NBA PLAYOFFS : This MVP Is Special to Jordan

Order has been restored to this city. The Chicago Bulls were back on top, following Sunday’s 110-81 win over the New York Knicks in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals and Michael Jordan reassumed his place at the head of the NBA elite Monday by picking up a second consecutive most valuable player award.

Jordan said this MVP trophy, his third overall, was perhaps more special, given everything that surrounded his season. He has made headlines throughout the year, many of them negative.

Even before the season he drew criticism for not attending a White House reception. In March it was revealed Jordan had lost more than $100,000 betting on recreational activities such as golf and poker.

“This has been a very tough year for me,” Jordan said. “That makes this award even more gratifying.”

Having survived the Knicks’ pressure (“It was mentally draining waking up every day and knowing that you had to play against that physical, brutal team,” Jordan said), the Bulls are expecting an easier time against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The best-of-seven games series -- with a berth in the league finals on the line -- began here Tuesday night.

Chicago has beaten Cleveland in eight of their last 10 regular season meetings. This season, the Bulls led 3-2, although Jordan sat out the last meeting with tendinitis. Each team won on the other’s home court once.

For some reason, Jordan has made Cleveland his personal patsy. His career high of 69 points came against the Cavaliers and this season he averaged 35.3 points in four games against them; last season he averaged “only” 31 points against them.

Of course, there weren’t many teams that did have success stopping Jordan this season. He averaged 30.1 points a game in winning his sixth straight NBA scoring championship and finished sixth in the league in steals at 2.28 per game. Jordan, who started in the All-Star Game for an eighth straight season, scored 30 or more points in 44 regular season games and topped 40 points 11 times. He averaged 6.4 rebounds, 6.1 assists and .94 blocked shots.

Sunday’s seventh game victory seemed to restore much of the confidence the Bulls had built during the regular season and a first-round romp past Miami. Then again, the Bulls felt comfortable entering the series against New York. They had beaten the Knicks 17 consecutive times here at the Stadium and 14 overall, but both streaks ended with a 94-89 loss in Game 1.

That game set the tone for the series, the Knicks pounding Chicago -- literally and figuratively -- and gaining enough confidence to carry the series to its finale.

The Bulls feel that won’t happen this time because, although the Cavaliers have players (Brad Daugherty and John Williams) as big as their New York counterparts, the Bulls feel the Cavaliers are more talented, so their mind-set will be more on basketball than mayhem.

“It will be good to play games that will be played cleanly,” said Bulls forward Scottie Pippen, the object of most of New York’s aggression. “There are going to be hard fouls, you expect that in the playoffs, but what New York was doing was just too overly physical.”

Many people -- Jordan among them -- have accused Pippen of being too soft, especially when the going gets tough. Sunday, Pippen came up with a triple-double of 17 points, 11 assists and 11 rebounds. While it was a great effort, the travails of Pippen, an NBA all-star and member of the select U.S. Olympic team, magnifies how great a player Jordan is. The overwhelming focus of every opponent’s defense entering any playoff series, Jordan has never averaged less than 29 points in a postseason series. In Sunday’s finale he scored 42 points, 18 in a first period in which he eschewed setting up teammates before looking for his shot.

It is hard to say how the Bulls would have reacted if Jordan had not set the tone. Would Pippen had played as well if Jordan hadn’t come to his defense in the first quarter, getting a technical foul after intervening in a skirmish between Pippen and New York’s Xavier McDaniel?

It is safe to say that once Jordan decided to take the Bulls by the horns, their chances of continuing their drive to a second straight NBA title greatly improved.

“It would have been very disappointing not to live up to expectations,” Jordan said. “If we don’t get back to the pinnacle, where we were last year, naturally it would be disappointing because we feel we should be there.”