Bill Wennington was a basket case at crunch time Tuesday night. And that was a good thing.
Wennington sank three of four second-half jumpers to help the Bulls nail down a 104-98 victory over the Indiana Pacers at the United Center. Not bad for a guy who wasn’t even on the postseason roster last year.
“It’s nice to go out there and contribute offensively,” Wennington said. “Obviously, that’s what I do. I guess that’s why I’m around, so I can hit open jump shots. I feel I’m doing fairly well on defense. I’m not the best guy to cover Rik Smits, but I feel I’m doing a decent job.
“I’m doing everything I can to get my small 7-foot body around his 7-foot-4-inch body. It’s tough out there sometimes.”
The Bulls trailed 52-45 at halftime but seized control in the third quarter when they outscored Indiana 33-22.
Indiana’s bench of Antonio Davis, Derrick McKey, Jalen Rose, Travis Best and Mark Pope outscored the Bulls’ reserves of Wennington, Dennis Rodman, Randy Brown, Scott Burrell, Steve Kerr, Jud Buechler and Dickey Simpkins 27-13.
“We just go out there and try to do a job,” Wennington said. “We know that we’re not going to get a lot of minutes out there. But we’re put in to do a job to try to stop someone or get the offense going or get the defense going.
“We have a lot of guys who are sitting on the bench that I think would play a lot more on other teams.”
The Bulls’ trump card, of course, is Michael Jordan, who scored 41 points.
“Michael is such a tremendous athlete,” said Wennington. “He has such control of his body that when he goes up for a shot and a guy hits him, he’ll regain his balance in the air and be able to have a nice soft release.”
The Pacers, now down 0-2 in the series, wound up with four players in double figures. But the Bulls’ defense kept Reggie Miller (19), Chris Mullin (18), Antonio Davis (14) and Smits (17) in relative check.
“Defensively, we’re trying not to give (Smits) easy baskets,” Wennington said. “We push him off the blocks, front him as much as we can. We wanted to limit his touches, and I think we’ve done a fairly good job at that. Obviously, by pressuring (point guard) Mark Jackson, we’re making it difficult for them to get the ball into the low post.”
But Wennington’s strong suit is his soft shooting touch from 12 to 15 feet out.
“We were rotating around a lot and when the ball came around to me at times, I was in the spots I like to shoot from,” said Wennington. “We (big men) don’t want any credit; we just want to win.”
