Think back, for a moment, to that night in October of 1974, and once more see the 32-year-old Muhammad Ali. In a ring set in the middle of a soccer field in Kinshasa, Zaire, he is matched against 24-year-old George Foreman, a fearsome and menacing figure with lethal fists.
Ali is an overwhelming underdog this night, and through the first seven rounds he appears to be in constant jeopardy. He is passive, pressed back against the ropes, slipping, sliding, constantly under attack and continually just escaping Foreman’s thunder.
But then, in the eighth round, his craftiness is finally exposed, and suddenly there is Ali in all his radiant glory. His punches tattoo Foreman’s face and like that Foreman is down, and out, and Muhammad Ali is once more champion of all the world.
Now consider the last 10 days of the aging Bulls’ schedule. There, twice, are the Milwaukee Bucks, who feature 25-year-old Vin Baker and 24-year-old Glenn Robinson.
And there, too, are the Washington Bullets, who feature 23-year-old Chris Webber and 23-year-old Juwan Howard. And there, as well, are the Minnesota Timberwolves, who feature 20-year-old Kevin Garnett and 19-year-old Stephon Marbury.
“These teams come out after us and try to throw everything they can at us,” 35-year-old Dennis Rodman said of them just hours before unleashing the kick seen ’round the world. “But the thing about us is we’re like a great fighter.
“We time our punches, we time our aggressiveness, and it pays off. Most young teams don’t understand there’re 48 minutes in a game. That there’s two hours in that 48 minutes, and you’ve got to play throughout good times and bad.”
“You sometimes see young teams get carried away,” 33-year-old Bill Wennington says. “They have high energy, but use it at wrong times. In a game, you’re always going to have ebbs and flows, to quote Phil (Jackson), and you have to pick your spots. There are certain times you have to turn up the energy and get things going. There are other times when you really need a defensive stop. Older teams are able to go out there and do that.”
“We’re not a bad team,” concludes Washington coach Jim Lynam. “But here’s what makes the Bulls so special. The fact that people shoot for them, they go on the road and buildings fill up for them, and they respond to that in a very positive way. They’ve been in more big-game situations than you can count, and they’ve responded.”
They respond with the wisdom of their collective years and, just as Ali did on that night in Africa so long ago, adjust, adapt, absorb all that is thrown at them and somehow find a way to win. Baker soared against them, going for 36 points, but they absorbed that and won easily.
Marbury started out afire against them, collecting a dozen points in less than eight minutes, but they absorbed that and then shut him down in the fourth quarter. The Bullets flurried late against them, but they absorbed that and escaped by a point.
“Different teams,” says 31-year-old Scottie Pippen, “try different things against us. But we’re strong enough, veteran enough, to make adjustments within games.”
“We are the oldest team in the league,” notes Rodman. “But we’re also the craftiest and most mature. We know what it takes to get beyond the next step. Teams come in, get us down 16, 17, they’re so caught up thinking, `We got ’em. We got ’em. We got ’em.’ But you have to understand one thing. You’re playing the Chicago Bulls. You’re playing some of the greatest minds in the game.”
This, then, is another of their traits that recalls Ali, who once used his mind to unravel foes just as the Bulls now use theirs to unnerve their young challengers. They, of course, are also as preternaturally talented as Ali once was, and can counter any thunder thrown by young guns with the considerable skills of Pippen and Michael Jordan.
They defend as well as Ali once did (“They’re as good defensively as maybe there’s ever been in this league,” says Lynam), and they apply all the lessons learned through experience as surely as Ali once did. “You can have talent,” Wennington says. “But it takes time for that talent to jell together and everybody to realize their roles.”
“I don’t see any team like us out there, especially the young teams.” Pippen says. “We’re a team, a basketball team. We work well together as a group. A lot of teams have younger player who’re looking for statistics, notoriety, the All-Star team, things like that. We’re a veteran team in a position to overlook all that. We realize they’re going to come with winning.”
“It’s obvious,” says Jackson, “that there’re young kids in this league who have potential. But you can see teams are trying to learn how to win . . . find out what it takes to win consistently night in and night out.”
The Bulls, clearly, know how to do that, and this–one last time–again makes them so comparable to Muhammad Ali. For, with their success, they have been transformed into outsized figures, and now stand in Ali’s place as the most-recognizable faces in the sport’s firmament. The world covets viewing them as it once coveted viewing Ali, and everyone, especially the young ones, wants to be the one to knock them on their collective crowns.
“That’s why,” Pippen says, “we can’t overlook any opponent. We realize every team is going to be up for us because of us being America’s team and having fans in every arena. That makes it very difficult for us.”
“They know that every time they play,” concludes Minnesota coach Flip Saunders, “that it’s the biggest game of the season for the opposition. I think that’s where they draw their strength. They rise to the occasion almost like they’re a bunch of entertainers on a concert tour.
“They look at it as another performance. They are so competitive that it’s almost like they can’t help themselves but to give what they have to give.”
