588: 211: Atlanta Curse (Requesting Monthly Tickets!) 588: 211: Atlanta Curse (Requesting Monthly Tickets!) The next day, the headline in the “Chicago Tribune” nearly sent Jordan’s blood pressure through the roof.
“Scottie about to enter the finals again under Roger’s lead, it proves that if the Bulls don’t make the finals, the problem isn’t with Scottie—so who is it with?”
For the first time, Jordan loathed the word “so” with such intensity.
After some time to recuperate, Jordan had begun to let go a little.
He had won enough accolades and written his own legend.
He could forget about the losses, pretend they never happened.
During this time, Jordan had been planning a transition into management.
Look at that bastard Reinsdorf, he only paid $16 million for the Bulls in 1985.
But now, the Chicago Bulls are valued at four billion.
He didn’t sweat, he wasn’t injured, but he became the biggest beneficiary.
So, Jordan also wanted to own a team, to be the boss himself.
He thought he had completely shed his identity as a player and could view the sport of basketball from a completely different perspective.
But the report in the “Chicago Tribune” stirred the calm waters of Jordan’s heart once more.
Since when did Scottie Pippen become a media angle to attack him?
Fuck, Roger wins with Pippen and I should care why?
Yes, that was also the confusion of Roger back in the day.
Why, after losing just one finals as a rookie in the summer of 1994, was he labeled “can never surpass Michael Jordan” by Nike through media connections?
Just because he had a teammate called Scottie Pippen?
Now, these complicated issues were left for Jordan himself to contemplate, handed back to him by Reebok and Roger.
Pippen had become a unit of currency, a measure to evaluate the level of a superstar.
Whether one could win championships with Pippen became a criterion.
However, Jordan wasn’t the most awkward one.
At this time, the 16-year-old Dwyane Wade couldn’t possibly imagine that the standard “not a superstar if he can’t lead a teammate who scored 8 points in a single game to a championship” would deliver a fatal blow to him years later.
Roger easily eliminated the Pacers in game one, bringing peace of mind to the Atlanta fans.
The savior’s legend persisted; Roger was like a superhero, with everyone hoping he would save this crumbling city.
But the Pacers, those villains, weren’t dead yet.
Larry Bird told everyone, “Don’t blink, or you might see the coach warming up on the court.”
In G2, Pippen continued to exert his aggressive, dogfight-style defense, dragging Reggie Miller to set a new low.
Tonight, Miller shot 4 of 13, 1 of 3 from three, shooting 30%.
Finally, Miller had to increase his drives to the basket to create damage and used free throws to score 10 points.
On the side of the Hawks, the offense from others was still underwhelming.
Pippen shot 33%, Stevie Smith shot 41%.
Apart from Roger, Pippen, and Smith, no one else scored double figures.
But Roger’s 43 points settled everything.
94 to 88, the Hawks extended the series lead to 2-0.
So far, the Pacers didn’t seem much stronger than the Hornets or the Pistons.
Before the series began, the media had set high expectations for the Pacers.
Talking about being god slayers and big villains.
But in these two games in Atlanta, the Pacers were utterly powerless to fight back.
But Reggie Miller and his Pacers hadn’t become the nation’s clowns, for the real clown princes were in Los Angeles.
In the Western Conference Finals G2, when Shaquille O’Neal gave the Lakers away with his 37% free throw shooting, the Utah Jazz had already taken a 2-0 lead in the series.
Before the series started, the media was very optimistic about the younger Lakers.
After all, this was a team composed of four All-Stars of the season.
The league had even released quite a few Lakers VS Hawks promotional ads.
Plus, with O’Neal railing against Roger for not being the real MVP before the series began, Los Angeles fans were eagerly awaiting a showdown between O’Neal and Roger in the finals, two players who had long harbored grudges against each other.
But in G1 of the West Finals, led by the great Shaq, the Lakers lost by 35 points.
O’Neal, smothered by Mutombo and Karl Malone, shot only 6 of 16 for the game, limited to just 19 points.
Last year in the finals, O’Neal was very dissatisfied with Roger having won the Finals MVP.
But this game thoroughly explained why the Finals MVP could only be Roger.
Because without Roger, that’s what it comes to for O’Neal.
The Jazz Team could easily shut him down, easily take care of his team.
Of course, if it were only Shaq underperforming, the Lakers wouldn’t have lost by so much.
When you thought O’Neal’s 37% was low enough, the genius guard from Lower Merion High School still had worse to offer.
In the same game, he scored 16 points on 4 of 14 shooting, 0 of 5 from three, with a shooting percentage of 28%.
His consecutive three air balls from beyond the three-point line left Los Angeles fans’ heads spinning.
Los Angeles fans were wondering how a single team could possess both Kobe and O’Neal, this pair of burgeoning talents.
For the first time, the Logo man seriously doubted his judgment; he knew O’Neal and Kobe needed more time, but he hadn’t expected to lose so humiliatingly in the first game of the Western Finals.
In G2, the Lakers tightened up on defense, locking down all the Jazz players except for Malone and Stockton.