Part III, May 1-May 7

The Bulls and Wizards get together tomorrow for Game 4 in D.C., with the Bulls holding a 2-1 series lead. The home court has been held thus far; the Bulls took a teeter-totter Game 2 113-103 before getting drubbed in Game 3 117-99. Ouch. Still, the Bulls look good. Game 2 saw Your Chicago Bulls down 21-10 in the first before turning things around and running out to a twenty point lead midway through the fourth. Captain Kirk put together a brilliant performance, scoring 34 points to lead the Bulls to victory. Hinrich put up 21 of those 34 in the fourth, including a classic playoff sequence in which the Bulls pushed the lead from 11 to 20 behind four buckets from their leader. Hinrich got a jumper, a layup, and a pair of threes in the first three and a half minutes of the fourth, the latter of which put the Bulls up 93-73 and set the U.C. faithful into a tizzy. Washington mounted a comeback of their own behind their star and leader, the electric, eclectic, and magnetic Arenas (39 points), who knocked down a three with a buck and a half to play, cutting the Bulls’ lead to 107-101. But it was the steady hand of Captain Kirk that guided the Bulls to victory. He answered Arenas’ three with one of his own, and then converted a pair of free throws to put the Bulls up 11.

Back in Washington, though, things were different. After trailing 57-55 at the half, the Bulls put up a clunker of a second half, getting outscored 60-44. All of the key stats pointed towards a Wizards’ victory:

Washington got big performances from their All-Stars, with Arenas, Hughes, and Jamison combining for 74 points, but the big surprise for the Wizards was reserve forward Etan Thomas, who contributed 20 points and nine boards in 23 minutes of play off the bench. The Bulls, meanwhile, were mediocre across the board, with Tyson Chandler’s 15 points leading the team. Nobody of note shot well. Both Kirk and Noce went 5-11, with Gordon shooting 2-9, A.D. going 4-11, and Duhon 3-8. Even bench gunner Jannero Pargo got into the act with a putrid 2-10 performance, including a 1-7 mark from behind the arc. Doo-fair.

So it’s on to Game 4 tomorrow, with the Bulls trying to steal one from Washington before returning to Chicago for Game 5.

Robby Dennis calls. Bad news. He and Karoline broke up. Or, more appropriately, she broke up with him.

“Man,” I say, searching for the right words to cheer him up, “man, dude.”

“Well, it’s about all I could think of as well.” He laughs. “No sweat.”

“Well, I guess it came down to religion. She wants to send our kids,” he pauses, correcting himself, “her kids—she wants to send her kids to Catholic school. And I just couldn’t do it. Catholic kids, fine. Going to church, deal. Believing in Jesus…whatever. But Catholic school was just too much.”

“I know you do. It’s just too much. I need something neutral in the middle there. Ya know?”

“Right. So we had it out, and she said that it was very important to her to send her kids to Catholic school, and I told her I couldn’t do that, and that’s that.”

“Yeah, me too. This…this just sucks. I’m glad she figured this out—I’m sorry it took two years, but it’s the type of thing that you just don’t know for sure until you go through it and get close to it being a reality.”

“So I’m not mad at her. I’m glad she was straight forward about it. I’d’ve been pissed if she’d bullshitted me. It just…it just sucks. That’s all I can say. I can’t even say. It just sucks.”

He senses this, and continues. “It’s like if being a Cubs fan actually mattered, and actually made a difference, and actually meant one damn thing. That’s what it’s like. That’s what I feel like right now.”

I’m sitting in my basement, having just watched one of the great gut-wrenching Bulls games of all-time, and all I can think is that I finally know what this feels like. Gilbert Arenas gave the Wizards the win and a 3-2 series lead with a buzzer beating jumper not ten minutes ago, and as he was mobbed in celebration by his teammates while the United Center faithful stood in shock and disappointment, all I could do was think of Cleveland. And Utah. And New York. And Phoenix. I racked my brain, trying desperately to locate a game in my vast ocean of Bulls memories in which my team had lost at the hands of a last second shot, and for the life of me I could not come up with one. Certainly in all my years as a Bulls fan, I must have at some point watched a game in which the other team won with a game-winner, but obviously it was not a game that mattered. All I could think of was MJ over Russell, and Pax in Phoenix, and MJ over Ehlo, and Kerr against the Jazz, and Ben Gordon’s floater over the Knicks, and MJ over Gerald Wilkins, and always Jordan, again and again and again, until you get to the point where it’s not even dramatic. I remember Michael’s last shot so vividly…Bulls down three, Jordan gets a layup, Bulls down one, Jordan gets a steal, and then down the court he comes and we’re all just waiting for it, everybody’s waiting for it, and then he pulls up and hits like we all knew he would. I didn’t jump up and down in excitement. I didn’t high five anyone. I clapped my hands and smiled. “Good ol’ Mike. Always hittin’ game-winners.” This was a shot that had just given us a championship. It may as well have been a first quarter free throw. We all had a pretty good sense that this might be it, and so did Jordan, as he stood with his arm raised after the shot swished through so that everyone could take in the moment, so that the photographers could get their picture. When all you do is win, your thinking becomes skewed. We were excited for the shot, not because it gave us the lead, but because it was such a perfect image and because it ended the dynasty “the right way.” We were excited for another Bulls title, not because we won a championship, but because it provided symmetry. Two three-peats evenly spaced out over eight years. How perfect.

