ELEVEN RINGS Part 11

The action s.h.i.+fted to L.A. for the next three games. In game 3 Michael tied the score with 3.4 seconds left in regulation by driving the ball to the free-throw line and nailing a quick jumper. Then we regrouped and grabbed a 10496 win in overtime. Two days later our defense completely dominated the Lakers in game 4, holding them to their lowest point total-82-since the arrival of the shot clock, and we took a 3-1 lead in the series. Magic called it "an old-fas.h.i.+oned a.s.s-kicking."

In game 5 we were ahead most of the way, but midway through the fourth quarter the Lakers fought back and took the lead. I wasn't happy with what I was seeing. Despite our discussions, Michael was still leaving Paxson in limbo. So I called a time-out and gathered the team together.

"Who's open, M.J.?" I asked, looking directly into Michael's eyes.

He didn't answer. So I asked him again, "Who's open?"

"Paxson," he replied.

"Okay, so find him."

After that exchange, the game turned. Michael and others started delivering the ball to Paxson, and he responded by hitting 4 shots in a row. The Lakers drew within 2 points with a little over a minute left. But I noticed something different as Michael moved the ball up court. I expected him to make a move toward the basket, as he usually did in this kind of situation. But instead he was luring the defense in his direction and trying to create a shot for, yes, Paxson. It was a sweet ending. John nailed the two-pointer and we went on to win, 108101.

This was a profound moment for me. Eighteen years earlier I had won my first champions.h.i.+p ring as a player in this stadium-the Los Angeles Forum. Now I had just won my first ring as a coach, and best of all, we had done it by playing the game the same way my Knicks team had played.

The right way.

CHAPTER 8

A QUESTION OF CHARACTER

The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

TOM WAITS

You'd think it would get easier the second time around, but that's not how it works. As soon as the cheering stops, the dance of the wounded egos begins. Former UCLA head coach John Wooden used to say that "winning takes talent, to repeat takes character." I didn't really understand what he meant until we started our second run for the ring. All of a sudden the media spotlight turned in our direction, and everyone connected to the Bulls whose name wasn't Jordan began to vie for more attention. As Michael put it, "Success turns we's back into me's."

The first glimmer I got of this came when Horace unloaded on Michael in the media for skipping out on the champions.h.i.+p celebration at the White House. Attendance was optional, and before the event, Michael had informed Horace that he wasn't planning to attend. Horace didn't seem to have a problem with it at the time, but when we returned from Was.h.i.+ngton, he told reporters he was upset that Jordan hadn't shown up. Michael felt betrayed by Horace but chose not to respond to his comments. I presumed that Horace had been hoodwinked by reporters into saying something he didn't believe, so I didn't fine him. But I warned him to be careful in the future about saying things to the press that might be divisive to the team.

Horace wasn't the only player who was envious of Michael's fame, but he was the most outspoken. He had a hard time understanding that I had no control over Michael's celebrity. It transcended the Bulls and the sport itself.

As soon as the White House kerfuffle ended, another controversy arose that had a much longer-lasting impact on the team. It surrounded the publication of Sam Smith's best-selling book The Jordan Rules, an account of the 199091 champions.h.i.+p season that tried to demythologize Michael and provide an inside look at the secret world of the Chicago Bulls. Smith, a smart, hardworking reporter whom I liked, based the book on his coverage of the Bulls for the Chicago Tribune. Some of the anecdotes portrayed Michael and Jerry Krause in a less-than-flattering light.

Michael wasn't happy with the book, but he shrugged it off, presuming, no doubt, that it wasn't going to have a serious impact on his public image. However, Krause was far less detached. One night shortly after the book came out, he called me into his hotel room during a road trip and started ranting about Smith. He said he had uncovered "176 lies" in the book and pulled out his heavily marked-up copy to prove it. As soon as he started pointing out each alleged lie page by page, I cut him off, saying, "You've really got to let this thing go, Jerry."

