Unstoppa-Bulls Match Record With 69th Win

Not that they’re taking any banners down at the Forum, but the greatest Laker team of all, the 1971-72 squad, saw its record for victories in a season equaled Sunday.

Or maybe Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, et. al., joined America and fell asleep in front of their televisions.

In a game as anticlimactic as the event, the Chicago Bulls waltzed past the Cleveland Cavaliers, 98-72, for their 69th victory. The Bulls have four games to become the first NBA team to win 70--they could do it as soon as Tuesday at Milwaukee against the woeful Bucks--and aren’t expected to dally.

Celebrations, if any are forthcoming, will wait until then. Bull players, who have known this day was coming for weeks--and who have been asked about it for months--did nothing special afterward.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this,” guard Steve Kerr said, “but there was a reporter in Chicago who predicted in training camp we’d win 70.

“That’s the first time I heard the 70 questions, training camp.”

Cavalier Coach Mike Fratello, who has his overmatched players fighting the Knicks for fourth in the East, slows the game to keep it competitive. Sunday he could slow only one team. The Cavaliers scored their 50th point with 10:14 left in the game, by which time the Bulls had 77.

A crowd of 20,562 dozed, waking only to boo Dennis Rodman and click off snapshots of Michael Jordan. Or maybe, since Fratello has been coaching this style for two seasons, they’ve been sleeping since December of ’95.

Whenever Jordan drove to the basket, flashbulbs went off all over mammoth Gund Arena in an impromptu light show. Once, when he went in and laid it up instead of dunking, the fans booed. Several members of the Cavalier dance team brought their cameras and clicked off shots from courtside.

So much for excitement. The Bulls held the home team to quarter totals of 17, 18 and 14 before a wild scoring spree--23 points--in a fourth quarter that was all garbage time. Meanwhile, Jordan went a relaxed 35 minutes, finishing with 32 points and 12 rebounds.

Afterward, Coach Phil Jackson remarked on the difficulty of playing the Cavaliers, the Bulls’ offensive execution, Jordan’s fine game, Ron Harper’s good game, Toni Kukoc’s off game and might never have mentioned the record if he hadn’t been asked about it.

“We do want to win 70 games,” Jackson said, politely, “and the players are trying to push for it as quickly as possible. . . . This is an important game for us. I remember playing against a Boston team that won 69 games [68 actually, in 1972-73] and a Philadelphia team that won 68. This doesn’t come around very often. It’s 25-30 years since it’s been done. So I think our players are excited about it and like the recognition.”

Actually, his players are dreaming about winning No. 70, answering the last question about it and resting for the rest of the season.

“It will be something we look back on,” Kerr said, “but we just don’t have time to stop and think about it. That’s why you aren’t seeing people jumping up and down.”

For Jordan, a collector of achievements, it did mean something and it wasn’t that long after training camp that he began thinking about it.

“Not from the beginning of the season, I must admit,” he said. “but as early success started to happen to us individually, to me, personally, I was saying to myself that would be great, that could top the whole comeback aspect and move it to a whole different atmosphere.

“But yet you can’t take away winning the championship. That’s the most important thing to cap it off.”

Someone asked what No. 70 would bring, joy or relief.

“Both,” Jordan said.