THE NBA / MARK HEISLER : Positions Have Reversed as Bulls Encounter Knicks

Some questions as the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks get ready to rumble:

How long will it be before Anthony Mason grabs Michael Jordan by the right forearm, and John Starks head-butts Jordan’s sore wrist and Greg Anthony runs up and sucker-punches it?

If Phil Jackson and Pat Riley meet in an elevator, will either speak?

If the Knicks are supposed to be the blue-collar guys and if the Bulls are supposed to be glorying in their new role as underdogs, why are the Bulls doing all the talking?

The teams warmed up for this series in their usual manner. The Knicks, also known as Riley’s Robots, took the Big Fella’s hint--that’s Riley’s, not Patrick Ewing’s--and said nothing about the Bulls. Starks refused to comment. Team spokesman Doc Rivers ventured a few words so sweet they made your teeth ache, such as his opinion of Jordan, “A great guy,” and the state of the series, “It’s 0-0.”

The Bulls, their chests puffed back up by their 7-0 playoff run, went on a team insult-o-rama.

Here are the high points:

--Jackson, informed that the Knicks don’t think the Bulls respect them, wheeled around as if looking for someone and said, “Where’s Aretha? Is Aretha Franklin here? ‘Respect’ again? They’ve been playing that tune for nine months. Give us a break! Get another song!”

--Jordan, on the Knicks: “We feel they’ve got flaws, so we’re going to try to exploit their weaknesses as much as we can. The Knicks have two scorers, Starks and Ewing. You contain them and you control the boards and you put them in a vulnerable position. . . . We feel we can exploit their weaknesses. I want to take the challenge of the Knicks. . . . I think we’ll accept their challenge better than the Hornets.”

--Scottie Pippen, on the Knicks: “They’re not the team that the Pistons were. That was one team that could mentally take you out of the game. They could cause you to retaliate and get a technical and get thrown out of the game. New York, I don’t see them as being able to do that to us.”

And Pippen, on the job Xavier McDaniel did on him last spring: “I sprained my ankle and that was the only thing that kept me from being the player I am.”

Even Jim Cleamons got into it. Cleamons is an assistant coach and in this league, assistants are supposed to be seen, mostly in the press room scarfing down free dinner before games, and not heard.

Nonetheless, this was Cleamons on the anticipated Pippen-Mason matchup: “Mason cannot stop Scottie Pippen. If they put Mason on Pippen and the referees legitimately call the game, it won’t happen. Mason can’t do it. He can’t stop Pippen in the open court.”

By now, Riley has so many clippings to put up, he’ll have to send out for more bulletin boards.

Riles, of course, is being cool, or frozen.

“It’s going to come down to Sunday,” he said. “There’s going to be plenty written, but when the smoke clears and someone wins four games, then we’ll make evaluations.”

The series will run 15 days if it goes seven games, so expect many more evaluations, before and after the smoke clears.

I WANT MY BALLOT BACK

Confession: I voted for Charles Barkley for most valuable player.

I thought I had good reasons. Barkley had a great year and led a Phoenix team that was not an overwhelming favorite to the best record in the league. Jordan had an average year, for him, and the Bulls won 10 fewer games.

Of course, I fell into a classic trap--comparing Jordan to himself rather than to everyone else.

As well as Barkley played, bringing the Suns back from an 0-2 deficit against the Lakers, as responsibly as he acted, as much as he became a leader, you had to be struck between what he did and what Jordan would have done in the same situation. If the Bulls had been down 0-2, Jordan would have scored 25 points by halftime. Talk about raising the level of your game; Jordan’s normal game is the best there ever was, but when necessary, he is twice as good.

Therefore, I’m announcing now that I intend to vote for Jordan as MVP in 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997, no matter what else happens. He’s that much better than everyone else and deserves to be recognized for it.

To make it up to Charles, we’ll name him this season’s most improved player.

I’m also bumping Cliff Robinson down, after his dreadful playoff performance against the San Antonio Spurs. He won the sixth-man award, but we’re demoting him to the seventh-man award.

My coach-of-the-year award is now between Riley and Jackson. Jackson nursed his tired, gimpy team to hell and back and here he is.

As for Riley, if you had known last fall that Charles Smith would average 12 points during the regular season and nine in the playoffs, and that Rolando Blackman couldn’t make the starting lineup, where would you have thought the Knicks would finish? Right now on paper, with McDaniel and Mark Jackson gone, they aren’t as good as they were last year.

BOB HILL

DEC. 1990-MAY 1993

Now here is a guy who can’t get a break.

