Pacers Hold Their Ground in a Game of Chicken, 107-105

How do you like those chickens?

With the Utah Jazz threatening to adjourn the Western Conference finals, the aging Chicago Bulls went on the clock Saturday, looking for an early KO, but a familiar birdlike figure arose to score 11 of his 28 points in the last 4:11, leading the Indiana Pacers to a 107-105 win that cut the Bulls’ lead to 2-1 on a claw, er, an ankle so sore, his coach almost lifted him before his heroics.

Take a victory lap of the barnyard, Reggie Miller.

“I just thought we had to lay it all on the line, see if he could do it for us,” Pacer Coach Larry Bird said. “He’s a great player and they all want to be out there. If the team’s going down, they want to go down with it.

“I was thinking about taking him out after he was in there about two minutes [in the fourth quarter]. I thought, at the defensive end he would hurt us, and at the offensive end he wasn’t quick enough to get open.”

Before the Eastern Conference finals, Michael Jordan compared Miller’s defense to “chicken-fighting with a woman,” but in the fourth quarter, Bulls’ Coach Phil Jackson, loath to have Jordan panting after Pacer water bug Travis Best, put him on the limping Miller for one of the few times in the series.

Not that Miller thought he posed much of a threat.

He had stepped on the side of Jordan’s shoe in the third quarter, felt a twinge, heard a pop, limped around for a few minutes and left to get retaped.

“It was real sore but I was going to give whatever I had,” said Miller, who made nine of 15 shots. “I knew I wasn’t going to be able to drive by no one. . . . I just kinda played off the mistakes Chicago made. . . .

“If I couldn’t get any offensive scores, I probably would have taken myself out, but anything is possible, like I said. If I’m out there, they’ve still got to pay attention to me. . . .

“A lot of times, I was just a decoy out there. I think a couple of those assignments, they forgot about me.”

The game was played in a din so loud, referee Dick Bavetta once called traveling on Ron Harper but no one heard him and play went on. Nevertheless, the Bulls, 11-2 on the road against Eastern teams in the last three postseasons, set out to again take control of the series on the opponent’s court.

They led, 77-69, late in the third period until a lineup of Pacer reserves, led by Best and Jalen Rose, closed the gap with an 8-0 run.

The Bulls were struggling. Jordan went into the fourth quarter having missed 12 of 18 shots. The Pacers eased into the lead.

They led, 89-87, when Miller cut into the right corner off a baseline screen. Jordan went over the screen, trying to cut off the passing lane but couldn’t. Miller took a pass and made a three-point basket.

The next time down, Miller popped out to the top of the circle and fired before Jordan could get there. Another three.

The next time down, Miller popped to the top of the key again, saw Dennis Rodman coming, pump-faked past him, stepped inside him and made a 20-footer. The Pacers led, 97-89, and hung on from there, if barely.

“He’s a consummate pro,” Jordan said of Miller, earnestly but not effusively. “He knows how to play the game. We forgot about him a couple of times and he made some big shots.

“I ran into a couple of screens. They do that. . . . One time, he surprised me by how quick he shot it. You just take that, roll with the punch.”

The Bulls take a punch, all right. Jordan scored 30, but wound up shooting a ragged nine for 22. Rodman, whom Jackson put back in the lineup lest he lose him for the rest of the spring, had 12 rebounds in 39 minutes.

“The Pacers were able to carry the day--barely,” Jackson said. “We’ll grudgingly give them their due. . . . I think the best game of the series is going to be Monday.”

That’s his last chance for an early KO. Miller took 45 minutes of treatment, limped out gingerly but promised to play, no matter what.

No matter what, the Bulls will guard him Monday. Until then, not a single one of them will compare him to poultry, not even Michael Jordan himself.