Blowout in Windy City

Ten days off that will live forever in infamy in Utah, 10 days when their team sailed off into the blue, like Amelia Earhart. . . .

No, the Jazz aren’t quite in sync yet. Karl Malone returned with a vengeance Sunday but they lost the rest of the team as emphatically, resulting in a 96-54 rout for the ages at the hands of the Bulls, who went from out on their feet to out in front over the weekend.

No home team has swept the middle three since the finals went to a 2-3-2 format but if the Jazz don’t show more Wednesday, the Bulls will be playing for a title Friday and Jerry Reinsdorf could have a lot of explaining to do Saturday.

Not only was this the biggest blowout in finals history, it was the fewest points scored, regular season or playoffs, since the advent of the shot clock in the Eisenhower presidency. In Ike’s first term, actually.

Or as Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan squealed, when they handed him a box score, breaking up the interview room:

“This is actually the score?

“Is this the final? I thought it was 196.”

Read it and weep, or in Sloan’s case, grind your molars down even more. You don’t see a lot of lines like this one, at least after the players leave high school:

Jazz 14 17 14 9--54. Sloan treated his players to some vintage snarls during Saturday’s practice and did his Godzilla imitation when he found the press outside his dressing room, but as motivation, it didn’t last as long as he hoped.

The Jazz grabbed a 10-5 lead as Malone knocked in his first four shots and John Stockton made one. Unfortunately, aside from the two venerable leaders, no one else on the team would make a shot until the second quarter, with Jeff Hornacek, Bryon Russell, Greg Ostertag, Howard Eisley and Antoine Carr combining to go 0 for 17.

By the time Shandon Anderson tossed in a jump hook with 2:14 gone in the second quarter, the Bulls were ahead, 21-16, and, it turned out, just warming up.

How would you like to be the Jazz players now?

Before Wednesday’s game they must stew in their misery while hearing about and answering press inquirer how the likes of Dennis Rodman and Ron Harper messed up their offense. If Pat Riley was in charge, he’d take the team, flee to Canada and pay whatever the league fined him, no matter how many millions it was.

Working for a franchise with more modest resources, Sloan must dig in. For a warmup insult, he mused through clenched teeth it would be easy for his players to get up, “if you’re a competitor. I think it would be real easy. They [Bulls] were shooting threes at the end. . . . and that wouldn’t get you ready to play?

“I would think it would be very easy to play next game. But I’m not sure my team will do that, though. I’m only speaking for myself.”

No, it doesn’t look like it’ll be a lot of fun to be around Coach Sloan for the next few days, either.

Yes, this series looks a lot different than it did a few days ago.

Back then, the Jazz had a 1-0 lead and home-court advantage and Bulls were tired. Now the Bulls lead, 2-1 with home-court and two days to take a deep breath for the first time since they lost Game 6 in Indianapolis, 10 days ago.

“I know we were tired emotionally in the first game in Salt Lake City,” Bulls Coach Phil Jackson said. “We just wanted to play a good game and give ourselves a chance to win and let the chips fall where they may.

“I thought we still might be tired on Friday because it was an emotional loss. I think we got our legs underneath us, as evidenced by today’s game.”

There was a lot of evidence, including a suggestion that Jackson has once again devised a way that athletic, versatile defenders can unhinge someone’s offense.

Once again, it’s Scottie Pippen, who rocked Mark Jackson’s world in the East finals. Now he’s shadowing the Jazz centers like Greg Ostertag, playing like a free safety and, he says, “trying to run them off their sets.”

It must be working because Jazz players are complaining, contending he’s playing an illegal zone defense.

Said the usually stoic Stockton: “You put a guy like Scottie Pippen, with his length and athleticism and understanding of how to play defense, you let him come across [the lane] and not have to come all the way, like he would under the rules. . . . he can affect your game and he certainly did.”

Of course, it isn’t over until the fat lady sings or Reinsdorf says it is. In the meantime, just be glad you aren’t on the Jazz for the next few days.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LOW BLOW

Fewest points by a team in an NBA playoff game since the advent of the 24-second shot clock in the 1954-55 season:

*54: Utah at Chicago (96), June 7, 1998

64: Portland at Utah (102), May 5, 1996

64: Orlando at Miami (99), April 24, 1997

64: Charlotte at Atlanta (96), April 28, 1998

64: Utah at San Antonio (86), May 9, 1998

*Also the lowest total ever in an NBA game with a shot clock.

WIPEOUTS

Largest margins of victory in the NBA finals:

42: Chicago (96) vs. Utah (54), June 7, 1998

35: Washington (117) vs. Seattle (82), June 4, 1978

34: Boston (129) vs. St. Louis (95), April 2, 1961

34: Boston (148) vs. Lakers (114), May 27, 1985