It hasn’t been that long. You couldn’t even put together an entertaining “Hey, what was the cost of eggs and gas” chart comparing 1998 and 2005. But it feels like it’s been forever. Back then, the Chicago Bulls were the best basketball team in the world.
Today, they’re the best team in…OK, they’re the sixth best team in the NBA Eastern Conference, but over the last 16 games, they are 13-3. That’s not a misprint. Thirteen wins, three losses. After six seasons of embarrassment, the fog has lifted.
Sure, they have flaws you could drive a truck through. But though they’ll make you tear your hair out at least seven times a game, they do the one thing that we always say is all we want.
They give a championship effort every night.
But the difference between the lip service we the fans, and they the teams pay to that sentiment and the reality of the current Bulls is that they mean it. They don’t have Michael Jordan cracking the whip and intimidating his teammates into a balls-out effort every night. They just give it.
It’s epitomized in two of their most flawed, but productive players. Andres Nocioni and Tyson Chandler don’t have much in common. One was born in Argentina, speaks little English and worked on a yak farm until he was 15, the other is Andres Nocioni!
But seriously…
The Bulls took off when Chandler and Nocioni went to the bench. Coming off the Bulls bench, along with Ben Gordon, they play like wild men. Chandler blocks anything he can get his hands on, Nocioni elbows anybody who gets in his way. You think I’m kidding? Benny the Bull took one on the horns in Saturday’s win over the Knicks.
In the past three days they’ve played five hours of basketball against the New York Knicks. In that time, the Knicks outplayed the Bulls in about four and half hours of action. But when it counted, the Bulls made all the plays.
Two plays will be seared onto our brains no matter how the season ends.
In Saturday’s win over New York, the Bulls pulled off the kind of play that had basketball coaches all over the world shedding tears of joy.
With time running down in a tie game, Nocioni blocked a Knick’s shot, it was headed out of bounds, and it looked like the Knicks would have the ball with one last chance to take the lead. But Chandler lept from across the lane, grabbed the ball and fired it blindly over his head as he landed happily into a pile of Luvabulls under the basket. Kirk Hinrich grabbed the saved ball and without taking a dribble turned and fired past half court where Nocioni had bolted to immediately after blocking the shot. Nocioni then looked up the court and saw a Bull streaking towards the hoop. If he’d stopped to see who it was, he might not have believed his eyes. So he fired a terrible pass that shorthopped his hustling teammate. But Eddy Curry…yes THAT Eddy Curry, scooped up the tough pass at his feet, took the only dribble of the sequence and eluded Trevor Ariza before laying in the game winning basket. The United Center went wild with pandelirium, the fans could have been killed or worse. But it was a rare moment of pure joy in sports. The city has rallied around this team for all the right reasons, but is still waiting to be disappointed. Still waiting for Eddy to go back into his shell, for Luol Deng and Ben Gordon to look like rookies and for it all to collapse. But it’s moments like that, that allow you to suspend your disbelief just a little bit longer. And if you do it long enough, it becomes good, old-fashioned belief.
Could any other true center make the play Eddy made? How many of them would even have filled the lane on that break? Big guys hate getting the ball on the move, and most of them don’t haul ass up the court to avoid looking like a boob on plays just like that. But Eddy was there, and Eddy made the play. If confidence was a tangible thing, Eddy’d have a wheelbarrell full of it right now.
The second play? You just saw it this afternoon. Time running out, tie game, in the Garden and Ben Gordon blows past Jamal Crawford (big shock there) to take the ball from Hinrich at the top of the key. He’s been an NBA player for all of 35 games, and yet, he’s the guy that the Bulls, their coaches, and the fans want to have the ball in times like this. He took off down the right side of the lane, losing Crawford and drawing 400 pound Mike Sweetney on a switch. With a little half pivot he was turned towards the hoop, and with the clock ticking towards zero, he floated a gravity defying shot over Sweetney, over the outstretched arm of Kurt Thomas and safely into the hoop for an 88-86 Bulls win.
The Bulls are 17-18, so let’s not get carried away yet. But after an 0-9 start, they are playing better than even the most optimistic Bulls’ fan could have dreamed. For the last 16 games, nobody, not the Spurs, the Suns…nobody has played better than the Bulls. So for now at least, let’s all party like it’s 1998.
“Chandler blocks anything he can get his hands on”
Isn’t this the definition of a block?
you just have to like the way this team plays. They give effort on every play. Is there anything else you can ask from a team? You have guys like Carter, and Tmac coming out saying, they didnt give their all, it is great to see this team play balls out every game. I think they have taken the personality of their Head Coach.
You’ve got to hand it to John Paxon. He was criticized on the Heinrich pick for “drafting himself”. The press said after he fired Cartwright and brought in Skiles that Skiles would alienate the team, they’d never play for him. Nocioni was called a stiff, Gordon and Deng were criticized as tweeners, and there was much wailing and nashing of teeth when we traded the great Jamal Crawford. The team starts off 1-9, and the press is already wondering if Skiles will last the season. Paxon never caved to the pressure and now it’s paying off.
If the Bulls keep this up and (god forbid) make the playoffs, then you’ve got to give Pax the Executive of the Year, and Skiles the Coach of the Year awards.
Wheeeeeeee!
Bryan Colangelo is the Exec of the year this year. He traded for expiring contracts last season to get room for Steve Nash and Quentin Richardson, hired a smart Euro coach to run things, and turned down all requests for Shawn Marion. Besides Phoenix’ hot record, he also has the Bulls and Jazz’ first-round picks in the next Draft.
Can’t forget John Weisbrod of the Orlando Magic. He improved the crap he took over from Gabriel into a good team.
You have to hand it to me. But CT, you can’t even spell me.
What time was the Bulls’ game? Did I sleep through it?
Bryan Colangelo may have the Bulls’ first round draft pick. But I’d rather than Luol Deng than whoever he’s going to draft in that spot (likely 15-18).
Hinrich is leading my fantasy team all the way up to .500 as well…
When are we going to have a Bulls Live! Gamecast to comment upon the game as it happens (sans message board). Today would have been the perfect day with the afternoon game and all, but I vote for Saturday night at Detroit.
Thank you to responder #7 “John Paxson” for calling out CT’s misspelling in his earlier post. But to be fair, people all over this website routinely misspell Kurt Hinrick’s and Jon Packson’s names. Get it right, guys.
Given that I almost never watch the NBA, is there a place where I can see these last two closing shots? NBA.com seems to be ‘scpit only and no links for these specific clips.
C’mon Pax, times are tough. You’ve got to economize, even with your name.
I’m pretty sure most of the games are televised, Chuck. Tune in, you can see the next great Bulls’ win.
No thanks. That would entail actually watching bad (read: NBA) basketball. I’m of the ESPN mode: gimme the highlights from the last 30 seconds and that’s it. And one highlight every 6 years is fine.
Chucker, they have SportsCenter at least 30 times a day, and they have ESPNNEWS with the same hi-lites every half hour. You gotta have at least ONE of them on yer cable. It’s gotta be a habit, a priority, part of your routine: turn off Bloomberg channel once in a while and catch The Best of Sports. The damn ticker will still be there when you get back.
If it’s bad basketball, why are you begging us to give you clips of it?
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