Maybe, deep down inside, the Bulls always wanted to win it at home, on their own court.
Instead of celebrating in front of a bunch of strangers here at Key Arena, maybe they wanted a more homey party at the United Center.
Nope. That’s not the way the Bulls planned things. They wanted to bring the trophy home and let fans get their first glimpse of it at some victory party in Grant Park. But the Seattle SuperSonics had something to say about that. They don’t want to watch the Bulls celebrate at all, let alone in their building.
With that in mind, the Sonics went out and ruined the Bulls’ plans. They sent the best-of-seven NBA Finals series back to Chicago, pulling to within 3-2 in the series with an 89-78 victory in Game 5 at Key Arena.
The Bulls, who suffered a 21-point blowout in Game 4 here on Wednesday, lost back-to-back games for the first time since February, when they dropped games in Denver and Phoenix.
The final leg of the Bulls’ title run now comes down to the home-court advantage they worked for all season. Game 6 will be Sunday at the United Center. Game 7 is in Chicago, too, if necessary. And if the Bulls play the way they did in Game 5, that last game just might turn out to be necessary.
“We’ve got a series now and we’re ready to get back to Chicago and take them on,” said Bulls coach Phil Jackson. “The plan was to come out here and win a game. We won the first one and obviously they were able to rally back for these last two games.”
It’s a series now in large part because of the Bulls, who had problems with their three-point shooting for the second straight game. They were an abysmal 3 of 26 (11.5 percent) from the three-point arc, missing 20 straight during one critical juncture of the second half. The Bulls weren’t much better when it came to two-pointers. They ended up shooting just 37.7 percent from the field for the game.
And when it came to “Michael Jordan Time,” where Jordan takes over the game and makes all things right with the Bulls, he couldn’t bail them out.
Though Jordan led the Bulls with 26 points, he scored just two points in the final period. Friday was a bad day for that to happen, with the Bulls playing through a more than four-minute stretch when they went scoreless, missing eight straight shots. Six of those shots were three-pointers.
The Bulls had pulled to within 71-69 with eight minutes, four seconds left. But during their drought, the Sonics used an 11-0 run to effectively seize control of the game. When Hersey Hawkins (21 points, two three-pointers) scored with 4:22 left in the game, the Sonics were up 82-69 and a few minutes away from moving the series back to Chicago.
“We just didn’t want them to celebrate on our court,” said Sonics guard Gary Payton, who led Seattle with 23 points and, more important, helped tire Jordan out when it came to the fourth quarter. “They have to go to Chicago for all that. But if we play the way we played in Games 4 or 5, we’ll be OK.”
Which, in part, meant making Jordan work as hard as possible for his shots. Payton wore him down, with help from Hawkins and Detlef Schrempf.
“When they double-teamed me I had to move the ball away and move it around,” Jordan explained. “We just weren’t capable of knocking down our shots, which was very evident in the way we shot the ball in the second half.”
The Bulls also have to be concerned with the condition of Ron Harper, who played just one minute in Game 5 and has played a total of 15 minutes the last three games because of tendinitis in his left knee. Toni Kukoc started in his place again, scoring 11 points.
But with Harper on the floor, the Sonics have to work harder to get their offense in gear. He has guarded Payton for most of the series. It’s no coincidence that Payton’s two best games have come when he didn’t have to worry about Harper.
“Ron gives us a big defender and he gives us a player that plays without the ball and moves out the ball when operating on offense,” Jackson said.
And the Bulls also have to be worried about the play of Scottie Pippen. He had just nine points in Game 4 and was 2 of 16 from the three-point arc in the back-to-back losses.
“There were a couple of situations that he maybe rushed a shot–maybe hurried it up,” Jackson said. “But we kept encouraging him to shoot because he has to shoot for us to play well.”
Despite all those problems, plus eight first-quarter points from Shawn Kemp (22 points), the Bulls were tied with the Sonics 18-18 after the first period. Jordan then scored 11 of his first-half points in the second quarter, knotting the score at 39-39 with 2:20 left in the half on a driving layup. The Bulls trailed just 43-42 at the break.
The Sonics attempted to break the game open in the third quarter when they took what, at that point, turned out to be the biggest lead of the game. The Bulls shot just 38.9 percent but the Sonics never led by more than seven points–51-44–on a pair of Kemp free throws with 8:02 left in the quarter. But the Bulls trailed 62-60 going into the final period.
That’s when things fell apart. Now the series goes on, with the Bulls playing at home, where they lost just twice during the regular season. They have yet to lose there in the playoffs. They can take some consolation in the fact that no team has ever come back from a 3-0 hole to win an NBA Finals series.
Sonics coach George Karl prefers to not think about that kind of stuff.
“But I’m not going to strut up here and say something stupid like this isn’t an unbelievably tough challenge,” Karl said. “It’s one game and that’s all we have to worry about.”
