Mind Games by Roland Lazenby

Author:Roland Lazenby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SPORTS & RECREATION/Basketball
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2013-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

The Fourth Championship

After battling all season to be crowned NBA champions, the Chicago Bulls climbed close enough to see their glittering prize, only to discover they’d have to sit back a while and twiddle their thumbs.

The matter of winning their fourth title developed into a waiting game over late May and early June. Their sweep of Orlando in the Eastern finals set up the problem. The Seattle Sonics had taken a 3–1 lead over the Utah Jazz in the Western finals, only to watch the Jazz fight back and tie the series. The net result for the Bulls was a nine-day layoff waiting for Seattle to claim the seventh game so that the championship round could begin. At last, the 1996 NBA Finals opened on Wednesday, June 5, but even that didn’t mean the Bulls’ waiting was over. What lay ahead were several unexpected delays in Seattle.

The Bulls were 10-to-1 favorites to defeat the Sonics, who had won an impressive 64 games during the regular season—which meant that the Finals carried the anticipation of an unfolding coronation. The NBA had credentialed approximately sixteen hundred journalists from around the globe to cover the event. The whole world would be watching, which had become standard procedure for just about all of Jordan’s performances, particularly since the Bulls had added Rodman as a court jester. The team’s resident rebounder did his part by showing up with a wildly spray-painted hairdo, a sort of graffiti in flames, with various red, green, and blue hieroglyphics and symbols scribbled on his skull.

As with every other Bulls opponent, Seattle’s big concern was holding back Jordan, who was asked by reporters if he could still launch the Air raids that made him famous. “Can I still take off? I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t been able to try it because defenses don’t guard me one-on-one anymore. But honestly, I probably can’t do it … I like not knowing whether I can do it because that way, I still think I can. As long as I believe I can do something, that’s all that matters.”

As an added measure, Seattle coach George Karl had hired recently fired Toronto coach Brendan Malone to scout the Bulls during the playoffs. Malone, during his days as a Pistons assistant, had helped devise the infamous “Jordan rules” to help defeat Chicago. The Sonics hoped that his perspective might help them find a deployment to slow down Jordan, who had averaged 32.1 points during the playoffs.

“You have to try to match their intensity,” Malone advised. “Forget Xs and Os. They are going to try and cut your heart out right away, right from the first quarter.”

For Game 1, the United Center crowd greeted the Sonics with a muffled, impolite boo that seemed to imply a lack of respect. In keeping with this mood, Rodman ignored Seattle forward Shawn Kemp as they brushed past each other heading toward center court for the opening tip.

The Sonics opened the

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