But then there’s the other side, the part that always gets lost, because you can’t have a winner without a loser, and you can’t have elation for some without dejection for others. What was so routine for us Bulls fans was tragic for the Jazz fans. There you are, a Jazz fan in your own arena for Game 6 of the NBA Finals. A minute earlier, you were up three points and heading to Game 7. Now it’s over. Now you realize that in the end, the only purpose your lead served was to make the game more memorable…for us. You’ll remember this Jazz team for the rest of your life. Stockton and Malone, Hornacek, Russell, and Ostertag, a smart feisty team led by a coach of the same vain, Jerry Sloan. The Jazz have already retired Stockton’s number 12. It won’t be long before Malone’s 32 is hanging beside it. To you, those guys were legends, but to us, they were just another in a long line of teams that did nothing more than provide the Bulls with an opponent. That’s all. Different teams, same result. Bulls win. Bulls win. Bulls win.

After that shot, Sports Illustrated ran a cover photo of Jordan’s game-winning pose from the front, face towards the camera, no one else in the frame. That’s how it was for us. But the better picture is the one from behind, because it’s that picture that shows the full truth: Utah fans behind the basket, their hands on their heads and their mouths dropped to the floor and an empty look in their eyes that screams with pain. It’s like the realistic side to an action movie. As a viewer, your concern is John MacClaine, and at the end of Die Hard Bruce Willis limps off the screen, wife in his arms, a hero to all. Cue happy music, the credits roll, and everyone leaves the theater having had a rip-roaring good time. But what about the innocent people killed along the way? Sure, they don’t matter to us, the viewer, because we understand that an action movie requires some innocent people to be killed, because bad guys kill innocent people, because if they don’t then they’re not bad guys and then John MacClaine need not worry about them and he can instead spend his Christmas kicking back by the fire drinking and having a good time with his family. But then we wouldn’t have a movie, would we? So for the good of the movie, innocent people must be sacrificed. The front desk man shot in the head at the start of the first movie, or the people on the plane that crashes and explodes in the second movie, or all of the cops who are mowed down by bad guys before Bruce saves the day. Aren’t their families devastated? Do they care that MacClaine is OK when they’ll never see their loved ones again? Of course, it’s an action movie, so we don’t ask those kinds of questions. They’re totally irrelevant. But you see my point. As Bulls fans, we expect Michael to hit his shot and we expect the Bulls to be victorious, and that’s all that matters to us, just as we expect John MacClaine to limp away laughing at the end of each movie. MacClaine wins. His wife survives. And all under two and a half hours. Perfect.

So now here I am sitting in my basement, and now I know what it feels like. My throat is still quite sore from yelling during the Bulls twenty-two point comeback, a comeback that accomplished nothing more than to give Gilbert Arenas a stage for a dramatic shot. The fourth quarter threes from Pargo, Kirk, and Ben—five in all—and the put backs and rebounds from Tyson and all of the cheering from the Bulls bench and the fans at the United Center, all of it led to one thing: Washington fans were treated with a memorable victory. And so my dad, with whom I watched the game, posed an interesting question to me, one I’ve yet been able to answer: “Would you have been happier had they lost by twenty?”

It’s such a different feeling, getting blown out and losing at the end. I may be an intense sports fan, but in no way do I actually equate a basketball game to actual life and death matters. That being said, the best way I can describe what these kinds of losses feel like is with life and death matters. Getting blown out is like having an old family member die of cancer. It’s horrible, certainly, but it gives you time to prepare for the end, because it’s only a matter of time until the clock runs out. You get time to come to terms with the end and what it means long before it happens. Losing a game not in a blowout but just because the other guys were clearly the better team is like losing a family member to old age. It’s easier to accept because there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s “just the way things are.”

Then there’s losing a game the way we lost today. When you lose a game at the buzzer after battling back from a twenty two point blow out, it’s like having a family member get cancer, then having that person fight until the cancer is in remission, having them get out of the hospital, and then having them get hit by a bus the next day. Things are bleak, and then you’re given just enough good to get your hopes all the way up, and then they’re dashed cruelly and quickly, and a part of you is left wondering why fate had to mock you in such a nasty manner. “If only Washington had just pulled away, I wouldn’t have to feel quite so terrible now.”

