No More Hitting The Books Sonics Need To Put Learning Into Action

The Seattle SuperSonics want to make these NBA Finals be about them, honest they do. But in falling behind the Chicago Bulls, two games to none, they just haven’t been able to find a way.

“I’m looking forward to coming back here for the sixth and seventh games,” Sonics guard Hersey Hawkins, a Chicago native, said after his team was beaten by the Chicago Bulls in Game 2 on Friday night at Chicago’s United Center.

Maybe he likes the pizza.

In three previous playoff rounds and in the first two games of this series, no one has figured out how to divert the Bulls from their quest for a fourth NBA title. No team - not Miami, New York or Orlando - has yet devised a way to blunt the single-minded purpose of Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman. No team has been able to turn this championship tournament away from a coronation and into a contest.

That’s nothing new for Chicago opponents. The Bulls swept through the regular season, compiling a stunning 72-10 record, the NBA’s all-time best. Now they have gone 13-1 in the playoffs, the best run since the 1983 76ers marched to the title with a 12-1 record, back when the playoffs consisted of a more sensible but less profitable three rounds.

It was news this past season when Chicago lost to Orlando early, with Magic center Shaquille O’Neal on the bench with a wrist injury. The Bulls came back to take seven straight from the Magic, three in the regular season and four in the playoffs.

It was news when Chicago lost at Seattle back in the dim reaches of November at the new KeyArena. Never mind that the Bulls had yet to evolve into the basketball threshing machine they would become; some thought that November date was an indication that the best-in-the-West Sonics could stay with Chicago.

This championship series has done nothing to change that thought. Seattle can stay with Chicago. The Sonics have just found it difficult to stay with the Bulls for 48 minutes, which is nothing less than a requirement if you’re going to beat them. Seattle coach George Karl sees his team playing 44 or 45 minutes of all-out, nose-to-the-grindstone basketball. That’s good enough for an NBA second-best 64 regular-season wins, but not good enough to beat the Bulls.

Game 1 came down to Chicago’s on-again, off-again Toni Kukoc having a spurt in the fourth quarter that led to a 17-point Bulls win. The second game came down to a Kukoc-fueled spurt in the third quarter and some truly heroic rebounding by Rodman down the stretch.

Of Rodman’s 20 rebounds in Game 2, 11 came on the offensive end, including nine in the second half and six in the fourth quarter. The performance tied an NBA record and delivered to the Bulls a four-point win after they had led by as many as 13.

So the Sonics departed Chicago thinking they could beat the Bulls. Given the cozier confines of their home arena, the luxury of sleeping in their own beds and the possible leg weariness of the aging Bulls, who are playing two games in 48 hours, perhaps they can.

One of the things the Sonics have learned is the Bulls can beat you a lot of different ways. If it isn’t Kukoc, it’s Scottie Pippen posting up Gary Payton or Ron Harper going backdoor. It is becoming an accepted fact that if Shawn Kemp does not impose his body forcefully on Rodman on every shot, Rodman will get the rebound.

So far, the Sonics have done a job on Jordan. In Game 1, he scored 28 points, breaking a string of six playoff games in which he’d scored 30 or more. In Game 2, Jordan went for 29. In neither game has he looked like the assassin everyone knows he is on the floor. His shots are not falling, and on Friday he even missed 6 of 16 free throws.

“I was not happy with the way I played, though I was happy with the results,” Jordan said after Game 2.

What of the jawing that motor-mouth Payton put on him after dunking on a breakaway in Game 2? Jordan responded with one of his patented death stares.

“That’s just words,” Jordan said. “That’s just talking.”

But “words” and “talking” are just the kind of fuel Jordan has used in the past to ignite himself. Remember the shellacking Jordan put on the woeful Sixers this season after he took some off-handed remarks from rookie Jerry Stackhouse and chose to construe them as a personal challenge?

So Game 3 tips off today with neither team feeling it has played well in this series.

“I can’t remember when the last time was we played a really complete game,” Harper said.

How important is today’s game? Only two teams - the 1969 Boston Celtics and the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers - have come from 0-2 down to win an NBA championship. If Seattle loses, no one expects the series to make it back to Chicago. If the Sonics win, they reduce their challenge to beating the Bulls three out of four times instead of four straight.

“Every time we go against them, we learn something,” Karl said.

Seattle had best learn quickly before school is out.