No way da Bulls lose. They'll probably win their 70th regular season game this week, which no N.B.A. team has ever done. Only two of their nine defeats have come in a row, and they haven't lost to any team more than once. They'll have the home-court advantage throughout the postseason, and no home court is more advantageous than the United Center, where they have a record of 38-1. Chicago has the best rebounder in the world, the most versatile forward in the N.B.A. and the finest player who ever lived. No way this team loses any of the four play-off series it needs to win to reclaim its title from the Houston Rockets, who borrowed it for two seasons while Michael Jordan shagged fly balls. "The Bulls," says New Jersey Nets forward Jayson Williams, "are like Clint Eastwood in a western, Arnold Schwarzenegger in an action movie. You can shoot at them, you may even wound them. But guess who's gonna be standing there when the credits roll?" No way da Bulls lose.
Way. They are perfectly capable of an off night: in the month of March, Chicago lost one game by 32 points to the New York Knicks, who aren't exactly world beaters, and another game to the Toronto Raptors, one of the expansion teams that have diluted the talent in the N.B.A. Beyond the Big Three of Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman and the Spider of Split, a.k.a. Toni Kukoc, the Bulls have an odd assortment of projects and castoffs. Stan Albeck, a Nets assistant coach and former Bulls head coach, says, "Back in November, one of our broadcasters, Mike O'Koren, told me he thought the Bulls could win 70. I bow to no one in my admiration for Michael, having coached him, but I didn't think the Bulls were all that deep. Plus, I've coached Rodman. So I bet O'Koren the biggest steak dinner in New Jersey that the Bulls wouldn't win 70. Guess I'm buying."
Guess so. The visiting Bulls beat the Nets 113-100 last Thursday for their 67th win of the season, then returned home to play Philadelphia the next night and demolished the 76ers, 112-82, for No. 68. The victory over the Nets was particularly instructive, because while most of the 20,000 fans had come to see Jordan, Rodman and Pippen, they ended up seeing an awful lot of Randy Brown, James Edwards and Dickey Simpkins. At one point in the fourth quarter, with Jordan and Pippen on the bench, the Nets closed to within nine points. Coach Phil Jackson sent to the rescue...Jud Buechler. The funny thing was, it worked: Buechler went back-door for a basket, and the Bulls were again in control.