My dad, on the other hand, did not go through what I went through, because he wrote this team off long before the final buzzer sounded. He wrote them off at halftime when we went into the locker room down 63-49, and again with a minute to play in the third when we were trailing 86-68, and again with eight and a half to go in the game down 94-82, and again with just under four to play down 102-90, and finally with 42 seconds to play down 108-98. My dad wasn’t giving up necessarily; he was just being realistic and accessing the facts. What my dad saw was a feisty yet clearly undermanned Bulls team that didn’t have the fire power to hang with the Wizards. He saw a team that didn’t look like it had much of a spark in the first half, just as they didn’t have much of a spark in the two losses in Washington. While I was fired up and ready for a comeback built on desperate threes that were finding ways to drop through, my dad, ever the realist, knew that games can be won on one or two desperate threes, but not on six or seven or eight of them.

So my dad wasn’t out of breath when Arenas took his game-winner, and he wasn’t in shock when the ball dropped through, and he wasn’t depressed by the final score. The facts pointed to a Washington victory, facts like their 56.1% shooting mark or their 49-36 rebounding edge or their two (and if Hughes had been healthy all year, three) All-Stars compared to our team of role players. Having measured up the facts, and having seen the way both teams had played for the first three quarters—as well as since the start of Game 3—my dad was sure that a Washington victory was in the stars. How we got there was not important, because he knew that every Bulls spurt and every Tyson dunk and every Pargo three was just delaying the inevitable. The movie will provide good drama and shocking twists and an outcome that’s in the balance until the final scene, but John MacClaine will live and Hans Gruber will die because that’s the way these things go, and having watched the Bulls for three quarters, it was clear to my dad that on this night, they were John MacClaine and we were Hans Gruber.

But then why rent the movie? What’s the point of watching? Of course we know how it’s going to end, but knowing that the ship would sink didn’t stop Titanic from grossing over 600 million dollars in the U.S. box office, and knowing that John MacClaine will live and Hans Gruber will die does not stop people from enjoying Die Hard. I get excited when MacClaine falls down the elevator shaft, and I get excited when he has to run barefoot across a floor covered in broken glass, and I get excited when all of his options seem to be gone and yet he finds a way to win, because the movie is well made, and because I’m not watching it to see Bruce Willis happily limp off screen. I’m watching it to see why he’s limping, and why he’s happy. I’m a smart guy, and a reasonable guy, and I know as well as my dad does that the Wizards have more basketball talent than do the Bulls and that you can’t win games with nothing but lucky shots. But maybe you can, and so I put my heart into the game and cheer throughout, even when things get bleak, even when we’re playing poorly, even when I know that the Bulls will need to get awfully lucky to win this game. Sometimes that kind of hope and emotion pays off with a win, like it did when Illinois beat Arizona. And sometimes it doesn’t. But you watch and you cheer and you enjoy every moment, because otherwise there’s really no point.

The Bulls closed the third quarter on an 11-2 run to cut the Wizard lead to thirteen, and when the horn sounded my dad stood up to refill his water. “Well,” he said, as he walked to the sink, “it’s on to Game 6.”

“We’ve been coming back the whole game. The Bulls just don’t have it tonight. I wish they did, but they don’t.”

So now we head back to Washington, where we’ve lost ten in a row and two straight playoff games and where our season might come to an end in Game 6. Things aren’t looking good for the Bulls right now. The losses of Curry and Deng are starting to show, and with Washington getting All-Star contributions from their All-Stars and solid games from their role players, the Bulls look like they might be in trouble. After dominating Games 1 and 2, talent may have caught up with the Bulls. It could be what Rick Telander called it yesterday on the Score: a delayed sweep. But then again, maybe it’s not. Game 6 is Friday, and a win in Washington brings the series home for Game 7. Can the Bulls rebound and even the series? I don’t know, but I’ll be watching.

It must have been something for her, hearing the news and knowing that she had the responsibility to tell my brother and me. I can imagine her downstairs, getting ready for her day in the classroom and making our sandwiches and listening to the radio as she would on any other morning, and then comes the report, and her own personal reaction, and the sudden decision that had to be made of how to tell us. This wasn’t a death; a family member, or even a pet, passing away. This wasn’t a building getting bombed or a country going to war; it wasn’t a house burning down or a near-fatal car accident. This was just a man deciding that he no longer wished to play professional basketball. That’s all it was. Yet she knew it was more than that, we all knew, the city knew, and so she walked up the stairs and stepped into our room and gave us one last moment of innocence before telling us what we never thought possible.

“Boys, I’ve got some bad news.” We stopped what we were doing and looked at her. “Michael Jordan retired.”

