Chicago News Cooperative | Sports: With or Without Stars, the Bulls May Go Far

As the Bulls began the National Basketball Association playoffs against the Indiana Pacers on Saturday, they were blithely unburdened by the legacy of failure that dogs their contemporaries on the Chicago sports scene. Six championships in 45 years of existence will do that for a team, as will the indelible memory of the best there has ever been in hoops.

The Blackhawks are only a year removed from winning hockey’s grand prize, but so many missteps occurred during their 49 seasons between titles that last year’s endless victory celebration evoked a surreal feeling, as if it weren’t really happening — not to this team.

Sure enough, that team has scattered to the winds, a victim of salary-cap miscalculation that makes a Stanley Cup defense thoroughly unlikely.

Michael Jordan was making his seventh run at it when the Bulls achieved their first title in 1991. Before that they had never been to the finals, a 24-year stretch of futility that was almost Cub-like. But when five more championships followed in the next seven years, M. J. and his supporting cast were appropriately hailed as a dynasty.

That simply doesn’t happen here — not since the 1940s Bears had a Chicago team even hinted at domination. Jordan’s transcendence changed the way the city felt about itself.

Thirteen years have elapsed since the last Grant Park party, and the Bulls haven’t been within two playoff rounds of another championship since. Meanwhile, the Blackhawks, the Bears and the White Sox have all either won a title or played for one. Yet the memory of Jordan ruling the basketball world is so powerful that it sustains the image of a championship-caliber franchise, even though some of the moves made since he left suggest a head-scratching cluelessness. Think of Ron Mercer and Eddie Robinson as the Jordan and Scottie Pippen of a parallel universe.

That was Jerry Krause’s doing. Krause, the Bulls’ blustery former general manager, deserves Hall of Fame props for assembling two platoons of complementary talent that helped Jordan collect those rings. But his ego-driven, unseemly haste to prove he could win without M. J. led to some inexplicably bad decisions. Putting Tim Floyd — hopelessly overmatched as an N.B.A. coach — in the seat that Phil Jackson had occupied was probably the worst of them, though the cheesy pursuit of the uninterested Tracy McGrady was a better metaphor for how far the franchise had fallen. By the time he was moved aside in 2003, Krause had to go.

The climb back to respectability began with John Paxson’s elevation to basketball boss. That move begat Scott Skiles, who as coach orchestrated the first two post-Jordan playoff trips, including a tentative foray into the second round in 2007.

The Paxson-Skiles partnership ended badly, but there was an upside: failure to salvage a playoff berth from the wreckage of the 2007-8 season sent the Bulls into the draft lottery, and they emerged with Derrick Rose. That is franchise-altering good fortune, akin to the Portland Trail Blazers liking Sam Bowie more than Jordan in the 1984 draft. But it’s one thing to catch a break and quite another to know what to do with it.

Finding a coach who’s comfortable in his own skin is a good start. Jackson, as tranquil as Doug Collins was hyperkinetic, brought out qualities in Jordan that none of his other pro coaches could tap, most notably a team-first, share-the-ball (occasionally) mentality. Rose, having survived two years of Vinny Del Negro’s deer-in-the-headlights tutelage, is flourishing under Tom Thibodeau, an old N.B.A. soul with a knack for maximizing a player’s talents while neutralizing his shortcomings. Their relationship is likely to produce the league’s most valuable player as well as its coach of the year.

Skeptics maintain that the Bulls are too young and untested to win the title, though they entered the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s top seed. The N.B.A. is star powered, especially at playoff time, and the Bulls have none besides Rose. (But the Thibodeau Effect on Luol Deng’s tidy all-around game can’t be discounted: Deng, the 26-year-old forward from Duke, is playing the best basketball of his life.)

And about all the Bulls have done since the calendar turned to 2011 is win: they are 41-10 since Jan. 1, including 8-0 against Boston, Miami and Orlando. Their 62 wins are a 21-game improvement over last season, with a new coach and eight new players.

