Bulls Have That NBA Championship Look Again

Of all the places a for the story to end, the New Jersey Meadowlands may have been the most unlikely. Apparently, the Chicago Bulls thought so, too. Otherwise, they might have decided to hang around the swamp for more than one night.

The annual dither concerning the future of the Chicago Bulls is well under way. Is Michael Jordan prepared to retire at the top of his game, as he has suggested? Will Scottie Pippen find his pot of gold on the free-agent market? Has Tim Floyd already picked out the furniture for Phil Jackson’s office? Chances are we’ll have to wait until June to find out. Late June.

While the New Jersey Nets should be applauded for taking the Bulls into overtime at the United Center in the first game of the best-of-five opening-round series and for keeping the score close in Game 2, Chicago underlined the difference between the first and eighth seeds Wednesday night. The Bulls made certain that the first playoff game at Continental Airlines Arena in four years would be the last of the 1997-98 season. They ignored the hoopla -- dancers performing on the concourse outside the main entrance, clusters of balloons in the lobby, a red, white and blue playoff cake in the press room -- and dismissed the home team without a struggle, 116-101.

Thus did they extend one of the more remarkable records in all professional sports. In each of the five years the Bulls have won the NBA championship, they have swept their first-round opponents. The Nets will be added to a list that includes the Knicks, Miami, Atlanta, Miami a second time and Washington should Chicago capture a sixth title. And there’s no reason to believe it won’t at this stage.

Indeed, it’s still a Bull market not only on Wall Street, but throughout the country until some team proves otherwise. As much as the Nets may have thought they were prepared, as much as they believed the enthusiasm of a sellout crowd would lift their game, they were no match for Jordan or even the least accomplished of the Jordanaires. Consider that Scott Burrell, appearing in his first playoff series, scored 23 points in 24 minutes off the bench after averaging two points in Chicago.

He benefited from a Nets defense that was nonexistent, that failed to contest the Bulls’ penetration or limit their perimeter shots. And no team, least of all a young cast with a minimum of playoff experience, beats the Bulls in a shootout.

The game was so one-sided that Jordan barely worked up a sweat while scoring 38 points. It may have been the quietest 38 of his career, and the man apparently liked it that way. After sinking a long jump shot to boost the Chicago lead to 99-85 early in the fourth quarter, he put his finger to his lips as he jogged downcourt, although the signal may have been intended for the hyperactive Nets coach, John Calipari.

So passive were the Nets at their end of the court that a call for illegal defense late in the first half inspired a buzz in the crowd. “My God, they are playing defense,” one spectator wondered aloud. Seconds later, little Steve Kerr sneaked inside for an unchallenged layup, proving the charge groundless. At halftime, the Bulls were credited with a shooting percentage of 64.7 percent. They had outrebounded the Nets 16-6, and the home team had yet to grab its first offensive board.

As the Bulls drew away in the second half, providing Dennis Rodman the opportunity to shoot treys, Calipari turned to his bench and pleaded, “Just six stops in a row.” He quickly amended that to “five stops in a row.” The customers filing out of the building would have settled for one. Those who stayed to the end celebrated Rodman’s three-point field goal in the final minute as if he belonged to them.

Jordan suggested that the series would be a positive learning experience for the Nets even though they failed to win a game. “I think this can help them,” he said afterward, “just by being in this position. I think they’re a dynamic young team, certainly a team of the future.”

For basketball fans with long memories, this is not the first time the Nets have been so branded. Once they appeared to be building a potential contender around Albert King and a young Buck Williams, but the coach, Larry Brown, bailed out on the players. Only a few short years ago, it was Kenny Anderson and Derrick Coleman, but not even the accomplished Chuck Daly could deal with that team’s chemistry problems. Now they have Jayson Williams, Kerry Kittles and Keith Van Horn, but Williams’ contract is up this summer followed by Kittles next year and Van Horn’s the year after. Will the Nets’ gaggle of owners fork up the big bucks to keep them together and, if not, will Calipari exercise his option to walk away in 1999?

The Nets have raised many such questions and failed to provide satisfactory answers ever since they joined the NBA, dealt Julius Erving to Philadelphia for economic reasons and fled from Long Island to New Jersey. In all that time, they have won exactly one playoff series, against the 76ers in 1984. Their all-time playoff record in the league is 9-30.

Perhaps their very presence in the first round represented progress. But the show they put on in East Rutherford did nothing to confirm it.