At first I thought she was kidding, because any news as drastic as that must surely be a joke. But the look in her eye told us that she was serious, and I didn’t know what to say. Athletes had retired before, guys who we wished would play forever, but not guys like this. Not guys who were not only at the top of their game, but also at the top of everyone else’s. Not guys who had won seven straight scoring titles. Not guys who had gone to nine straight All-Star games. Not guys who had won three straight championships. Not guys who were only 29-years-old in the prime of a Hall of Fame career, not guys a month away from what would be another glorious season, not guys who were the biggest star in the game, in their city, in the world. Not Michael Jordan.

When I got to school that day, I found that most of my classmates were going through exactly what I was going through. Kids walked the hallways stunned, in a daze. Teachers did their best to keep students on the ball, but even they knew that this was no ordinary day. Two of my friends made a sign that read “Say it ain’t so, Michael!” and carried it around from class to class for all to see. Everywhere you turned you saw JORDAN 23 on somebody’s back, as kids had undoubtedly heard the news that morning and then changed clothes in order to…to what? Support him? Mourn him? Celebrate him? We weren’t sure. There are some events that have an immediate impact, even while we attempt to sort out the meaning and make sense of our emotions. This was one of those events. This wasn’t like Jordan’s second retirement in January of 1999; that was expected. He was 34 by then, the NBA was in the midst of its lockout, and everyone had a pretty good feeling that 1998 would be his final season. No, this retirement was a shock. It was a blindside tackle. It was your girlfriend dumping you on Valentine’s Day, or going in for a promotion and getting fired instead. A month before the season, with the Bulls looking stronger than ever, with fans wondering if we would become the first team to “Four-Peat” since the Celtics finished off their run of eight straight in 1966, and the greatest player the city has ever seen walks away from it all. When something like this happens, it makes you question all kinds of things; your universe is altered. It’d be like waking up one morning and finding out that gravity had disappeared. Michael Jordan’s first retirement felt like an alteration of the immutable laws of physics. Life would continue, the world would go on, and basketball would still be played, but in Chicago we wondered what the three would be like without Michael Jordan. What did it mean? Is nothing guaranteed? With this in the books, what other crazy mind-blowing events would take place? Would they rename Wrigley Field? Maybe we’d go to the ballgame one day and find that the Cubs were now playing at ’69 Mets Field, or Comiskey Park II. In a world where Michael Jordan plays for the Chicago Bulls, that could never happen. In a world where Michael Jordan retires one month before the season starts despite the fact that he’s only 29 and is still quite clearly the best player in the NBA, the impossible is possible and reality is faulty and everything we know as sports fans, and dare I say, human beings, must be questioned.

But perhaps Jordan’s timing was actually a good thing, because instead of having a whole summer for everyone to sit around and think about it, the team and the fans had but one month before the season started. The 1993-94 season promised to be an interesting one, with lots of questions to be answered. Could the Bulls win four in a row? Would MJ be the same after a difficult 1993 postseason in which the press came down hard on him for gambling, and after the horrible murder of his father? Would the team be burned out in another bid for a title? How would the “Croatian Sensation” Toni Kukoc fit in with Jordan, Pippen, Grant, and the rest of the team? All of those questions and more, however, were replaced on October 6, 1993, with the biggest question of all: how would the Bulls fare without Michael Jordan?

For me, the answer to that question was simple: the championship Bulls were more than just one man, and the 1993-94 team would prove that. I was in the minority, though. Lots of people were writing these Bulls off, most notably the Chicago media. I remember the Tribune’s season preview, with the “experts” all picking the Bulls to free fall in the standings. I remember one of the previews very specifically. I don’t remember who wrote it—Melissa Isaacson stands out for some reason, but I could very well be wrong—but I do remember the words, very clearly, something to the effect of this: “Record: 41-41. Reason: The Los Angeles Clippers were 41-41 last year, and the Bulls without Jordan are the Los Angeles Clippers.” Did that writer honestly believe that? Did he (or she) think that you could simply add MJ to the ’92-’93 Clippers and make a champion? The brilliance of the Bulls was not just that they had the best player in the league, but also the best coach, the best second man/teammate, the best bench, the best GM, the best coaching staff. Michael was among the best in the biz, certainly, but so were Scottie, Phil, Krause, and Tex in their particular areas. The Bulls would not be a championship runaway, but they would still be contenders. Just you wait. Just you wait…

…and indeed, I was proven right, though not at first. Twas a tricky start, with Pippen now The Man, and Kukoc trying to mesh with the Americans. A year earlier, the Bulls were 8-2 after ten games; in the 1993-94 season, the Bulls started 4-6. The critics were all over them, but by the forty-game mark the Pippen-led Bulls of ’94 were actually a game better than were the Jordan-led Bulls of ’93.