?Still, doubt surrounds them. Carlos Boozer doesn’t get it done every night. Keith Bogans still can’t hit a shot. Joakim Noah’s manic energy has gone missing. Kurt Thomas somehow seems older than Dick Stockton.

We’ll see. This team grows on you. Rose is terrific, and Thibodeau is really good. Right now I see the Bulls handling Indiana before a tough seven-game series with the Orlando Magic in the second round. Then the Miami Heat unloads its guns and prevails in the conference finals.

Enjoy the run, regardless of where it leads. The N.B.A. is a mess, with several small-market outposts in financial distress, and an off-season of rancorous labor strife is a given. Pro basketball could be going away for a while, just as the Bulls are getting something going.

Maybe they could try out for the Cubs.

 

Red Bulls 3, Earthquakes 0: For the Red Bulls, a Refreshing Burst of Goals

In front of 14,308 soggy fans at Red Bull Arena, the English striker Luke Rodgers equaled his team’s goal-scoring total through four games when he scored his first two goals in M.L.S., and Thierry Henry broke his personal goal-scoring drought (after 684 scoreless minutes) on a late header as the Red Bulls eased to a 3-0 victory.

“I’m buzzing,” Rodgers said. “I’m just so happy to have scored.”

The victory ended a three-game winless streak for the Red Bulls, who won the Eastern Conference regular-season title last year and then promptly lost to San Jose in their first playoff series.

The Red Bulls (2-1-2, 8 points) had produced a league-low two goals in 360 minutes this season, but Rodgers scored his first one two minutes into the match and added a second in the 15th minute. It was the second start of the season for Rodgers, who joined the Red Bulls before the season from Notts County, which plays in English soccer’s third tier.

“Of course not scoring weighed on us; we read in the papers that we have world-class strikers and you can’t score,” Rodgers said. “We knew it was just a matter of time before it clicked, and I think this will kick-start our season.”

The Red Bulls took the lead almost immediately when Rafa Marquez’s corner kick was headed backward across the goalmouth by Jan Gunnar Solli. Dane Richards sent the ball back across the goal for Rodgers, who nodded it past goalkeeper Jon Busch from 4 yards.

Rodgers made the score 2-0 in the 15th minute off a steal by Henry. Henry, who had been questionable for the match with a strained Achilles’ tendon, stripped the ball from Ramiro Corrales on the right flank. Henry touched the ball once, pushing it forward, before crossing to the far post, where Rodgers met it and powered a shot under Busch while tumbling into the goal.

Henry played perhaps his strongest match for the Red Bulls, energetically running the field, laying off passes to Rodgers and Joel Lindpere on the wing. But he also misfired on a handful of scoring opportunities.

Henry’s frustrations finally came to an end in the 88th minute, when Rodgers sent in a cross from the right side. Streaking in from the left, Henry dove and struck a strong header that sailed back across the goal, past Busch and inside the far post.

Asked about the constant questions about when his first goal of the season would come, Henry said: “It was more annoying than important today. My goal didn’t have an effect on the game, but I tried everything today to score and finally did. The most important thing is to say that we worked really hard up front, Luke and I. It really doesn’t matter who scores.”

As relieved as Henry seemed, Coach Hans Backe, too, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief that Henry, his highest-paid player, got on the scoresheet.

“You could see today when he feels fresh he’s in a different class,” Backe said. “He set up Luke with a lot of final passes and was very composed on the ball. This was his best performance for Red Bull.”

Rodgers earned his second start in place of the 18-year-old striker Juan Agudelo and brought more directness to the Red Bulls’ attack. In Philadelphia last week, Agudelo was perhaps guilty of trying to do too much with the ball at his feet.

“Juan has been playing and training since early January,” Backe said, referring to Agudelo’s time with the Red Bulls and the United States national team. “We just needed to calm him down a bit.”

The Red Bulls will get little rest after Saturday’s victory, as they play at D.C. United on Thursday night. But to a man, from Backe to Rodgers to Henry, they sounded certain that the best is yet to come.

