Bulls’ Humbling Came in Knick of Time

Looking for a reason to continue the season and finding one (barely):

It wasn’t only the Knicks who were praying they would beat the Bulls last week, it was an entire league that has been walked on so long it looks like a dirt path. When the Knicks won, it was as if everything was shiny and new all over (almost).

The stoic Patrick Ewing did two pirouettes on his way past the Bulls’ bench after making the 20-footer that put it away, even if the vanquished were unimpressed.

“It takes a lot of nerve to celebrate when you bank one in from the side,” sniffed Chicago Coach Phil Jackson.

OK, there was that. Also, the Bulls, awful for 44 minutes, slashed a 13-point deficit to 95-93, on the Knicks’ court, where the home team had won 22 of 23. As statements go, this was more like a reprieve, but Gotham celebrated as if greeting the astronauts back from the moon.

“HEY, THIS TEAM IS FOR REAL,” read the headline in the New York Post.

“KISS MY GLASS,” said the Daily News.

These days opponents celebrate while they may. No NBA team has dominated two seasons as have the Bulls--127-20 in that span--and none has been as admired and feared. However, too much of a good thing may not be such a good thing, especially if the good thing looks as old as the Republican presidential ticket and as combustible as a match head.

A Sports Illustrated cover asks, “Are the Bulls so Good, They’re Bad for the NBA?” For better or worse, Bulls’ TV ratings run miles ahead of the league package, which is down 10% from last season’s ‘90s-peak levels with suspense lagging, games slowing and so many of everyone else’s stars (Shaquille O’Neal, Alonzo Mourning, David Robinson, Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler) out.

CBS’ college basketball maven, Billy Packer, just sneered to USA Today’s Rudy Martzke, “The NBA doesn’t show the NBA, the NBA shows Michael Jordan.”

Believe that. While the NBA has a hammer, it’s going to swing it and it especially likes to drop it on Packer’s colleges.

For the second year in a row, the league moved the Bulls and Knicks into Eastern prime time, opposite CBS’ eagerly awaited, hugely hyped NCAA selection show, and blew it away. Both times, the NBA rating beat was almost 40% higher.

This may be fun for the whole David Stern family, but how long can it last?

Jordan gives out different hints weekly. Jackson has a one-year deal, Scottie Pippen is expected to be traded at the first sign Jordan is leaving and Dennis Rodman is Dennis Rodman. The last time Jordan retired, the ratings rolled off the pier and the game hasn’t exactly speeded up since.

For the moment, the Bulls are still stepping on faces, talking trash and making everyone crazy. After the game in New York, the Knicks’ Larry Johnson, burning at Pippen’s jibes, blasted back, noting that Pippen had shot four for 18.

“All he does is get up there and hand the ball off to No. 23 [Jordan],” Johnson said. “That’s his best play: ‘Here, No. 23, bail us out.’ ”

Responded Pippen, noting Johnson’s seven points and fourth quarter on the bench:

“He’s garbage. He might as well have been sitting over there with Spike Lee. . . . Larry Johnson talking is like Judd Buechler talking.”

Of course, it was meaningless. A year ago at this time, the Knicks beat the Bulls by 32, then fell to them in five games in the playoffs.

However, the Bulls followed this game with an uninspired victory over the hapless Celtics, then 76er Allen Iverson posterized Jordan with a crossover dribble that paralyzed the Great One--Jordan glared at the reporter who asked about it--and Friday, they were knocked off by the hapless Nets.

If it wasn’t a new day in the NBA, it was the next best thing.

RODMAN OUT: WAITING FOR THE BIG ONE . . .

Love him, scorn him, pity him, try to ignore him--fat chance--but there’s no denying the Bulls’ season revolves around Rodman’s pranks and misdemeanors.

MTV aired his parade last summer, when he dressed as a bride. Rodman in a nutshell: Act silly for a film crew, start a police-paparazzi melee, snarl Manhattan traffic and watch the talk shows respond like Pavlov’s dogs. Then MSNBC has panelists from serious political magazines asking why he does these things.

How about: for attention?