For the tenth straight year, a Bulls guard was voted a starter on the Eastern Conference All-Star team, but this time it was B.J. Armstrong instead of Michael. B.J. joined Scottie in the East’s starting lineup, and Horace Grant joined B.J. as first-time All-Stars from the Bulls. Scottie scored a game-high 29 to capture the game’s MVP award while leading the East to a 127-118 victory.

This was the story of the season: Scottie emerging from the shadows of Michael Jordan as a legit MVP while Michael’s famous “supporting cast” demonstrated just how vital they’d been to the Three-Peat Bulls. This was, in a way, The Godfather Part II making due without Brando. Scottie put together his best all around season, with career highs in points (22.0), assists (8.7), and steals (2.9). He was named All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career, and was named to the Defensive First Team for the third straight season. But the most important statistic for Scottie Pippen in 1994, the hands-down, balls-out, far and away most important stat, was the Bulls’ record. Led by Michael Jordan, the 1992-93 Bulls won 57 games…and led by Scottie Pippen, the 1993-94 Bulls won 55 games. That was good for the third seed, only two games behind both New York and the surprising Atlanta Hawks.

Two wins. The Bulls lost the best player in the league, and were able to reproduce all but two wins. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Clippers went 27-55, last place in their division. 41-41, indeed.

In the first round of the playoffs, the Bulls met a familiar foe. The Cleveland Cavaliers—the bizarro world Team of the ’90s—were on their last legs, with the 1993-94 season serving as a last stand for most of the old standbys, including Price, Daugherty, Hot Rod, and Larry Nance. The classic patsies Lenny Wilkens and Craig Ehlo had both scattered to the Hawks, and now the Cavs were heading to Chicago for yet another showdown with the (now-Jordanless) Bulls. This would finally be the year, the year that Cleveland would overcome the Bulls, the team that had dominated and toyed with them and made their basketball lives miserable lo those many seasons. Finally, Cleveland, finally this would be the year…

Bulls sweep easily, winning Games 1 and 2 by a combined eighteen points before finishing the Cavs off in Cleveland 95-92. Meanwhile, the Knickerbockers were squaring off with their tri-state rivals, those pesky New Jersey Nets, a team that they would dispose of in a tightly contested four game series.

Now was the time. Bulls vs. Knicks. Fourth consecutive postseason meeting, fifth since 1989. True, there was little pressure on YOUR World Champion Chicago Bulls…they were the lower seed, facing off against arguably the best team in the league, and doing so without Michael Jordan. They had already accomplished more than nearly anyone thought that they would. And yet, there they were, ready for more, with a chip, as always. In 1991, it was Detroit, pure and simple. In 1992, it was the desire to go back-to-back. In 1993, it was the audacity of critics and fans considering them to be underdogs against both New York and Phoenix. And now, in this glorious 1993-94 season of NBA basketball, it was the desire to prove themselves as successful basketball players without the services of arguably the greatest player in the history.

The Chicago Bulls. The New York Knicks. The basketball that was played over the next two weeks would be among my favorite hoops of all-time.

To say that this was a hard-fought series is to say that Hunter S. Thompson probably did some drugs. The Bulls and Knicks were notorious for their physical, bang-bang postseason battles. The 1994 East semifinals would be no different. The Knicks took Games 1 and 2 at the Garden, winning by scores of 90-86 and 96-91. The Bulls played well…and yet it was clear that this was a different team than the ones that had won the past three NBA titles. Beyond the loss of Jordan, the ’94 Bulls also saw former starters Pax and Mr. Bill getting old. Meanwhile, the team was incorporating many new talents into their lineup, most notably Toni, Luc, Steve Kerr, Bill Wennington, and Pete Myers. These were men who had yet to truly experience the postseason, and Games 1 and 2 were their own personal basketball fire baptisms. The Knicks were beyond physical in these two games, with The Enemy John Starks even resorting to tripping Scottie after he beat him on a fast break. It was The Clothesline all over again, and just as they had the year before, the Bulls went back to the Stadium down 0-2.

The final five games of this series would be defined by three plays, all of which would involve Scottie Pippen.

Game 3, Knicks up 2-0, score tied at 102, Bulls’ ball, 1.8 seconds remaining.

As far as his fiercist critics are concerned, Game 3 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Semifinals is the defining game of Scottie Pippen’s Hall of Fame career. The Bulls were fighting for their playoff lives, literally and figuratively, as Game 3 featured a classic hoops brawl when New York’s Derek Harper and the Bulls’ reserve guard Jo Jo English began a tangle that ended up with both teams entwined and spilling into the stands—right in front of the Commish David Stern, who was in attendance. Whoops!

