A great hero needs to be offset by a great villain, and the temptation is to say they don’t make ’em like that anymore. Oh, there might be a Michael Jordan on the one hand–allowing him the more human-size heroism of the present day, as opposed to the mythic heroism of a Babe Ruth or a Joe Louis–but they just don’t make ’em like Bill Laimbeer or Rick Mahorn or, for goodness’ sake, Dennis Rodman.
Yet Payton still has the shaved head and carriage of a gangsta rapper. (The day before the game he was accused of smacking around a Chicago chauffeur, a charge his agent denied.) He cruises the court with his jaw jutting forward and his free hand–if he’s dribbling–held fingers outstretched, in the manner of an old-fashioned Universal Pictures thug prowling the dark fringes of a streetlamp. Back in the locker room he talks out of the corner of his mouth (Seattle reporters know he rarely talks at all after a loss) and says he didn’t commit no last-second foul on Jordan, as if he were out to beat a bum rap. In all of sports, only Orel Hershiser of the Cleveland Indians seems more determined in every public moment to rub everyone’s nose in how good he is.
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If the Bulls needed a wake-up call, the NBA schedule supplied them one last week. After a series of patzers–the Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers, and New Jersey Nets in a four-night stretch–they then had to play the Atlanta Hawks, the Sonics, the Indiana Pacers, and the Detroit Pistons in eight days. All are playoff-caliber teams, with the Sonics and Pistons clearly among the league’s elite. The Bulls were still without Toni Kukoc, out with a foot injury that must be given complete rest if he’s to heal in time for the playoffs. And the Bulls embarked on that stretch after a miserable loss in New Jersey–their first really atrocious and inexplicable defeat of the season.
“We weren’t prepared for the intensity they played the game at,” said Chicago coach Phil Jackson afterward. “And that was our mistake, not getting the guys ready as a coaching staff.”
The Bulls hadn’t seen this sort of game all season because teams rarely show their hand before the playoffs. If some NBA coach thinks he’s come up with a way to beat the Bulls he’s apt to save it for when it counts, which is also when the ambushed Bulls have minimal time to adjust. Western Conference teams, however, play the Bulls but twice a year–barring a meeting in the NBA finals–so they’re more likely to pull out the stops, especially in the second game (as was the case with the Houston Rockets in January). The Sonics had already lost to the Bulls in Seattle, and now they were out to save face. In the process, they wouldn’t mind showing teams like Riley’s Miami Heat how to beat the Bulls.
The poor officiating left a bad taste in the mouths of almost everybody, but it rang true with the playoff feel of the game. What mattered was that the Sonics, unlike the Rockets, had shown the Bulls their full range of tricks yet had lost both games this season against them. They looked a demoralized, haunted bunch after the game. The Bulls, meanwhile, felt they had delivered a message–the attitude they also displayed after the wins over the Hawks, Pacers, and Pistons.