But he couldn't. Jerry had been suspicious of reporters ever since he got caught in a media flare-up in 1976 that caused him to lose his position as executive of the Bulls after just three months on the job. He was in the middle of hiring a new head coach for the team when the papers reported that he'd offered the position to DePaul coach Ray Meyer. Jerry denied it, but the story wouldn't die. Disappointed by Jerry's handling of the situation, Bulls chairman Arthur Wirtz let him go.

As the weeks went by, Jerry became obsessed with trying to suss out who had been Sam's primary source for the book. There were dozens of sources, of course. Sam talked regularly with almost everybody connected with the team, including owner Jerry Reinsdorf. I arranged for Krause to meet with Sam and try to work things out, but that conversation went nowhere. Finally Jerry concluded that a.s.sistant coach Johnny Bach was the main culprit. I thought that was absurd, but the suspicion lingered and figured in Johnny's dismissal years later.

This was the first c.h.i.n.k in my relations.h.i.+p with Jerry, which until then had been extremely productive. I was grateful to Jerry for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to coach the Bulls. I also admired the way he'd constructed the team, recruiting the right talent to complement Jordan, even though he often took a lot of heat from Michael and others for the moves he made. I enjoyed working with Jerry on creating the first incarnation of the Bulls' champions.h.i.+p team, then rebuilding it later after Michael returned from his baseball sojourn. One thing I liked about Jerry was that he always sought a wide range of perspectives from coaches, players, and the scouting staff before making key decisions. He also placed great importance on finding players with a high degree of character and was relentless about digging into a potential recruit's background to find out what he was made of.

Early in my tenure as head coach, Jerry would greet the players on the first day of training camp and tell the same story, which summed up how he envisioned our relations.h.i.+p. Jerry was an only child, and when he was young, he said, he tried to play his parents against each other, going back and forth between them until he got the response he wanted. One day his father figured this out and said, "Look, Jerry, don't ever come between your mother and me. We have to sleep together." I'd roll my eyes when he told this story and say something like, "Sorry, Jerry. No can do"-and it would get a good laugh.

Obviously I had a different vision of how we should work together. I wanted to be supportive of Jerry, and I spent a lot of time mediating between him and the players. But I didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize the bond of trust I'd developed with the team.

Most of the players resented Jerry for one reason or another. It started with Michael. During his second year with the Bulls, Michael broke his left foot and had to sit out most of the season recovering from the injury. At a certain point, Michael insisted that his foot was fully healed, but Jerry refused to let him play until the doctors gave him the final okay. When Michael pushed back, Jerry told him that management had made the decision because he was their property, an unfortunate gaffe that alienated Michael and tainted his relations.h.i.+p with Krause from that day forward.

Other players had issues with Jerry too. They didn't like the way he stretched the truth about his past achievements as a scout to make himself look good. They were also annoyed when he became obsessed with recruiting Toni Kukoc, a promising forward from Croatia who Jerry predicted would be the next Magic Johnson, even though Toni had never played a game in the NBA. Scottie and Michael felt that Jerry's flirtation with Toni, who later signed with the Bulls, was an insult to his own players, and they went out of their way to crush Kukoc and the Croatian national team during the 1992 Olympics.

Most of all, the players were put off by Jerry's constant attempts to hang out with them and be one of the guys. His short, roly-poly physique didn't help his case, either. Michael nicknamed him "Crumbs" because of his less-than-perfect table manners and often poked fun at his weight and other idiosyncrasies when he rode on the team bus.

This kind of tension on a team always makes me feel uneasy. When I was a kid, I hated discord of any kind. My older brothers, who were less than two years apart, fought constantly, and I was the peacemaker. My father used to discipline my brothers with his belt, and I remember sitting at the top of the cellar stairs bursting into tears listening to them get their whippings.

The way I handled Jerry was to keep things light. I knew that his overreaction to The Jordan Rules stemmed from his feeling that he wasn't getting the credit he deserved for building this great team. I understood. But I couldn't fix it, so I tried to s.h.i.+ft his mind with a touch of humor and compa.s.sion. I also tried to keep our relations.h.i.+p as professional as possible. As the team's fame grew, the rift between Jerry and me widened. But professionalism sustained us. Despite the turmoil, Jerry and I were able to stay focused and get the job done.

