Chuck Daly, the Pistons` coach, slipped the tape into the VCR and then gave his players a simple order. ”Hey. Look at this,” is what he ordered, and then he flicked on the first half of his team`s Sunday game with the Bulls.
So there, in their locker room and down by four, his world champions got to view again The Michael Jordan Show that had just embarrassed them. They got to see Jordan flying and floating, gliding and soaring, scoring and starring as the supreme soloist in a symphony of bodies.
There, right in front of them, there he was alone and going up and nailing one of the dozen field goals he would collect in this half. ”Damn. That`s me,” thought Piston forward Dennis Rodman.
Then there he was again, just as free and getting two more of his 26 first-half points. ”That`s me again,” Rodman thought again.
”I knew what the message was. I knew where I screwed up,” Rodman would say later. ”I was doing screwed-up things. I was concentrating on (Scottie)
Pippen and not rotating like I was supposed to. I was out of synch. A couple of times I was supposed to be back for a trap, and I was just standing there. ”If you want to place blame for those 26 points, I`ll take credit for about 16 of them. I told myself I had to start cutting back on this guy. I told myself I had to forget Pippen and do my job. I think that altered the course of the game.”
Jordan, in fact, would manage but eight points in the second half of this game, and that was hardly enough to save his team on this afternoon. His rules, The Jordan Rules as the Pistons call them, were then in full effect and they combined with his bruised hip to restore him to mortality.
Then, through those final 24 minutes, Detroit re-emerged as basketball`s finest defensive team and painted a portrait that stood in stark contrast to their first-half performance. ”We played pretty good defense in that half, but he was on fire,” is how Joe Dumars, Jordan`s shadow, later would describe it.
”We were trying to rotate over and just couldn`t get there. He`s so explosive and was pulling up before we could double team him. When he`s doing that and hitting that medium-range jumper, you`re in trouble. It`s almost as if you`re at his mercy.”
That is just where the Pistons were as the first period neared its end, and as Jordan knifed once more toward the lane and into the air. Vinnie Johnson, who was guarding him, trailed behind by a step, but here John Salley jumped in Jordan`s face, and Rodman rushed toward him from the offside.
In the air, Jordan and Rodman collided, and Jordan fell on his left hip and writhed on the court. ”Any time you put yourself in the positions he does to get shots, you put yourself at risk,” Piston center Bill Laimbeer would say later.
”But he didn`t go down by himself,” Rodman admitted. ”He came through sideways, and I pushed him down a little bit. I thought maybe I could get him thinking not to drive in there again.”
But Jordan continued to do just that, continued to do it until Rodman decided to ignore Pippen, and Dumars took over as the star of this show. He, of course, is noted most for his defense, but now-in the third quarter and with Jordan surrounded-he decided also to get offensive.
Twelve straight points, that is what he opened this period with, and by the time it was over, he had burned Jordan consistently and totaled 18. ”He saved us,” Isiah Thomas would say of this performance.
”He was a god out there-with a small `g,` ” is what Salley would say.
”I took a couple shots, they went down, and then I started looking for shots,” said Dumars. ”If (Jordan) is going to work that hard on offense, it`s good to make him work just as hard on defense. Hopefully, that way he`ll get tired.”
”He also looked like he hurt in the second half,” added Rodman.
”Yeah, he limped,” concluded Salley, and then he smiled. ”But then he jumped 47 inches off the ground. Remarkable. Like a bird. So, no. We didn`t feel bad when he went to the ground hard.
”Sorry, Michael. I like you and all. But I wouldn`t mind if you didn`t play the next game.”
