I tried rooting for Scottie only because I couldn’t bring myself to root for Phil.
Through the fourth quarter, as Scottie Pippen and his Trail Blazers fell in slow-motion from their horses as if shot in a Sam Peckinpah Western, I finally tried rooting for a classic last-shot finish. Foiled again.
This NBA season’s Game of the Year was as deflating as Sunday’s dreary Chicago weather. The Lakers won because of what coach Phil Jackson didn’t do. The Blazers lost because of what Pippen couldn’t do.
The inevitable result left me feeling tired. Tired of missing Michael Jordan. Tired of watching the insufferably pompous Jackson deliver another insufferably arrogant postgame “I told you so.” Tired of hearing TV analysts trumpet Pippen as the greatest this and that, only to hear them go as silent as Pippen predictably does.
That should pretty much cinch Pippen’s legacy: He’s basically a loser with six championship rings. Each, of course, should be engraved with an asterisk, as should Jackson’s. They are two of the luckiest men in sports history because their fame and outrageous fortunes were made possible by the greatest player ever.
It’s mind-blowing to think Pippen was voted one of the century’s 50 greatest players. One of the 50 best defenders, no doubt. One of the 50 finest open-court players when the game’s not on the line, perhaps.
But truly great players do not let their team blow two nearly insurmountable leads in the conference finals, in Game 3 at home and Game 7 away. You kept waiting for Portland coach Mike Dunleavy to call time during the fourth quarter and tell his team, “We’re going to Scottie every time. This is why we paid him 15 million bucks to come here. No way Brian Shaw can cover him on the low blocks. He’ll score, get fouled or get the rest of you wide-open shots.”
For that matter, why didn’t six-ring Scottie tell teammates, “No way will I let us lose this 15-point lead with 10 minutes to go?”Why didn’t he call his own number, demanding the ball where he could do the most damage? You-know-who would have.
But Pippen was content hiding behind the three-point line. The worst part of Pippen’s game has been firing up critical three-pointers, some of which threaten to break glass. He did make one to put away Utah in the previous round. But as Jordan’s old whipping boy, Bryon Russell, said, “Scottie’s never been known to make those. He prayed that one in.”
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Sunday night Pippen was just praying for the thing to be over. He took and missed three last-quarter shots. Afterward he appeared far more relieved than devastated. He had the numbskull nerve to say his team had more to be proud of than down about. What is this, church league? Somewhere, you-know-who was rolling his eyes.
As a go-to guy, Pippen proved to be a go-home guy. Replace Pippen with Indiana’s Reggie Miller and the Blazers eliminate the Lakers. Miller’s showboating has kept him from getting proper credit for taking and making so many all-guts three-pointers. Miller shot the Knicks’ lights out in ways Pippen never could. Miller doesn’t have Pippen’s long, strong athleticism, but Pippen is missing Miller’s heart and brains.
Jackson’s axiom about beating an opponent by cutting off its head didn’t apply to the Blazers, who had almost nothing but athletic bodies. Jackson prevailed by mostly not coaching, by reassuring, by telling his superior stars to trust the offense and themselves, by calling few timeouts, by “letting them figure it out for themselves.” Of course, Jackson knew the 34-year-old Pippen wouldn’t figure it out first.
I figured Jackson would miss having you-know-who as his player-coach and sergeant at arms. I was wrong. Give Jackson this: The Lakers would have panicked, unraveled and maybe mutinied under ex-coach Del Harris.
Six-ring Phil’s $6-million-a-year strength is making the best team believe it’s best–contagious arrogance. Jackson could have chosen a less talented team just to prove his system would prevail without three All-Stars. But Jackson knows his coaching limitations.
Give the Smirkmaster the two best players, Shaq and Kobe, against a field without the greatest player ever. Give Brother Love more rings than Saturn, and he’ll let Pat Riley chase the “genius” epitaph.
Now Indiana’s only chance is for Reggie to get and stay crazy hot. Now I have to root for him.