OK. Michael Jordan can walk around the lake tonight.
Missed miracles are for mortals. There are no silver medals for turning a rout into a mere loss, even with 24 of 49 points coming in the fourth quarter. On this night, Jordan needed 56, or Bill Cartwright needed seven. Cartwright pitched in with zero.
There is the wonder of what was almost, the amusement of watching the Sixers change from smug to dazed to panicked. There is the disbelief of Jordan`s indomitable will and wondrous skill, but the score will remain, Sixers 118, Bulls 112.
The Sixers swore they would win at home, swore they had to, and they did. Sort of. They didn`t lose. Not on the scoreboard, but what wounds the Bulls`
furious fourth-quarter comeback have left are yet to be closed.
”All I see,” said Sixers guard Johnny Dawkins, ”is a win.”
Beauty is in the eye of the team now 1-2 instead of 0-3. This one was ugly and clumsy and everything the Sixers wished it to be until Jordan refused to play footwipe any longer. Losing is one thing; surrender another. A first quarter of 14 points demands a fourth quarter of 45.
”Michael is just a warrior who would never give up,” said Bulls coach Phil Jackson.
This one, had Jordan been able to pull it off, would have enlarged a legend already beyond myth. It was Jordan, with 30 seconds to play, who missed the shot that allowed the Sixers to breathe again. But it was also Jordan who had the Sixers grabbing their throats to see if they could still swallow.
”Mentally, this doesn`t give us the same kind of boost we would have had going into the next game if we had gotten out of it easier,” said Sixer coach Jimmy Lynam.
The Sixers had been grinning and slapping hands and joking over technical fouls on the way to a 27-point lead with less than 2 minutes to play in the first half. It was a lead that threatened to continue spreading like blood on a bandage.
Jordan became the tourniquet.
”We had a shot to win,” he said, ”and that is all you can ask for. This will give us confidence for Sunday.”
The Sixers must feel more like a parolee than an executioner. They went for the kill and ended up grateful for mercy.
The Spectrum crowd, until late, had a terrific time watching the Bulls flounder. The Bulls contributed to so much civic joy, you would have thought they had fixed every pothole on Broad Street. Or, doing the population a greater favor, turning every pretzel back into the original wallpaper paste.
No greater example in the difference early between the two teams than hard fouls by two tiny second-string guards. The Sixers` Scott Brooks, the former Cal-Irvine Anteater, wrapped up Stacey King without budging and dared King to retaliate.
B.J. Armstrong of the Bulls stepped bravely in front of a galloping Charles Barkley, who not only scored but flattened Armstrong like a Buick running down a baby-sitter.
The Sixers came home a team badly in need of a kind word and a friendly face. They found themselves accused more of chewing on each other than on the Bulls. They were jilted by their general manager, John Nash, who couldn`t wait until the body was stiff to resign.
The owner, Harold Katz, spent the pregame delighting the press by calling writers idiots and daring them to invest millions of dollars in a basketball team before they criticized it.
It was an offer that could be refused.