The game went back and forth, and finally, with 1.8 seconds remaining and the game tied at 102, the Bulls went to the huddle to see the play that Phil had drawn up. Much to the surprise and dismay of Pippen, Phil wanted his MVP candidate to inbound the ball to Kukoc, the Rook from Europe, rather than shoot it himself. Scottie pouted, sat himself on the bench, and watched as Toni knocked down the jumper to win Game 3.[1] The Bulls were victorious, back in the series, and the Pippen Detractors had their proof. On the bench after the game, a distraught and nearly tearful Cartwright chastised Pippen for his selfish play.

Game 5, series tied at 3, Bulls leading 86-85, Knicks’ ball, end of the fourth.

With the Bulls up one in the crucial Game 5, the Knicks’ Hubert Davis launched a desperate trey from the top of the key. Scottie defended beautifully, with a long arm and a hand in his face. The shot missed badly. The Bulls would close out in Chicago…

Hollins blew his whistle, signaling a foul on Pippen, sending Davis to the line, and effectively turning himself into one of the great outside villains[2] of Chicago sports. Bill Laimbeer, John Starks, Charles Martin…say hello to Hugh Hollins.

Davis knocked down both shots, the Bulls failed to score—though they did have a possession, and enough time…everyone forgets this—and the Knicks escaped with the win and a 3-2 series lead.

By Game 6 of this series, the Bulls had experienced two beat downs in New York, one agonizing win, one easy win, and one horribly agonizing loss. The Bulls knew what a crippling Game 5 loss could mean in a 2-2 series: their defeat of New York a year earlier—the Charles Smith Game—sucked the life out of Ewing and the Knicks…the Bulls winning easily in Game 6…Pippen’s pointer finger extending to the rafters, knowingly victorious…

This time around, it was the Bulls who were coming off of the Game 5 loss. In its own way, the Hugh Hollins-Scottie Pippen-Hubert Davis Phantom Foul Call was as improbable and inexplicable and mind-bendingly awful as Charles Smith having four consecutive shots blocked cleanly under the basket…two of which, incidentally, were blocked by Pippen. Perhaps Hugh Hollins’ foul call was simply retribution from the basketball gods. Perhaps.

Still, odd twists of (possible) fate aside, players still have to play. Bartman didn’t kill the Cubs; Alex Gonzalez did. Buckner didn’t kill the Mets; Game 7 did.

And once again, it was Pippen making the defiant statement. A year earlier, it was his #1 off the trey. This time, it was one of the great in-game dunks ever.

With the Bulls already up big midway through the third, B.J. pushed the ball on the break. The play developed quickly into a 3-on-3 situation, with B.J., Scottie, and Pete Myers on the attack against Ewing, Starks, and Derek Harper. With Myers streaking on the right, Armstrong grooved him a perfect bounce pass. Harper fell as the pass crossed him up, but Starks was able to get nice position in front of Myers. Myers, however, was a step ahead, and rather than trying to continue his offensive pursuit of the basket, he stopped short and swung around to his right to dart a chest pass to Pippen. This pass gave Ewing (who had been plodding slowly up the court) just enough time to get right under the basket in the middle of the floor, and as he filled the lane Pippen caught the pass.

Suddenly, Pip was in the air. Ewing’s jump was reactionary, and a moment late, and Scottie extended his picturesque basketball body, viciously engulfing the Knicks’ big man. Ewing raised his arms, and Pippen threw down the archetypal Tomahawk Jam, slicing his long arm between Ewing’s. Pippen’s legs came on either side of Ewing’s body, and as he slammed the ball down, an off-balance and totally overwhelmed Ewing fell backwards…but Pippen was still coming, and the Bulls’ MVP stepped right over Ewing, pushing him backwards further as he came down. Ewing swatted feebly at Pippen, like a frustrated younger brother does after his older brother has just given him three dead arms in a row.

That entire play, more than any other play, symbolized what the 1993-94 Chicago Bulls were all about. A complete team effort with everyone contributing, and then Pippen, the forceful, final, punishing punctuation mark. That dunk made the possibility of losing Game 7 barable…

…and yet, we went into Game 7 with confidence. There was a feeling among Bulls fans that all was well; The Ewing Dunk was one of the great statement plays in my memory, right there with Elway’s Helecopter Leap, Torii Hunter’s smashing of Jamie Burke, Michael’s dunk on Ewing in the ’91 playoffs—the one when he maneuvered around and away from a baffled Stark and Oakley before attacking Ewing on the baseline—and, yes, Starks’ baseline jam over MJ and Horace. At the very least, we knew that there was no longer any doubt in the basketball world that the Bulls could not just hang with the best teams in the league; they were good enough to win a championship. And now that we were confident that everyone else now agreed with us, we felt good.

