Phil Jackson has not been shy about expressing his early discontent with the play of his starters. But the sputtering of his first unit is not the only thing that has Jackson thinking these days. He`s not overjoyed with the efficiency of his second unit either and isn`t sure about his rotation, which has been limited to nine or 10 men thus far.
”I`m not comfortable yet with this team,” he said. ”I just can`t find a rhythm, find time for all the big guys. So far, my second-quarter rotation with John Paxson, Scottie Pippen, Rodney McCray, Stacey King and Scott Williams has not worked out as well as I had hoped. That`s still a little bit stagnant out there, so we`ll have to find a little better flow for those guys, and they`ll have to learn to play together a little better, too.”
– Trent Tucker saw his first minutes of the season Wednesday night, though to be exact, it was 50 seconds.
”We`ll have to pick and choose when Trent will get out there until we know exactly what it`s going to be like with him on the floor,” Jackson said. ”But we do know one thing. When he comes out and gets open shots, he`s going to knock them down. That`s a given.”
It was a given against Detroit as Tucker, replacing Michael Jordan midway through the fourth quarter, pumped in a 21-foot jumper 19 seconds later to put the Bulls ahead by two at 76-74.
Tucker says he was prepared for limited playing time and understands.
”This is an established situation,” he said. ”This team has already won two championships. The thing for me is just to fit in and help out any way I can.”
– The Bulls were lucky to defeat the Pistons with Jordan`s last-second shot. How so? Jackson said the Bulls are still running their basic offense, leaving little room for any extras-such as last-second plays.
”We`ve only had maybe two or three practices since the very beginning where everybody has been on the floor,” Jackson said. ”Last night we ran an end-of-the-game situation that we have not practiced yet this year. So I feel fortunate we`ve started out as well as we have.
”We`ve worked in our basic offense, but we haven`t worked in all the nuances. It`s the out-of-bounds, the halfcourt, the last-second shot . . . situational things we haven`t had time to work on.”
– Before Friday night`s game, Jackson reflected on the fragile nature of his team`s 3-1 record-with all four games decided by five or fewer points.
”They know very well we could be 0-4 or we could be 4-0,” he said.
”That`s how different those four games are. They`ve played well enough to feel proud of what we`ve done, but we`ve been lucky enough at the end of games to win three of these games.”
