Like most everybody else in Chicago and Detroit, I was engrossed in the fourth quarter of Game 6 between the Bulls and Pistons.
A ball went out of bounds off the foot of Rasheed Wallace. He thought it didn’t. He got angry. He drew a technical foul.
Ben Gordon stepped to the foul line for the Bulls. There were 4 minutes 5 seconds to go in Thursday night’s game.
“Wait a second,” I said. “The score is 7-3!”
“What?” a guy next to me asked.
“The score in this quarter is 7-3. This quarter is eight minutes old and the score is 7-3!”
Game 6 and the Bulls’ season ended with one of the most brutal quarters of basketball you ever will see.
We have seen our share of gruesome Game 6’s before, in particular the 2003 date at Wrigley Field that will live in infamy.
This one was right up there. Or make that down there.
In the last quarter of their 92nd game of this season, the air came out of the Bulls’ basketball. The whole team went flat.
Sorry, no return trip to the Motor City because the Bulls ran out of gas.
P.J. Brown had played the greatest first half of his 37-year-old life. His teammates weren’t having a similarly great night, but they nevertheless were holding their own.
When the horn blared to end the third quarter at the United Center, the score was Pistons 74, Bulls 69.
We had a game on our hands. For the first time in this series it looked as if these two teams were going to go at it down to the final ticks of the clock.
Then a crowd of 23,030 and a huge TV audience sat back and watched the Fourth Quarter from Hell.
No one Bull in particular was to blame. Each one messed up equally. Either the whole team was exhausted or it was simply one of those nights when nothing goes right.
Andres Nocioni came downcourt one-on-three but put up a jumper anyway. He missed it.
Luol Deng neglected to box out and Tayshaun Prince took a rebound away from him. Prince scored.
Kirk Hinrich caught a ball at his shoetops and immediately launched a three-pointer. It wasn’t close.
Brown tried to fake a pass. He traveled.
On and on it went. Fans waited for somebody — anybody — to score.
It was 81-72 when the ball went off Wallace’s foot.
Eight minutes into a 12-minute quarter and the score was Detroit 7, Chicago 3.
“We were flat-footed. Anybody could see it,” Bulls coach Scott Skiles said. “We were kind of jogging.”
Desperation set in. Everybody in the house could see the Bulls’ season slipping away.
A young fan on TV was shown with his Bulls wool cap pulled over his eyes.
Hinrich tried to hit Gordon with a pass but threw it away. Deng committed an offensive foul. Ben Wallace missed two free throws. Tyrus Thomas threw away another pass.
Everybody was out of it. Brown didn’t score a point in the entire second half.
“They didn’t let me have the open looks that I had in the first half,” Brown said.
Only a flurry in the last couple of minutes let the Bulls leave the building with a 16-point fourth quarter.
“We ran out of juice,” Skiles said. “We started overdribbling. We were coming off pick-and-rolls and shooting on the way down. We only had 11 turnovers [in the game] but it seemed like a lot more.”
Basketball season in Chicago is over. Baseball season is officially here.
“It’s been a tremendous year,” said Brown, who is contemplating retirement. “This team is right there.”
But that’s next year. This year is done.
The Bulls played some good basketball for 92 games. But in the last quarter of the last game, they could not have played much worse.
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mikedowney@tribune.com
