It’s a homecoming for Michael Jordan.
He is back in his home state, where his greatness began taking shape, for the continuation of the Eastern Conference semifinal series with the Charlotte Hornets.
And when action resumes with Games 3 and 4 on Friday and Sunday at Charlotte Coliseum, Jordan will be hoping the Bulls can summon a better peformance than they managed in Game 2, when their 36.5 percent shooting allowed the Hornets to steal a 78-76 victory that evened the best-of-seven series 1-1.
In other words, Jordan has no intention of looking that bad in front of family and friends, many of whom have hit him up for tickets just in case this is his final trip through town wearing sneakers and No. 23.
“It’s always good to go home,” Jordan said. “When I land and my ticket situation is taken care of, hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to visit some people. But I’m there for a purpose. My purpose is to win.”
And under the Bulls’ present circumstances, victory might not come easy.
For starters, they have not looked good in four of their five postseason games. And they’re moving to “the Hive,” where the Hornets went 32-9 in the regular season, including a two-game split with the Bulls that might have been a sweep if a Vernon Maxwell buzzer-beater had gone in instead of rimming out on Feb. 11.
“It’s going to be an interesting weekend for Charlotte,” Bulls coach Phil Jackson said. “They are a team that plays well at home. We expect them to shoot in their range, which is closer to 50 percent.”
That wouldn’t bode well for the Bulls, who have shot 50 percent only once in five postseason games, their 116-101 victory over New Jersey in the series-clinching game of the first round.
The Bulls can take solace in the fact that the performance came on the road. They have played better away from the United Center.
“From my perspective, it’s always great to go on the road,” Jordan said.
No matter where they happen to be, the Bulls have to concentrate on avoiding fourth-quarter letdowns.
Despite their many problems in Game 2, the Bulls led by as many as nine points in the third quarter. But they never pushed the lead into double digits and never took control of the game as Jordan, despite a game-high 22 points, came up empty in the third quarter. When the Hornets finally found the range in the final quarter, shooting nearly 60 percent, the Bulls never recovered.
“We played with a lack of intensity,” said Luc Longley, one of the Bulls’ few bright spots with 15 points off the bench. “I don’t have a good reason, but it was evident. We played like we were waiting for the game to come to us.”
And it never did.
“I just felt the team didn’t recognize the opportunities we had,” Jackson said. “We had an opportunity to push that game to another level in (the third) quarter and go into the fourth with a double-digit lead, and we just didn’t execute.”
What’s the problem?
“Sometimes it’s just focus,” Jordan said. “We seem to have control of the game, and then we lose our grip on it. Next thing you know, the other team is right back in the ballgame. That’s something we have to improve on, but it’s tough. When we’ve had the success that we’ve had over the years, it’s easy to lose focus in situations like that, and we have. It usually takes something like this to wake us up to go back and do what we have to do.”
Which is play better in Charlotte, and for the remainder of the postseason, for that matter. The Bulls lost Game 2 of their second-round series with Atlanta last year and won three straight, including two straight in Atlanta.
“If you go down and win the game on Friday, then you have a great opportunity to double that effect on Sunday and put them in a desperate situation again,” Jackson said. “The third game, that pivotal game, is going to be awfully important to the team that loses, particularly if it’s us. Then we have to come back, against the odds, on our own court.”
These days, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything.
