An Old Bull Gets Some Payback in the Hornets’ 78-76 Victory

As B.J. Armstrong’s game-sealing jump shot swished through the net, he turned to his old teammates on the Chicago bench, pumped his fist and let out a whoop.

With the Charlotte Hornets in a shooting slump at the United Canter, who better to help break them out of it than a former Bull. Armstrong and Dell Curry combined for 21 points in the fourth quarter as the Hornets rallied to beat Chicago, 78-76, Wednesday.

“B.J. had a lot of motivation, energy and enthusiasm, and you have to expect that. He once played here, and maybe he didn’t leave on his own terms,” Michael Jordan said of his old backcourt mate. “His energy pulled Charlotte through this game.”

Charlotte’s victory evened the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinals at one game apiece, with Game 3 on Friday in Charlotte. The Bulls have now lost Game 2 of the conference semifinals for a second straight year. They lost to Atlanta at home last year.

Anthony Mason scored 15 points and Glen Rice had 14, but it was Curry and Armstrong who carried the Hornets. Curry scored 13 of his 15 points in the final period, and Armstrong added eight of his 10, including the decisive jumper with 17 seconds left.

After Vlade Divac grabbed a key offensive rebound--he finished with 19 boards--Armstrong got the ball on the right side. He pulled up and drilled it from 17 feet--right in front of the Chicago bench--to make it 76-71.

Armstrong started yelling at the Bulls’ reserves, who stared back in silence. Armstrong was still yapping after a timeout, talking to Pippen as they walked downcourt.

“What happened then is then and what happens now is now,” said Armstrong, who played on Chicago’s first three title teams of the decade but was left unprotected in the 1995 expansion draft.

“I had a shot that presented itself and I pulled up and shot it with confidence,” he said. “Fortunately, it went down.”

Jordan had 22 points, including eight in the fourth quarter, but it wasn’t enough to help the Bulls. Chicago was only eight for 24 (33%) in the fourth quarter and 31 of 85 (36.5%) overall. Scottie Pippen (13 points) was scoreless in the final period as he missed all six of his field goal attempts.

Dennis Rodman grabbed 18 rebounds for the Bulls.

This isn’t the first time the Bulls have run into problems in the fourth quarter. They blew a late lead in Game 1 of the first round, needing overtime to beat the New Jersey Nets.

“We seem to have control of the game and we lose our grip on it,” Jordan said. “When you’ve had the success we’ve had over the years, it’s easy to lose focus in situations like that--and we have. And it usually takes something like this to wake us up.”

“Late in the game, they clamped down defensively,” Jordan said. “We rotated and didn’t get the baskets that we wanted. They came back with a lot more momentum at that time and made some big baskets down the stretch.”