That was the feeling after Scottie’s dunk. We had three wins in the series, we had one loss heavily inluenced (but not decided) by a horrible foul call, and we had taken care of business at home and sent the series back to New York. If the Knicks were going to win, it was going to be due in large part to their home court.

On the day of the game, James Park was in full gear. It was a Sunday, late May, and we were nearing the end of our regular season. I was playing for Maday Auto Body that season, as I had the year before, and though nearly every team played on Sundays, most of us were more focused on Game 7 than on our own games. I remember sitting on a set of bleachers, huddled with a large group of people, kids and parents alike. Somebody had brought a portable television. We sat, quietly, and watched our Bulls lose Game 7. The last time we had seen them eliminated in the postseason, it was another Game 7, against Detroit, in 1990. The famed Scottie Pippen Migraine Game, the start of the Pippen-bashing. Now, here we were, four years later, and Pippen had been The Man. He had been the Bulls’ rock all season, despite Game 3. He had seen a call go horribly wrong against him, and rather than crumbling, he rose above, making sure that a referee’s whistle would not define his season. He had brought us all with him—his teammates, his coaches, and Bulls fans everywhere—and as the final ticks ticked off of the Bulls’ 1993-94 season, Bulls fans applauded. I remember sitting there, watching the end of the game, and being at peace with the outcome.

The game ended, the Bulls lost…and we smiled, and went back to our fields. It was such a cool feeling, because the situation was so different than the past three years, and yet in many ways it felt the same. It had been a great season, and a great team. Still to this day, one of the best I ever watched.

The Bulls have just lost Game 6, 94-91, and I am strapped with an incredible feeling of loss. No second round series with Miami. No Game 7 at home. After leading for most of the game and playing the kind of basketball that helped us earn the fourth seed in the East, the kind of basketball that had evaded us during Games 3, 4, and 5, the Bulls fell apart in the final two minutes and dropped a heartbreaker to the Wizards.

I watched the game at my house, alone. My parents were having dinner at the O’Haras’, and though they invited me to come along, I didn’t really feel like it. I also had an offer to watch the game at Ben’s dorm in Lake Forest, but I didn’t feel like making the half hour drive up there. So I watched it at home, on my couch, on my TV, and that was fine. I decided to tape the game, so that just in case we lost I’d have a tape of this Bulls team, but as the game got underway things were pointing to a Game 7. The Bulls came out hot and got off to a nice lead, and though Washington was able to tie it up it was clear that we were playing our brand of ball. We were playing great defense, getting into the passing lanes and challenging shots, we were beating them on the glass, and we were hustling to loose balls. We led by three after one, by two at the half, and by six going into the fourth quarter. We were playing Chicago Bulls basketball.

But Washington wasn’t going away, and they stayed close enough throughout so that I was never able to get too comfortable, even though it felt all the way like it was our game. We were ahead, we were ahead, and then as I realized that we weren’t going to pull away and make it an easy win, it dawned on me that this might be the last chance I would get to watch this Bulls team play. Suddenly, things were more serious, and I focused in completely, not because the team needed my total concentration, but because I needed the team. I still felt like we were on our way to Game 7, but just in case…

Then the wheels came off. As Kirk went for what looked to be an easy layup, Arenas made an impossibly athletic clean block from behind, knocking the ball off the backboard and sending Hinrich to the floor. Washington gained possession, and Larry Hughes’ layup cut the Bulls lead to two. Jamison stole the ball from Hinrich on the Bulls’ next trip down, and then hit a long deuce on the other end to tie the game at 91. The teams traded missed shots and the Wizards missed a couple of free throws, but all the while it was the Bulls who looked frantic, and after a game filled with smart play and smart decisions, things fell apart. As Kirk prepared to inbound the ball to a streaking Chris Duhon, Du looked away and Kirk threw it in, bouncing the ball off of Duhon’s back. Jared Jeffries scooped up the loose ball and charged down the floor for an easy dunk. Then, down two, Pargo missed a quick three, and Juan Dixon grabbed the rebound and went to the line on a Hinrich foul. Dixon hit one of two, and suddenly the game had turned all the way around. Panic set in; this was the end. The Bulls came down, Noce missed a three, and then in a final sequence that typified the Bulls’ late-game collapse, Tyson rebounded the miss with four seconds to go and shot up a two instead of kicking out for a potential game-tying three. The ball fell into the arms of Arenas, who tossed it into the crowd as time expired. Wizards 94, Bulls 91. Game over.