Silver-maned devil Bob Hill is movie-star handsome and a dresser in the Riley class. Hill even got his own shot on the big stage in New York, but he became Knick coach after Hubie Brown was fired with the house crumbling.

Then he got one more shot--in Indiana.

He became the first Pacer coach to compile a career record above .500. He made the playoffs in all three of his seasons.

He was fired last week.

“It’s been a graveyard for coaches,” Hill said. “You work your butt off your whole life to get to the top of your profession, you have success and then they want to fire you.”

As unfortunate as he is, Hill is no one’s idea of a great coach. This meant he was evenly matched with the Pacers, who are, indeed, coach-eaters.

“He tried to please everyone on the team, and a lot of players were upset with him for that reason,” Detlef Schrempf said. “If I were a coach coming in here, I’d think twice about getting into this situation.”

LUCKY LICHTI

On the other hand, at least Hill has his health and a year’s pay coming.

Check out the Denver Nuggets’ Todd Lichti.

As a rookie, he was involved in an auto accident that mangled his left foot.

Subsequently, he underwent three knee operations. One summer, on a cruise to meet his fiancee’s parents, he slipped and severed nerves in his shooting hand.

Last week he went to Australia on vacation. While he was there, his house in Denver caught fire and suffered $100,000 worth of damage.

CLIPPER LUCK

On the other hand, at least Lichti had insurance. His house can be rebuilt. We’re not sure about the Clippers’ house.

There’s no use in bemoaning Larry Brown’s eccentricities. He was zany before they hired him, and he’s zany today.

The question is, what do they do now?

1. Sign Danny Manning. This becomes even more important. If Brown was an obstacle to bringing Manning back, he’s gone now so there goes the last excuse. Give him what he needs.

2. Hire a big-time, big-money coach. Doug Collins is the best name on their list, but he has said he wants “Mike Dunleavy years,” meaning an eight-year contract. Give it to him.

3. Restructure the front office so there’s a real chain of command, rather than this thicket of palace intrigue where, at any given moment, three officials may be calling around the league talking trades. This is the only way this star-crossed troop will keep history from repeating itself over and over and over.

FACES AND FIGURES

The 11 anticipated lottery picks, in rough order of esteem: Shawn Bradley, Chris Webber, Jamal Mashburn, Anfernee Hardaway, J.R. Rider, Calbert Cheaney, Rodney Rogers, Bobby Hurley, Allan Houston, Chris Mills and Vin Baker. On the bubble: Acie Earl, Terry Dehere, Greg Graham, Doug Edwards and Lindsey Hunter. . . . The Lakers will draft 12th and the Clippers 13th.

Biggest debate: Bradley or Webber for the top spot? Webber is a relatively known commodity. Bradley has been in Australia for two years and hasn’t played since his freshman season at Brigham Young, where he wasn’t heavily scouted. Top picks rarely agree to work out for teams before the draft and Bradley’s agent, David Falk, is a hard-liner but the pressure is mounting. Said Washington Bullet General Manager John Nash: “I don’t see him being selected (No.) 1. I’ve got courage, but not that much.” . . . Golden State’s Don Nelson, making his debut on the lottery stage: “If you don’t get lucky, you just sit there like a big dork.”

Cleveland’s Gerald Wilkins, the defender on Michael Jordan’s game-winning, series-ending shot: “I couldn’t have done it any better. I timed it perfect. I was right there. If it was anybody else, I would probably be like, ‘Damn!’ But it was him. Only he can make me forget about it. Coming from him, you laugh. You want to shake his hand and say, ‘Good shot.’ It’s like being at the park.” . . . Hottest name in the Pacer coaching sweepstakes: Larry Bird. Bird has a sharp tongue, no patience and always swore he would never coach but has met the great enemy: boredom. “There’s about a 1% chance I’d coach some day because I need the challenges in my life,” he said at his retirement ceremony. Bird’s sore back could stop him from coaching, however. . . . Hottest name in the Atlanta coaching sweepstakes: Larry Brown.

Best excuse of the playoffs: The Houston Rockets borrowed the Hawks’ chartered 737 to fly to Seattle, but it didn’t have the range to make it all the way. It had to refuel at Salt Lake City and needed eight hours to make the trip fighting head winds. Rocket players then cited that as a reason for losing Games 1 and 2. . . . Amateur alert: Says Les Alexander, a Florida businessman bidding to buy the Rockets: “I know basketball as well as I know anything in life. I’m an avid fan. I plan to be a very, very, very hands-on owner.”