The Bulls long ago reached their regular-season goal. That was home-court advantage throughout the playoffs, which they secured with their April 7 win over the 76ers.
That, for a normal team, would presage a desultory and perfunctory trek through to season’s end. But the Bulls, as all the world knows, are hardly normal. And so on Saturday night at the United Center, as they affixed a period to their regular season, they confronted the New York Knicks in a game filled with cross-currents deeper than existentialism.
The Knicks being one of their most bitter rivals and the quest for 70 victories guaranteed that it would not be one of those typically mundane exhibitions that close out schedules. Yet there was much more at work.
Take, for example, the Bulls’ mind-set. “We’ve been looking forward to the playoffs for a long time,” Steve Kerr said. “There’s been that sense for the last three months, I think. We know it doesn’t really matter right now.”
Scottie Pippen agreed. “It will be great to get it over,” he said. “The motivation is kind of lost. I think that’s what’s happened to us the last couple of weeks.”
Luc Longley spoke of a “really brutal” last month. “We’ve been looking forward to getting through this,” he said. “We’ll be happy to get it done, and get on with the business end.”
Meaning the playoffs.
But just like that they were taking hard looks at the stakes in this game. A victory would have given the Bulls not only 70 for the season, but also a record-tying home record of 40-1.
It was not to be, but the Bulls’ and Knicks’ pregame comments underscored their awareness of the situation.
“I don’t think the home record is something that’s that big a deal,” Kerr said. “But we would like to win 70. I don’t know if that’s going to be done again, so it would be nice to do it when we have the chance.”
Added Pippen: “It would be great for us. It’s been a long season, and 70 sure looks better than 69.”
Said Longley, “It would be nice to have two 70-win seasons in a row.”
To have the Knicks looming as the means to that end is what transformed Game 82 into an intriguing affair. As far back as last summer they had taken dead aim on the Bulls, grabbing Chris Childs from New Jersey, Allan Houston from Detroit and Larry Johnson from Charlotte in their attempt to catch them.
“We hit the jackpot,” General Manager Ernie Grunfeld claimed at the time. But never during the season have they resembled Lotto winners, their play remaining maddeningly inconsistent.
Initially they begged patience, saying the imported pieces needed time to transform themselves from strangers to teammates. Yet even at season’s end they often played like strangers.
In the last month alone they lost at Milwaukee and at home to Portland, then defeated Detroit at home. And lost at New Jersey, and then won at Orlando and at Cleveland. And lost at home to Orlando, and then won at Atlanta, and then lost at home to Cleveland. And lost at home to the Bulls, and then won at Miami, and then lost at Indiana.
These fits of unpredictability were why they landed at the United Center (where they were 0 for 8) still needing a win to nail down the third playoff seed in the Eastern Conference. And why they thought “we’d be playing this game for higher stakes,” John Starks said.
“But we know they want the 70 wins, and it would be nice to win because we’ve never won since the United Center’s been open,” Starks said. “You want to know that you can win on their home court, and you want them to know that too.”
Added Childs: “We control our own destiny as to where we’ll be seeded.”
“It’s still in our hands,” Patrick Ewing said, and then he stirred the cross-currents by saying, “I think we’re going to beat ’em, definitely. I guarantee it.”
Countered Pippen: “Only Miami has been able to beat us here, and if we can keep (the Knicks) on the back burner, it would be great. It’s definitely a mental dominance for us going into the playoffs. It’s definitely a mental edge for us.”
“We only had one game left, and it was against the Knicks,” Kerr concluded, succinctly summing up why the finale was anything but mundane. “It wasn’t too hard to get up for it.”