With the players it was a different matter. I told them they needed to tune out the distractions-whether they came from the media, Krause, or another source-and focus their attention on winning a second champions.h.i.+p. To that end, I redoubled my efforts to turn practice into a sanctuary from the messiness of the outside world. "We were a very popular team," says Scottie. "So we had to secure and protect each other. We couldn't have people bringing their friends to practice and bugging guys for autographs. Because if you can't have freedom of life with your teammates, where are you going to get it?"

As the team turned its attention inward, the bond among the players began to re-form. The "me's," to use Michael's phrase, slowly transformed into a powerful We-and one of the strongest all-around teams I've ever coached. The system was clicking, and our defense was unstoppable. We got off to a 15-2 start and finished the season with 67 wins, 10 more than anyone else in the league. Our biggest losing streak was two games. At one point, Reinsdorf called and said, "I hope you're not pus.h.i.+ng the team to break the record." No, I told him, it was just happening spontaneously. B. J. Armstrong said he felt the Bulls were "in tune with nature" that season and that everything was fitting together "like fall and winter and spring and summer."

Then came the playoffs. After beating Miami in three games, we faced a tough New York Knicks team, coached by Pat Riley, who had done a good job of turning the Knicks into a new version of the old Detroit Pistons. In fact, Riley had hired a former Pistons defensive coach, d.i.c.k Harter, to bring that kind of toughness to the Knicks. The NBA had put up with the Bad Boys of Detroit for the past five years, and after we'd dispatched them the previous year, there had been a collective sigh around the league. Muscle ball was out and finesse basketball was slowly coming back in vogue. Still, the Knicks had a powerful front line-made up of Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, and Xavier McDaniel, with Anthony Mason as the backup. Their strategy was to use their muscle to dominate the boards, slow down the tempo of the game, and take away the fast break. Their most effective weapon, however, was Riley's ability to spin the media. He had learned a lot in L.A. about using the press to play the refs, and he fired his first salvo before the first playoff game. His point? If the refs didn't get enamored with M.J., he said, and called a fair game, the Knicks would have a chance to win. I fired back, saying that Ewing was getting away with murder, taking extra steps every time he drove to the basket. The battle was on.

I've always felt comfortable talking with reporters because I spent so much time hanging out with them during my playing days with the Knicks. I also learned from some of the stupid mistakes I made. In my first year as a starter-197475-the Knicks took off on a roll, but we didn't have much depth and finished the season with a disappointing 40-42 record. So I told reporters that we might have made the playoffs, but we were "still losers." That was the big headline the next day: "Jackson Calls Knicks Losers."

My other gaffe was even worse. During a fight between the Lakers and the Rockets in 1977, L.A.'s Kermit Was.h.i.+ngton threw a punch at Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich that smashed his face and nearly killed him. I told reporters that I thought it was an unfortunate situation but that I'd narrowly ducked a similar blow from 76er George McGinnis a week earlier and n.o.body had even noticed. "It seemed you had to be a star to get the league to notice," I complained. I still wish I could take back those words.

The Knicks outmuscled us and got an easy ride from the refs en route to a surprising win in game 1. Early on Scottie Pippen severely sprained his ankle and the game slowed down to the Knicks' pace. We bounced back in game 2, lifted by several key shots by B.J. Armstrong. And Michael broke loose from the Knicks' crowbar defense to allow us to take back home-court advantage in game 3.

Horace compared game 4 to a World Wrestling Federation match, and Michael said the officiating was so bad he thought it would be impossible for us to win. I blamed the refs and got thrown out in the second half, as the Knicks took over and won, 9386.

My bad-boy side came out in the postgame interviews. I said, "I think they're probably licking their chops on Fifth Avenue where the NBA offices are. I think they kind of like that it's a 2-2 series. I don't like 'orchestration.'... But they control who they send as referees. And if it goes seven, everybody will be really happy."

