is all about. ... You lose strength if you’re not the stronger of the teams. We’ve been able to play the game now for three years. We’ve gotten an idea of how to play that kind of basketball.”

The Bulls have held New York under 90 points in each of the two games. If they aren’t quite Bump ‘n Thump yet, they’re getting there. If the Lakers won five titles with Showtime, and the Pistons have taken the last two as The Defenders, perhaps the Bulls will go into the ‘90s as the hybrid of both worlds.

“In the playoffs, defense is everything,” Jordan said. “Defense is going to win the ballgame. Detroit has certainly proven that the last two years. So I think our defense is really a key for us. If we play good solid defense, the offensive opportunities are going to be there.”

Consider it a big clue.