In a way, these details are all inconsequential. This isn’t like Illinois losing to North Carolina, where they had a chance to win a championship. I didn’t expect the Bulls to get out of the second round, and I’m not that upset that we lost to the Wizards. Washington is a very good team, and they played great basketball for four straight games. It would’ve been great to see this team advance to the second round, but losing in the first in no way detracts from what we did all year. This season is still a huge success, any way you cut it. No, the loss that I feel right now, that I feel throughout my body, is from knowing that there are no more games to be played for the 2004-2005 Chicago Bulls. That’s what sucks the most. I’d love it if we could go out and play Miami, but really I’d just love it if we could go out and play tomorrow. Any time. Any gym. Any opponent. They can scrimmage against the Charlotte Bobcats for all I care. I just want to see them play again.

I want to see Captain Kirk, all floppy haired and sleepy eyed, pulling up for three on a fast break and igniting the United Center crowd. I want to see Tyson, long and slender and full of ferocity, extending his seven foot frame as far as it can reach as he stretches for a rebound and roars after a blocked shot and celebrates with the front row fans after another exciting Bulls win. I want to see Ben Gordon, knifing through defenders and lofting up floaters that look like they’ll kiss the Jumbotron before they dance sweetly through the net, changing the way we think about the fourth quarter. I want to see Chris Duuuuuuuuhon in his defensive squat, arms out and eyes on his man, ready to swat away a dribble and lead a fast break. I want to see Noce, barking and yelling at teammates and opponents, diving for loose balls and exploding into the lane for a game-changing dunk. I want to see Eddy, lumbering down the court before catching a ball in the post, and in one motion turning and slamming it down so hard that the defenders know next time to just get out of his way. I want to see Luol, a man with limbs from here to the Pacific, rushing in front of passing lanes and running the break and gracefully dropping in finger rolls that start from the foul line. I want to see A.D., the old man of the group, battling for rebounds and defending his guys and smiling as he realizes what a special group this is. I want to see Othella and Pike and Griffin and Pargo waving towels from the bench, not caring if they get in, but knowing that when they do they’ll get the team going with a rebound or a box out or a pull up jumper or a spot up three. And I want to see Coach Skiles working the sideline, keeping the guys focused but loose, because they know what he wants and he knows that they’ll come through for him when he calls their number.

One of the big advantages of professional sports is that teams get to grow up together and play together and win together for more than four years. Win or lose against North Carolina, the 2005-06 Illini were sure to be a very different team than the 2004-05 Illini. That team will always be remembered, will always be special, due in part to the fact that fans knew that their time with that team was limited. Pro sports are different. This Bulls team will improve, and they will be back, and come November we’ll all be ready for the next step. We’ll come out of the gate determined and prepared, maybe have an All-Star or two, grow stronger as a team and as individuals and have another exciting playoff run. We’ll get to a point where the playoffs aren’t the goal, but the expectation, and we’ll go to a conference championship where we have to prove all over again that we belong with the best, and maybe, just maybe, a trip to the NBA Finals, where we can all laugh and cheer and talk about what a ride it’s been and how sweet it is to be here after all these years. But we’ll never have this year again, this 2004-2005 season. We’ll never again have this exact group of guys, never again be the regular season Cinderella story, never again go from 0-9 to the postseason, never again see the expectations change so dramatically that a loss in Game 6 of the first round would be deemed a disappointment in a season that began with fans hoping only for thirty wins.

So the season is over, and while the playoffs continue and the Bulls get ready for the summer, I say thank you. Thank you for never quitting, no matter what hole you were in, be it down 27 in the opener to New Jersey or languishing at 0-9 and 4-15 or losing your leading scorer down the stretch or trailing by 22 in Game 5. Thank you for back-to-back wins against the Knicks, for giving us that special feeling all over again, for showing us what a proud basketball team looks like. Thank you for winning with defense and hustle and heart and emotion, not to mention skill and speed and athleticism. Thank you John Paxson, for having the vision and courage to put together a team that played the way you thought the game should be played, for choosing passion over potential and finding players that we could be proud of. Thank you Scott Skiles, for coming into a tough situation and showing that hard work and commitment can be just as rewarding as contracts and highlights. Thank you Chicago Bulls, our 2004-2005 Chicago Bulls, for giving us reason to cheer and a season to cherish. Thank you.

[1] I remember being really annoyed by the media coverage of this game. They replayed Toni’s shot over and over and over and over and over again, so many times that when I picture it I don’t simply see Toni turning and hitting, but I see Steve Kerr slowly raising his arms towards the heavens in celebration and disbelief. This was a great shot, but I didn’t want to see the replay again and again. I wanted to see a replay of the Jo Jo-Derek Harper brawl, because the camera wasn’t on them when it started, and I wanted to see how it started. But no, I get Toni over and over, and all I really want from them is to throw a great fat picture of him hitting that jumper on the front page of the Trib sports, so I can cut it out and put it on my wall. So what happens? The Trib runs a nice fat picture of the brawl.

[2] Inside guys like Bill Wirtz, Michael McCaskey, and Jerry Krause (who I like) are in a different category.