Riley loved it. I had just handed him the perfect opening. The next day he told reporters that I was insulting his team. "I was part of six champions.h.i.+p teams and I've been to the finals 13 times. I know what champions.h.i.+p demeanor is about. The fact that he's whining and whimpering about the officiating is an insult to how hard our guys are playing and how much our guys want to win... . That's what champions.h.i.+p teams are about. They've got to take on all comers. They can't whine about it."

The New York press bought it wholesale. The next day the papers were filled with Phil the Whiner stories. Before then New York fans had treated me like one of the family, even though I now worked for the enemy. But after Riley's holier-than-thou speech, they started hurling catcalls at me in the street. It was strange, but I realized there was nothing I could say to undo what had been done. Winning was the best revenge.

It took us seven games. My Lakota friends told me that I should "count coup" on Riley before game 7, so I did. As I walked by the Knicks bench, I stopped and reached out my hand to Pat and said: "Let's give them a good show." He nodded, a little nonplussed that I was talking to him. As it turned out, the game was a good Michael Jordan show. Early on Xavier McDaniel was pus.h.i.+ng around Scottie, who was recovering from his sprained ankle, so Michael stepped in and confronted the bigger, stronger power forward until he backed down. (I was so impressed by the way Michael defended his teammate, I later hung a picture of the stare-down over my office desk.) In the third quarter Jordan stymied McDaniel with one of the best turnaround plays I've ever seen. It started when Michael hit a jumper, then stole the Knicks' inbound pa.s.s and started driving to the basket for another quick 2 points. But Xavier knocked the ball out of his hands and charged downcourt for what looked like an easy layup. Except that Jordan was on his heels and knocked the ball away from behind just as McDaniel went up for the shot. That play destroyed the Knicks' spirit, and they never got close again. Afterward Riley graciously summarized what the Bulls had done. "They played like they are," he said.

Still, nothing came easy. After winning another hard-fought series against Cleveland, we faced the playoffs-hardened Portland Trail Blazers in the champions.h.i.+p finals. They were a fast, dynamic team led by Clyde Drexler, whom some observers not based in Chicago considered on par with Jordan. Our plan was to play strong transition defense and force them to beat us with their outside shooting. M.J.'s plan was to show the world that Drexler was no Michael Jordan. Michael was so determined Drexler's teammate Danny Ainge later told author David Halberstam it was like watching "an a.s.sa.s.sin who comes to kill you and then cut your heart out."

We came out strong and won the opener in Chicago, then let the next game slip away in overtime. Rather than take a late-night flight to Portland, as the Blazers did, I decided to fly the team out the next day and give them time off rather than make them slog through practice. The next day we burst out and took back the series lead, 21. After splitting the next two games, we returned to Chicago with a chance to put the series away on our home court.

The Blazers were on a roll in game 6, running up a 17-point lead in the third quarter. Tex insisted that I take Jordan out because he had gone rogue and wasn't playing within the system. I usually pulled Michael out two minutes before the end of the third period, but this time I took him out early and left the reserves in longer because they'd gone on a 142 run, helped by M.J.'s backup, Bobby Hansen, who threw down a key three-pointer. Michael was not happy when I didn't put him back in at the start of the fourth quarter. But I liked the backup players' energy and enthusiasm, and the Blazers seemed baffled about how to defend them. By the time Michael and the other starters returned to the game, the lead had shrunk to 5 points and the Blazers were reeling. Michael scored 12 of his 33 points and Scottie made some key shots to finish them off 9793.

Bring on the champagne. This was the first time we'd won a champions.h.i.+p at home, and the fans went wild. After the traditional craziness in the locker room, I led the players back to the floor to join in the celebration. Scottie, Horace, and Hansen jumped on the scorers' table and started to dance, and Michael followed, waving the champions.h.i.+p trophy. It was a joyous celebration.

After a while I returned to my office to reflect on what had just transpired. Later, when I met with the players privately, I told them that winning back-to-back champions.h.i.+ps was the mark of a great team. But what pleased me even more was that we'd had to navigate so many unexpected twists and turns to get there. Paxson called the season "a long, strange trip," referring to the famous Grateful Dead song. He was right. Our first champions.h.i.+p run had been a honeymoon. This was an odyssey.