Sports Corner, again
FOR THE BULLS, LOSS HAD A FAMILIAR WRING TO IT Ian Thomsen, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe 04-29-1987
“It happened the same way all year long,” guard John Paxson said. “We were never a 48-minute team. I don’t know if it was that we relied on Michael at crucial times near the end of the game, which wasn’t good for him, nor was it good for us as a team.”[…]
“It happened the same way all year long,” guard John Paxson said. “We were never a 48-minute team. I don’t know if it was that we relied on Michael at crucial times near the end of the game, which wasn’t good for him, nor was it good for us as a team.” […]
“I don’t want to lead the league in scoring again,” Jordan said. “That’s one goal I don’t want to do. I want to lead the league in steals, assists maybe. I want to lead the league in a statistic that’s a team thing.”
And, with everything a Game 3 can mean in a first-round playoff series such as this on the line, the ball goes for maybe the hundred-thousandth time to No. 33 in green. He steps back, releases, boom. The door slams shut. 86-81, Celtics, 4:21 left.
“That’s why they call him Larry Bird,” a ballboy says, sorting towels at the end of the Celtics bench.
“That,” Jordan said an hour later, “is the difference.”
PREDICTIONS LEFT BULLS IN PREDICAMENT; Jackie MacMullan, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe 11-07-1990
National publications decreed this was the year Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls would surpass the Pistons as the top team in the East. Now, after an 0-3 start, Jordan conceded his team put too much stock — and not enough work –into those lofty predictions.
“We listened to what everyone wrote, and we believed it,” said Jordan last night, before losing to the Celtics, 110-108, at the buzzer. “It was tough for us to deal with emotionally. We have a lot of players here who have yet to see success on that level. You see a sign that level is reachable, and naturally your head gets a little bigger. We won ballgames before we started. And now we’re paying.”
Jordan said the team is “totally out of sync” in an offense devised by coach Phil Jackson to spread the wealth.
[…]
I’m not questioning coach Jackson’s ability. It’s just we have two good open-court players Jordan and Scottie Pippen that can create a lot. We have a center Bill Cartwright who is not as mobile as most centers, but if you give him the ball inside, he can connect.”
Jordan said the biggest factor holding the club back is the lack of confidence among his teammates.
“Of all the teams I’ve played with in Chicago, these are the most talented 12 guys with the same focus in mind,” he said. “The first team I played with had confidence like you couldn’t believe. They weren’t the best players in the league, a little spacy actually, but if this team had the confidence they did, we’d be a heck of a team.”
The Chicago Bulls went on to win that NBA Championship, then the next two, then Jordan disappeared for most of two seasons, then they won the next three Champions, then Coach Jackson left and became coach for the LA Lakers where he won three more Championships. Just saying.
And a quick look into google’s cache to figure out how sports fans talked about the Number One dract pick in the 1984 draft versus the number two draft pick:
Apr 23 1985, 12:54 pm :
Look at Portland. They could have drafted Michael Jordan, but they took Bowie instead. Everyone said that they were making a mistake. No mistake. Portland needs another guard like it needs a hole in the head. Yes, Jordan has had a great rookie season, but Bowie has done well and the Trailblazers are looking strong for the playoffs.
Next I turn to that famed, but largely now forgotten, upset the Jaguars had over the Broncos a number of years ago:
NFL PLAYOFFS: MAN OF STEEL MARK BRUNELL WAS SUPER IN ENGINEERING THE NFL’S BIGGEST PLAYOFF UPSET SINCE 1969 AS THE JAGUARS BEAT THE BRONCOS; RICK REILLY
Sports Illustrated 01-13-1997
Someday, 4 1/2-year-old Caitlin Brunell will understand what her father did last Saturday, how he got 75,678 people at Mile High Stadium to open their mouths wide and yet not make a sound, how he cut Denver Bronco John Elway’s dream into little paper dolls and how he carved his own legend out of the most staggering NFL playoff upset in three decades. Not now though. Now she just wants to know why he isn’t home more. “Daddy,” she says, “don’t go to football again.” […]
One thing is for sure: The folks in Denver will never forget Brunell, not for years and years. He and his Jaguars not only shocked the Broncos, the best team in the AFC, 30-27, but they also ruined what might have been Elway’s last chance for a Super Bowl victory and possibly wrecked Denver owner Pat Bowlen’s plans for the city to build him a new stadium. All in one unforgettable, giant Orange Flush.
“I’m sick to my stomach,” said Denver running back Terrell Davis
afterward. Broncos coach Mike Shanahan called it “the toughest loss I’ve ever faced.” Elway had awakened with a start every night last week worrying about Jacksonville, and now his nightmare was real. “This is my worst disappointment,” he said. And remember, Elway has lots of disappointments to choose from. All-Pro tight end Shannon Sharpe was inconsolable. “If I had a thousand tongues, I couldn’t describe how bad I feel inside,” he said. “I feel like I let John down. I think the team let him down. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over this. It will be until the turn of the century, at least, before this franchise gets over this.”
It was really not supposed to be this way for Brunell. In mid-November the Jaguars were a harmless 4-7, and Brunell must have thought he would be spending the holidays at home with Caitlin. But then the Jaguars started beating everybody in sight. And in the last minute of the last game of the regular season, the world’s best field goal kicker, Morten Andersen of the Atlanta Falcons, missed a 30-yard field goal, and all of a sudden Jacksonville was in the playoffs.
The Jaguars went to Rich Stadium in Buffalo for a wild-card game, banked in a field goal off an upright and won a playoff game where no visitor had ever won a playoff game. Now they have gone to Denver and brought home the most morning-coffee-spilling upset since Joe Namath and his New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
At the time, the only context you could put Denver’s loss in is with a string of disappointments: John Elway lead the Denver Broncos to three Superbowl Losses, each by a larger margin of defeat than the last, in the 1980s. (Simpsons riff: Homer: (Raising hand) Oooh, I want to be John Elway! (Homer starts day dreaming about being John Elway. The ball is snapped to Homer and he dives over the pile into the endzone.)
Announcer: Elway takes the snap and runs it in for a touchdown! Thanks to Elway’s Patanent last second magic the final score of Super Bowl XXX is Denver 7, San Francisco 56.
Homer:(Back to reality) Woo Hoo!)
But the Broncos, and John Elway, won the next two Superbowls, so everything is cool for them now, and this loss to the Jaguars… means nothing.
Likewise you look at the old Chicago Bulls storylines, and shrug. Michael Jordan: he ain’t no Larry Bird. And to debate Sam Bowie versus Michael Jordan is now like debating Peyton Manning versus Ryan Leaf…
Which brings me to the most puzzling of the Sports Illustrated Jinx covers, which I mused about last time I blogged about sports (for reasons that escape me, actually): Why in the world did the magazine have a cover-feature on the return of Ryan Leaf? (Actually all these covers crack me up…)
