Bulls Impressed, but Not Convinced

If parting this was, it was exceptionally sweet sorrow for the Lakers who said goodbye to Michael Jordan by trashing his basketball team.

Of course, Jordan says he’ll be back for the NBA finals, if the Lakers hold up their end.

“I know we’ll be there,” Jordan said afterward. “I don’t know about you guys.”

Whew, this is an especially tough room. The Chicago Bulls got their rear ends kicked all over the Forum on Sunday, after which Coach Phil Jackson was asked if he thought the Lakers were the game’s most talented team.

“I don’t consider physical talent talent,” Jackson said. “That’s athleticism. They’re the most athletic team in the league.”

At the Bulls’ level of development, which includes five titles in Jordan’s last five full seasons, potential counts little, nor do regular-season games, even if NBC says they’re important.

True, the Bulls have had an embarrassing habit of getting walked on recently in nationally televised games--the Jazz stomped them last week in the United Center where they had won 100 of the last 104--but the Bulls regard teams at the Lakers’ level of development, who go boom in the second round of the playoffs, with skepticism. One day in February won’t change that.

Jordan, for example, said afterward that he still expects the wily Jazz veterans to come out of the West, not the irrepressible Laker kids.

“Yeah, I do,” Jordan said, “only from the mental toughness, going from the first round all the way to the final round. The Lakers haven’t done that. I’m not saying that they can’t but in the playoffs, mental toughness means a lot. It’s not always the physically gifted team.”

Those crazy Laker kids started the afternoon with their group bunny hop, which must have had them snickering on the Bulls’ bench. Feeling was already running high, what with the disparity between the teams’ accomplishments (the Bulls lead in titles in the ‘90s, 5-0) and recognition (the Lakers lead in all-stars this season, 4-1). The Lakers clearly needed spanking and the Bulls were just the adults for the job, they thought.

They still thought so at halftime, the Lakers having put on an inspirational performance which got them only a 57-53 lead.

Of course, when the Lakers hit them with a 15-0 run to start the third quarter, things started to look different.

Jackson called a timeout at 63-53. At 88-63, he took Scottie Pippen out. At 89-64, Jordan went to the bench.

“I almost let them sit the whole [rest of the] game,” said Jackson later. “I was angry at the team. I felt like they let us down in the third quarter, the way they started the third quarter. It was a layup line out there and it was embarrassing to us as a basketball club.

“Guys couldn’t get back on defense, they turned the ball over. They don’t deserve to play and they know it too.

“If anybody saw the game we played on Friday night [a lackluster win over the Warriors, with Jordan missing 15 of 17 shots], you could anticipate a game like this today. We were just really flat. Legs weren’t into the ball game. Guys weren’t playing with the kind of energy we like to play with. Poor decisions at times.

“We’re right now at a level where it’s going to be good for us to get away from basketball next week.”

The Bulls are not only lordly but old and it’s been a long half season, with Pippen injured, the team stumbling to an 8-7 start, Pippen vowing never to return, Pippen returning, Dennis Rodman cutting out, et al.

Luckily, only Jordan has to participate in the All-Star game so everyone else can rest. You’d hate to see them run into another of those young, physically talented teams and get another dunk show on their heads.

“I think they [Lakers] may be confident certainly but playoffs are a different situation,” Jordan said. “You got to beat a team more than once, on one Sunday afternoon.

“We’re still strong from a confidence standpoint. They may gain some, very little if any, but come playoff time, it’s a different game.”

On one hand, it’s true. On the other hand, for the Bulls’ sake, it had better be true. And there had better be some good--and fleeting reason--that they’re suddenly pulling no-shows in games they want to win. It may have only been a Sunday in February but for the Bulls, it was a long one, with an airplane flight to their next stop for dessert.

Said the Chicago cop who doubles as Rodman’s bodyguard, slumping on press row in the fourth quarter: “It’s going to be a long ride to Denver.”