NOTES : A Corker of Time for Bulls

They celebrated with a California champagne, but it was clearly Chicago Le Domaine for the Bulls Wednesday night as friends, family and the hundreds of reporters crowded into the tiny locker room after the team won the NBA championship.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson was there, so was Norm Van Lier, who played guard for the Bulls in the 1970s. He still leads the club in assists.

Michael Jordan’s mother, Deloris, was perched on a platform, protected from the shoving camera crews and partying crowd.

“I love my son very much and I am so proud of him,” she said. “I knew it could happen with hard work, and the team has worked hard. Michael has been very patient, he has been for seven years.

“But I didn’t always know we would be here. Michael went to North Carolina to just try and make the team. We didn’t start thinking about the NBA until his freshman year. He just was trying to make the team.”

And in the other locker room...: Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant were the only two Bulls who came in to the Laker locker room to talk with the players.

Just like the stock market: Ticket prices fell in the distant parking lots and on the sidewalks surrounding the Forum before Wednesday’s game--as much as 40% from what ticket scalpers were able to sell the same ticket for before Game 4 Sunday.

A colonnade ticket (the top section of the Forum) sold between $125-150 Sunday. Wednesday, that same ticket dropped to $75-80, and at game time, went as low as $40.

A Senate seat--the best seats in the Forum besides courtside--sold for $300-$450 Wednesday. Sunday, scalpers got as much as $600 each.

“I expected it to drop some but there was some panic today, what with Magic saying he might retire and all and with the general way Laker fans are, they are babies, “ said Dennis Avedisian, a Bulls fan and a self-proclaimed expert of the ticket scalping business.

Tough luck: Some Chicagoans who purchased tickets for Games 6 and 7 from ticket scalpers were rooting for the Bulls to lose Wednesday. Some of them are holding non-refundable tickets worth up to $500.

Good luck: The Chicago Sun-Times was prepared for the Bulls’ victory. Even before Wednesday’s game started, they had Thursday’s cover printed.

“BULLS WIN IT, CHICAGO CELEBRATES NBA CHAMPIONSHIP” was the headline printed on a red background with a drawing of the mean-eyed bullhead.

The biggest stars: The celebrities that caused the biggest stir in the laid-back crowd were Paula Abdul and George Foreman, who sat next to each other in the second row at the Lakers’ final game against Portland. Abdul prefers to sit in the seats to courtside.

At courtside: David Rothenberg, the boy whose father set him on fire in an Anaheim hotel room several years ago, attended the game with a Laker fan who had heard Rothenberg is a Bull fan.

Rothenberg recently changed his name to David Jordan Robinson, after his favorite players, Michael Jordan and David Robinson, of the San Antonio Spurs. After the game, David was escorted to the Bulls’ locker room to meet Jordan.

Miscellany: Magic Johnson said he wants to buy an NBA team eventually, and that’s why he didn’t buy the National, the sports daily that announced it was folding Wednesday. “The newspaper business is too shaky,” he said. . . . The NBA issued 960 credentials to print and broadcast media, the largest number of credentials issued in the history of the finals; 760 credentials were issued for Wednesday’s game.

Times staff writers Mike Downey, Mark Heisler, Elliott Almond and Chris Baker contributed to this story.