The Madison Square Garden crowd tried its best to rub it in. A couple of guys at courtside attempted to start a “You need Michael” chant as the game wound down, but to no real avail. And there was that aborted “Scottie, Scottie,” taunt that got a bit of air time in the second quarter.
But it was never that fun for New York Knicks fans Sunday. Mostly because it was never that good. In fact, most stuck around to the bitter end not so much to revel in the Knicks’ 86-68 victory, but to make sure they actually pulled it out.
“It was a game I’m sure the NBA was not pleased to have on TV,” intoned Bulls coach Phil Jackson. “It wasn’t pretty to watch and it wasn’t pretty to coach.”
On a court that would give the Bulls their biggest highs in recent years as well as their biggest lows-remember last season’s 112-75 embarassment?-New York was a place, as many players were grumbling by the fourth quarter, they just wanted to get out of.
The numbers in this, the Bulls’ third consecutive defeat, were scary from the start. And in a game like this, the entire story can be told in skeletal terms. To wit:
– Their 68 points marked only the second time in franchise history the Bulls have failed to score 70 or more, though it mercifully fell short of the record of 65, set against Phoenix on March 5, 1975. Something else to be thankful for: It eclipsed by one point the NBA season low, set by Philadelphia.
– The Bulls’ 13-point second quarter and 28-point first half, believe it or not, were not season lows. The home opener against Miami took care of that. But it was a season low for a Knicks opponent for the half and the fewest points for a game since 1985.
– The Knicks’ 17-7 first-quarter rebounding advantage set the tone for their 34-14 first half. In the first quarter, Charles Oakley had as many boards as the entire Bulls team combined, and in the half, the Knicks had more offensive rebounds (17) than the Bulls had total rebounds.
And that, boys and girls, was the story. No rebounding, poor shooting and no real hustle compared to a Knicks team (36-15) that, as usual, stifled the Bulls every move-though you’ll get some argument on that last claim.
“They just came out and knocked a couple guys down,” said Jackson, still miffed at a phantom technical foul late in the third quarter. “No, I don’t think that’s what did it.”
What did it was the Bulls (34-16) never led and never came closer than 12 points after the 8:43 mark of the second quarter.
“You always like to feel you have a chance,” said B.J. Armstrong, who was 7 of 10 for 15 points and the only Bulls player other than Bill Wennington (5 of 8 for 10 points) to have any offensive consistency. “But we just didn’t ever have the momentum and we were never able to gain control.”
“Every time we got it back down to 12,” said Jackson, “something happened and we screwed it up.”
What had to make it doubly frustrating for the Bulls was that while they were flailing away on their end of the court, the Knicks were flaunting their lack of offensive prowess on their own, shooting just 39 percent for the game to the Bulls’ 42 percent.
“They were pathetic,” Jackson said of the Knicks. “They played worse than we did.”
Jackson called the second quarter in particular “disastrous,” and won’t get many arguments after a the 13-point abomination in which the Bulls were outscored 31-13, outshot 45 percent to 35 percent and committed seven turnovers leading to nine Knicks points. Scottie Pippen was 1 for 4 in the period and 2 for 7 for four points in the half, and makes one shudder to think how bad it could have been if he hadn’t come back with 21 points in the second half.
Pippen, who was poked in the eye two minutes into the game and called a 20-second timeout to apply eyedrops, said he was bothered by that all day.
“It was frustrating for me because I was never able to get out of the blocks,” he said. “I couldn’t penetrate, I couldn’t push the ball. I was hesitant. It took me out of my rhythm. And it took a lot of my aggression away because I couldn’t see.”
Charles Smith, who could only take solace in his defensive work on Pippen considering he shot 1 of 12 from the floor, didn’t buy it.
“I don’t want to hear that,” Smith said. “He was crying all night.”
The Bulls, who have another early wakeup call Monday morning for a 2:30 p.m. start against Charlotte at the Stadium, must now ward off a domino affect. They haven’t lost four in a row since February 1990 during a West Coast trip.
“We’re calling this a period of adjustment,” Horace Grant said. “We have to adjust to each other again when everyone gets healthy.”
