Perhaps Scottie Pippen put it best when, after realizing Dennis Rodman would be out for a while with a calf injury, he said the Bulls are now like they were last year.
That’s when the Bulls struggled against teams they were supposed to beat, especially with no bad guy to do the dirty work in the lane. That’s how the Bulls looked Saturday night against the Portland Trail Blazers while trying to get off to the best start in franchise history. Portland’s Cliff Robinson was able to score at will in the paint.
Nevertheless, the Bulls overcame 39 points by Robinson and pulled out a 110-106 victory for a 5-0 record. Michael Jordan led the Bulls with 36 points, including five key free throws late in the game–he went 14 of 15 from the line. Pippen added 21 points.
Robinson had 10 points in the third quarter, a quarter in which the Bulls had just one lead–60-59 with less than 2 minutes gone–after a pair of Jordan free throws. But the Blazers led 77-70 with 3:35 left in the quarter on a Robinson three-pointer. They also had a seven-point lead, 81-74, on a Harvey Grant dunk with 1:36 left in the quarter. Still, the Bulls outscored the Blazers 9-2 to close out the quarter and trailed 84-83 going into the final quarter.
The Bulls’ problems are supposed to be nothing compared to what’s going on in with the Trail Blazers, who met the Bulls in the NBA Finals in 1992. The team is in disarray, with several players unhappy with second-year head coach P.J. Carlesimo. The most vocal of the group has been Rod Strickland, who had a well-publicized run-in with Carlesimo last season.
All that stuff didn’t matter Saturday, although the Bulls had the Blazers down early. They led 20-10 midway through the opening quarter on a Dickey Simpkins layup. They led 31-17 with 1:17 left in the first quarter on a three-pointer from Jud Buechler, and it looked like the Bulls were going to romp, with a 31-21 lead at the end of the quarter.
But the Bulls had another tame second quarter, magnified by Robinson’s ability to score at will on Simpkins, Kukoc and anybody else guarding him. Robinson had 13 second-quarter points and ended up with 21 at the half.
He helped the Blazers erase a 12-point deficit to pull within 40-38 with a jumper at the 6:30 mark of the quarter. The Bulls slowly built their lead back up to 48-40 after Pippen’s 15-footer with 3:48 left in the half, but the Blazers scored the next eight points to knot things at 48-48 on a Chris Dudley layup with 2:09 left in the half. The Bulls had a 54-52 halftime lead.
Everybody knows what they have to do during Rodman’s hiatus. Simpkins, Jason Caffey and Kukoc are the logical ones in his spot, but the rest of team also has to crash the boards
That happened on Thursday, when Simpkins started in Rodman’s place. Simpkins was looking to score more than Rodman does, which accounted for Simpkins’ 12 points and just four rebounds.
“It’s an expectation of me playing solid,” Simpkins said. “That’s what Dickey Simpkins is, he’s a solid player. If there’s an opportunity to score, then I’m going to score. If there’s an opportunity to rebound or play defese, then that’s my job.”
Pippen turned out to be the most active Bull against the Cavaliers, leading the team with 13 rebounds along with 18 points and 12 assists. No surprise there inasmuch as Pippen led the team in scoring, rebounding and assists last season.
But the rest of the rebounds were equally distributed among the rest of the team, as the Bulls ended up outrebounding the Cavaliers 43-34.
The Bulls had problems matching that kind of effort against the Blazers on Saturday. Simpkins had just two points and a rebound in 13 minutes in the first half. Luc Longley found himself on the bench with just two minutes gone in the opening quarter after picking up his first foul. Longley played just five minutes in the first half, but had three fouls.