Previews air of Rodman’s movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Rodman signs with Hulk Hogan’s wrestling “team,” requiring him to be at a “match” in Charleston, S.C., tonight. He has in-season commitments to MTV too. Asked if the Bulls object, he notes that Jordan does “100 times more things than me off the court and no one complains about him.”

Suspended three times, Rodman still flirts with disaster daily, jabbing Joe Wolf in the groin, low-bridging Ewing on a layup, then in a later tangle, pushing him to the floor.

One little miscalculation, a jab too hard, a shove too solid, and he may get an early vacation. Jordan and Pippen, who once tackled him to keep him away from Shaq, seem past caring. During the Ewing faceoff, Jordan stood far away, hands on his hips.

“We never really know what he’s going to do,” Jordan says. “ . . . In some situations, I can tell him to calm down, but in other situations it’s like I’m a piece of paper.”

On the bright side, if the Bulls meet the Knicks in the playoffs and Rodman is still with them, Jordan can gamble till dawn in Atlantic City and no one will care. Rodman will be endorsing hosiery or something, and the paparazzi will be busy.

NAMES AND NUMBERS

The Warriors want to to re-sign Joe Smith, but he says he’s not even interested in hearing how high they would go. Making $2.8 million, he will play out his contract, become a free agent in 1998, then pick a new team, based on that team’s prospects. . . .

General managers have long predicted that Smith, a Virginia native, would leave. Others from the class of ‘96--the first one granted unrestricted free agency in three years--expected to go, or widely coveted, include the Denver Nuggets’ Antonio McDyess and the Portland Trail Blazers’ Rasheed Wallace. The Philadelphia 76ers’ Jerry Stackhouse and Toronto Raptors’ Damon Stoudamire have said they want to stay. The Minnesota Timberwolves are given a good chance at keeping the most coveted of all, Kevin Garnett. . . .

Oops, that’s not what Joe’s looking for: Rick Adelman, on Bimbo Coles’ request that the Warrior coach yank players who aren’t working: “First of all, I told him, ‘That’s not your job, that’s my job.’ But the other part is that it wasn’t just one guy. It would have been, ‘Who would you want me to pull out first?’ You’d have to flip a coin.” . . .

You know, $105 million doesn’t buy what it used to: Former good guy and underpaid Washington Bullet Juwan Howard, answering a reporter who asked about his missed free throw that would have sent a game at Miami into overtime: “I’m not talking about them damn free throws. So much other [stuff] happened in that game. I can’t believe you’re going to come at me with that.” . . .

And Howard, on new Coach Bernie Bickerstaff’s assertion that the team was selfish: “He’s the same guy who said we were a team that was out of shape when he came in, after one game watching us.” . . .

For the record, Howard, the league’s fifth-highest paid player at $9.375 million this season, is averaging 19 points, eight rebounds and doesn’t rank in the top 20 in anything. . . .

Oft-injured Marcus Camby crashed to the SkyDome floor in a recent game, but Toronto Coach Darrell Walker told the trainer to stay put as Popeye Jones, one of the toughest Raptors, yelled at the rookie to get up. Said Walker, “The guys were saying, ‘If you’re going to be here, if you’re going to be one of us, you’ve got to get up and play.’ It was too easy for [Camby] in college. He was easily the best player. Now he’s up against equals and he’s not always up to it.” Since then, Camby has averaged 19 points and 10 rebounds. . . .

Charlotte General Manager Bob Bass, on prep star Tracy McGrady, who announced he will turn pro: “I don’t think he has the appeal that Kevin Garnett had, but he’s probably got more notoriety at this point than Jermaine O’Neal. I think he’ll definitely be in the lottery somewhere. He could go higher than Kobe [Bryant, last pick in the lottery] did last year.” . . .

Detroit Piston President Tom Wilson, upset that Grant Hill doesn’t get Jordan treatment: “With Michael, even on the most obvious calls, he’s right there in the officials’ face. And maybe then they think twice the next time. Michael barks at the refs more than Grant and I wonder if he even has a technical foul.” Said Hill, “Great, now I won’t get any calls.”