It’s easy when you win. Easy to rationalize, to overlook the bumps along the way. To forget.
And when the Charlotte Hornets whined about their 3-1 first-round series loss in the NBA playoffs, it gave the Bulls one more reason to look forward, not back.
But Michael Jordan was doing very little celebrating Thursday night. And as the Bulls head into the second round against the Magic, beginning Sunday in Orlando, he voiced some very real concerns about the team’s future prospects.
“I know overall, we have to play 48 minutes of better basketball as we move further and deeper into the playoffs,” he said. “If we don’t, our exit is going to be very quick.”
Against the Magic, who defeated Boston 95-92 behind the 23-point performance of Horace Grant, the Bulls go to work with two days rest against a team they were 1-3 against this season. But all of the Bulls were looking forward to the Sunday start.
“I think a day’s rest is about all you want in this business,” said Bulls coach Phil Jackson. “You want to play every second or third day. That’s a real advantage for us.”
But no one is under any delusions that it’s going to be easy.
“Talent-wise, I don’t think there’s anybody close to them in the league really,” guard Steve Kerr said of the Magic. “They just have so much talent. They’re going to be tough. They’re big and strong and quick. They’ve got people who can guard Scottie and Michael in Hardaway and Nick Anderson. They have the size and strength to match up with those guys and Horace has just killed us on the boards this year, so it’s a tough matchup.
“But they are inexperienced and that’s something we have as an advantage.”
Jordan hopes he’s right.
“We really have to worry about ourselves,” he said. “If we come out and play like we did in the second half , it won’t matter who we play. . . . The other players must realize that Charlotte was one game, one series and you don’t get anything for going past the first round.”
Jordan’s biggest concern repeats an old theme. The Bulls nearly sent the series back to Charlotte for Game 5 with a disasterous third quarter Thursday. And a big part of that was poor offensive execution caused by too much reliance on Jordan.
The difference is that Jordan was so disturbed by that, and his own contribution to it, that he asked out of the game himself and confessed that he never felt so put upon.
“I’ve never been in a situation like that before and it really made me feel pressured,” he said. “That was the first time I really felt that pressured from my teammates. I’m under pressure all the time, in life and in general, but on the basketball court, I’ve always been able to thrive on it.
“But I just felt that was not what I wanted. It wasn’t what the team wanted. Even though the city wanted me to do everything, I just felt really uncomfortable about the position I was being put in and even though I was trying, I didn’t feel comfortable.”
Jordan accepted part of the responsibility, saying he tried too hard during a 1-for-4 third quarter and 3-for-10 second half. But he was troubled by the future ramifications.
“We must bond together for us to be strong,” he said. “One guy cannot feel the pressure. Two guys cannot feel the pressure. If this team is going to be successful in the playoffs, we must take the pressure off each other.
“When I took myself out in the third quarter and Toni and Pippen started hitting threes and started stepping up for themselves as if I wasn’t around, that’s the attitude that must be carried out for the remainder of the playoffs. Even though I am around and am going to make my presence known, they must have the attitude of aggressiveness they had before I was here.”
Jackson pointed to several areas in which the Bulls can improve. For the series, B.J. Armstrong and Kerr, who averaged a combined 22.2 points and 17 shots per game during the regular season, combined for 17-of-38 shooting (45 percent), an average of just 12 points and 9.5 shots per game.
“We’d like to see more shots but unless they get shots, they can’t have a productive night,” said Jackson. “And in this last series, Charlotte was willing to just take the ball away from them by overplaying and not letting them touch the ball. And as a result, we went other places and won the series. So everybody has to sacrifice a little bit in the process of winning and those two guys in particular don’t get the ball often enough or as often as they would like, so shooting wasn’t there for us.”
Jackson said the Bulls also need continued production from Kukoc, who had a 22-point Game 3 and a 21-point Game 4 after 17- and nine-point games in the first two contests in Charlotte. “We were very pleased with how Toni played and told him we have to have that type of play and aggressiveness, attacking the ball and getting the rebounds and going to the basket and making those passes,” he said. “To be aggressive consistently from one game to the next was the most important thing he showed.”
No doubt, the Bulls benefitted from the experience of playing and defeating a tough Charlotte team without home court advantage.
And that relief was palpable Friday.
“In the playoffs, you have to be happy just to win,” said Kerr. “No matter what it looks like, you just have to survive. And now we’re anxious to get to the next round.
“In a way, the pressure is kind of off now because everybody was saying the Bulls are going to beat Charlotte and Charlotte is really a good team. They had the home court advantage and 3-1 was a great series win for us. Now, Orlando is obviously going to be favored. We know we can play better and yet we just beat a good team in the first round, so we’re pretty upbeat about it.”
