Jordan, Pippen Get a Break, but Clippers Don’t

When you play the defending NBA champion Chicago Bulls, you expect to have to contain Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in order to win.

Jason Caffey and Randy Brown?

They’re just members of Jordan’s supporting cast.

But Caffey and Brown played so well in the Bulls’ 114-96 victory over the Clippers Thursday night before a sellout crowd of 23,687 at the United Center that Coach Phil Jackson didn’t play Jordan and Pippen in the fourth quarter.

Caffey scored a career-high 23 points and Brown had a season-high 13 as the Bulls won their fifth consecutive game.

“It was a good game for the second team,” said Jordan, who scored only two of his 20 points in the second half while missing seven of eight shots. “They came out and outplayed the first team. Nobody could have predicted that we would sit out the fourth quarter.

“I think everybody has been waiting for Jason to show his talent on the basketball court. He has the ability to play with that type of intensity.”

The Clippers didn’t match the intensity in the fourth quarter, losing for the seventh time in their last eight games.

Trailing, 88-86, the Clipper were outscored, 21-4, in a 6 1/2-minute stretch of the fourth quarter as the Bulls built a 19-point lead.

“My biggest disappointment is that we didn’t play harder than we did those last 10 minutes,” Clipper Coach Bill Fitch said. “We beat ourselves on a lot of occasions.

“I’m just not used to having my basketball teams look that way. That’s not the character of our basketball team you saw in the fourth quarter. I don’t know who those guys were or what got into us, but we don’t do that many nights and we won’t do it many more nights.”

“When we were sitting there 88-86, that’s the real us. Up to then we came in and stayed close and gave ourselves a chance to win in the fourth quarter. But they did a heck of a job. Give them credit for making us look just about as bad as we’ve ever looked.”

Caffey had 17 points in the fourth quarter and Brown added seven as the Bulls outscored the Clippers, 33-18, in the final quarter. Steve Kerr had 15 points as the Bull reserves outscored the Clipper reserves, 51-25.

“It seemed like Caffey just got in a zone there at the end,” said Clipper forward Loy Vaught, who had 19 points and 14 rebounds. “He was their X-factor. We had a very difficult time trying to control him.

“We played three very solid quarters and have to take a lesson from that. We faded at the end. We started making bad decisions and turning the ball over and that was the game.

“It’s frustrating when you can play that team down to the wire that closely and then people will look at the box score and it will look like a blowout, but that really wasn’t the case.”

Clipper reserve guard Brent Barry, who scored a season-high 17 points, said Caffey and Brown caught them by surprise.

“When you gear up to try and stop Michael and Scottie, all your energies are focused on them and when that other unit comes in you tend to relax,” Barry said. “And I think that tonight we proved that they’re too good to do that against.”

Rookie center Lorenzen Wright, starting the second consecutive game of his NBA career, was one of the few bright spots for the Clippers, who lost to the Bulls for the second time in 11 days.

Given more playing time after center Stanley Roberts suffered a back injury earlier this week, Wright had season bests of 14 points, six rebounds and 27 minutes. Wright played so well that Fitch didn’t use center Kevin Duckworth until the fourth quarter.

Wright, who received a pair of autographed Air Jordans from Pippen after the game, said he was excited to play the Bulls.

“I was real hyped going out there and playing against these guys,” Wright said. “I was playing against the best players in the world. I grew up watching these guys on TV and it was a whole lot of motivation for me.”