The Bulls will take the victory, no matter how ugly. At this point, the important thing is to win.
But after their 98-86 victory over the Washington Bullets on Friday at the United Center, which gave the Bulls a 1-0 lead in their best-of-five first-round series, indications are this playoff drive could be tougher than previous ones.
It will be slow. It will be grueling. At times the games will be scrappy, grind-it-out affairs.
“It may be ugly and it may be beautiful, but this is a first step,” Michael Jordan said. “It wasn’t a beautiful game. But I don’t think anybody is in that locker room wanting to give it back. We want to take it and move forward.”
Jordan, who led the Bulls with a hard-earned 29 points, figures there are a lot of positive things to take away from the Bulls’ 10th consecutive playoff-opening victory. They go into Game 2 on Sunday knowing that they won despite shooting just 38 percent from the field. They are 14 victories away from successfully defending their NBA title even after the rest of their starters combined for just 40 points on 14-of-41 shooting.
The Bulls also feel secure in the knowledge that they held off the spunky Bullets while trying to work Dennis Rodman and Toni Kukoc back into the lineup. Both played off the bench, Rodman grabbing nine rebounds in 23 minutes. Rodman, who wore a brace on the sprained knee that caused him to miss the final 13 regular-season games, also was ejected in the fourth quarter after picking up his second technical foul.
Kukoc, who missed 22 of the team’s final 26 regular-season games with a foot injury, was a little more sluggish. He scored just seven points on 1-of-10 shooting, missing all four of his three-point attempts.
Yet the Bulls have a 1-0 series lead.
“There is still some time for us to adjust, and we’re going to have to do that throughout the playoffs,” Bulls coach Phil Jackson said.
The Bullets, making their first playoff appearance since 1988, also take some positives from the game. They hung tough with the Bulls despite committing 22 turnovers, which led to 17 Chicago points.
“We played with them for three quarters,” said Juwan Howard, who led the Bullets with 21 points. “We can play with them. We didn’t play our best, but we can play with them.”
Washington proved that. The Bulls’ lead was just 50-49 four minutes into the third quarter, and the best they could do was 60-51 after Scottie Pippen hit three free throws with 3 minutes 20 seconds left in the period. The lead was 64-56 going into the fourth quarter.
But only when Steve Kerr (13 points) hit a three-pointer with 4:38 to go did the Bulls feel safe. They had an 85-73 lead.
“We gave them some things down the stretch with Kerr and that hurt us,” Washington coach Bernie Bickerstaff said. “We also made some mental mistakes that hurt us.”
Jackson understands that.
“That first game is always a difficult one to get out of the way and we proved that tonight,” Jackson said.
Not that it mattered.
“We take wins regardless of what the scores are,” Jordan said.
Bickerstaff is confident. Sort of.
“They didn’t get our best shot and we didn’t get theirs, so this ought to be a hell of a series,” he said.