NOTES

John Rooney, the younger brother of Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney, made his M.L.S. debut as a late substitute for Dane Richards.

 

Roundup: Rose Leads Big Rally for Bulls; Hawks Overcome Howard’s 46

Rose scored 39 points and found Kyle Korver for a tie-breaking 3-pointer with 48 seconds left, helping top-seeded Chicago stage a late rally to beat the Pacers 104-99 in their playoff opener Saturday.

“We knew it was going to be a hard game,” Rose said. “From the beginning, I guess we weren’t prepared for it. Next time, I think we’ll be ready.”

For the Pacers, the loss was tough to accept. They controlled most of the game but could not put it away.

They would make little runs, Chicago would come back, and the Pacers would pull ahead again. With Rose staring at them, Danny Granger never felt safe.

“With Derrick Rose on the other team? No,” Granger said. “It’s like a crazy stalker ex-girlfriend. Every time you tell her you don’t want to talk to her, she’ll show up at your door again.”

Trailing by 98-88 in the final period, the Bulls showed the resolve that carried them to a league-best 62-20 record, closing with a 16-1 run over the final 3 minutes 38 seconds.

Rose scored 7 points during the impressive finish, including a 3-point play and a floater that tied it at 99-99 with 1:27 left. He then hit Korver with a cross-court pass for a 3 that gave the Bulls their first lead, 102-99.

Granger then missed a 3 and Joakim Noah got the rebound. Rose eventually hit two free throws with 14.8 seconds remaining. Game 2 in this best-of-seven series is Monday night at United Center.

Rose again showed why he is a favorite for the most valuable player award, even though he was off target. He missed each of his 9 3-point attempts but went 19 of 21 at the foul line and finished with 6 rebounds and 6 assists.

Luol Deng added 18 points and Korver finished with 13.

Granger led Indiana with 24 points, and Tyler Hansbrough finished with 22, as the Pacers came up just short in their first playoff game in five years.

The Pacers will try to shake this one off and figure out how a game that looked so promising ended in defeat.

“We put forth a good effort, but who cares?” Granger said.

Now, the Bulls can breathe a little easier after a hard, physical game.

“Right now, I’m feeling good and can’t wait to go eat,” Rose said.

HAWKS 103, MAGIC 93 Joe Johnson scored 25 points, Jamal Crawford finished with 23 and visiting Atlanta beat Orlando in Game 1 of their playoff series, overcoming a monster night by the Magic star Dwight Howard.

Atlanta was eliminated by Orlando in last year’s playoffs in the most lopsided four-game sweep in N.B.A. history, but this one was much different.

The Hawks led by as many as 18 points while running multiple bodies at Howard all game, and the rest of the Magic failed to deliver.

Howard tied a career high with 46 points and had 19 rebounds. Jameer Nelson had 27 points, but no other Orlando player scored in double figures.

Game 2 is Tuesday night in Orlando.

The Hawks were in control throughout after stumbling into the playoffs with a six-game losing streak.

They carried an 85-71 lead into the final quarter and caught a break when Howard was whistled for his fifth foul with 10:58 to play.

But even with Howard playing less aggressively underneath on defense, Orlando put together a 10-1 run that cut it to 92-83 with 4:40 left.

The Magic came out with some renewed offensive spirit in the opening minutes of the third, cutting Atlanta’s lead to 57-53. The Hawks responded with an 11-0 run.

MAVERICKS 89, BLAZERS 81 Dirk Nowitzki scored 18 of his game-high 28 points in the fourth quarter and host Dallas defeated Portland in Game 1 of their Western Conference quarterfinal series.

Even though Nowitzki struggled from the field most of the night, he came through when the Mavericks needed him most.

Nowitzki scored 12 consecutive points in the game-turning spurt in the closing minutes when Dallas tied the game and eventually went ahead to stay.

Jason Kidd added 24 points, including a playoff career-best six 3-pointers.