Pippen Will Be a Marked Man : Eastern finals: Knicks will concede Jordan his points and try to stop Chicago’s other star.

It’s high noon in Gotham.

The fast guns just got in from Chicago.

The townspeople have boarded up their storefronts and are huddled in small groups, awaiting the outcome.

It’s the NBA’s most eagerly awaited matchup of the post-Magic and Bird era, the twice-defending champion Chicago Bulls and the New York Knicks, who narrowly missed knocking them off last spring, opening the Eastern finals today in a conference matchup that promises to dwarf the finals, in TV ratings at least.

The Bulls are the ones who have blitzed through the playoffs, winning all seven games, including a 4-0 sweep of the once-respected Cavaliers.

The Knicks are the ones with home-court advantage.

The Bulls are the ones with Michael Jordan.

The Knicks are the ones with the by-any-means-necessary defense.

Such is their respect for Jordan, who averaged 31 points in last spring’s series and scored 42 in Game 7 to bail the Bulls out, the Knicks can barely imagine disturbing him in the completion of his appointed rounds.

Jordan’s teammate, Scottie Pippen, is another story.

Last spring, the Knicks visited a reign of terror upon Pippen, spearheaded by Xavier McDaniel, with the rest of the roster poised behind him to make the big hit, like Dick Butkus lined up behind his defensive line. The prize for defensive help went to--who else?--John Starks, who crashed Pippen to the floor with a flying clothesline tackle in Game 6 that prevented the layup and cost Starks a $5,000 fine.

No, Pippen won’t be wearing a bull’s-eye when he walks onto the floor in Madison Square Garden today, but he won’t need one. The Knicks remember.

“I don’t think it’s going to help them,” Pippen said last week from the safety of Chicago. “They tried it before, and they didn’t get anywhere with it. They realize we can overcome that.”

Pippen apparently has a problem with reality. The facts are that he averaged 21 points and shot 49% in all other playoff games, but against the Knicks, dropped to 16 and 40%.

With McDaniel gone, the Knicks will line up former Clipper Charles Smith against Pippen, but this is expected to be a warm-up for the main event, Pippen vs. Anthony Mason. Smith is an out-of-position power forward who has struggled defensively against more ordinary fare than Pippen. Mason has great quickness for a 6-foot-7, 250-pounder.

At season’s end, the Knicks were regarded as favorites. They had won more games than the Bulls (60-57), closed hotter (39-8 to the Bulls’ 33-14) and won the season series (3-1). The Bulls struggled down the stretch, losing key games in which they tried to reach back, including the finale to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

Since then, the Bulls have blitzed past the Hawks and Cavaliers.

The Knicks struggled against Indiana and Charlotte, even though they lost only one game in each series.

Coach Pat Riley says he hasn’t seen the same defense that led the league during the regular season. Look for it today.