NBA PLAYOFFS : Lakers Face Real Can of Worms Now : Bulls Not Sharp, but They’re Even : Eastern Conference: Jordan spreads it around as Chicago holds off Orlando.

Whatever happened to Da Bulls?

Bill Cartwright is in Seattle. Jim Paxson is a color commentator. Horace Grant is on the other team and when he shoots free throws, the Bulls’ scoreboard flashes incendiary messages, encouraging the fans to boo.

What remains is merely “the Bulls,” who can’t always reach back and play a great game when they’re cornered. They tried Sunday while beating the Orlando Magic, 106-95, to tie the series, 2-2, but they wound up having to fight deep into the fourth quarter to do it.

There was nothing awesome about the Bulls. They played their best defense, but the diplomatic Magic coach, Brian Hill, couldn’t summon a single gasp.

“We had an opportunity to be up in the 110-112-point range,” Hill said. “If we do that, we have a chance to win the ball game.”

The Bulls seem to be working things out as they go. In Game 3, Michael Jordan scored 31 points by halftime. In this one, he didn’t score in the first quarter when he took only three shots, intent on including teammates in the game this time.

The Bulls, who had come out like Furies in Game 3, eased into this one at the suggestion of Coach Phil Jackson, but they couldn’t get that right, either.

In the first 3:50, the Magic made all six of their shots and led, 13-6. Jackson called time out to tell his players that was too mellow.

“I thought we came out with such tremendous energy Friday night,” Jackson said. “We just wanted to take it a little easier, not get wrapped up in cheating defenses. We were getting a little stagnant.”

Jackson said he tinkered with his defense too. Hill said he didn’t see anything different, but in any case, the game turned on that timeout. The Bulls forced seven turnovers in the Magic’s next eight possessions (the one shot Orlando got off, a 15-footer by Dennis Scott, missed) and started a 28-7 run that lasted the rest of the first quarter.

They were ahead by as many as 16 points late in the second quarter. A blowout seemed at hand, but it didn’t happen.

The young Magic players, who had spent the first half looking like they knew they didn’t really need this game, tied it, 67-67, in the third quarter.

The Bulls went back ahead by 10 in the fourth quarter but with 2:21 left, Scott’s three-point basket cut it to 95-91. That was as close as the Magic got. Shaquille O’Neal found himself in the unusual position of facing the basket and bricked a 10-foot jump shot. At the other end Toni Kukoc dropped in a three-point shot with 1:30 left.

Da Bulls took opponents apart. These Bulls take what they can get.

“There are only three or four of the same guys here,” said Steve Kerr, a new Bull, “but fortunately they’re three or four of the main guys. Obviously Michael, Scottie (Pippen) and B.J. (Armstrong) were the core of that team, along with Horace and Pax. We don’t have the power inside with(out) Bill Cartwright and Horace. We don’t have the offensive rebounding potential and our defense isn’t as good as theirs. But we do have a lot of balance. Our bench is good. We’ve got a lot of good role players.”

Some things don’t change, however. Jordan, who took only three shots in the first quarter, took 18 more and wound up with 21, six more than the next highest Bull.

He interrupted his weeklong silence long enough to tell NBC’s Ahmad Rashad that Kukoc had been a “big key,” adding:

“It’s a three-game series. We’ve got to come ready to play in Orlando.”

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