how the Bulls lost: LeBron

This is from Paul, who’s seeing lots of NBA playoff games. I’m seeing none. They’re at strange hours in Egypt.

“I saw your blog post on the Bulls loss, and thought I’d offer a few comments from the game. I watched from about the midway point of the third quarter, with the Bulls up by maybe six, and was thoroughly disgusted by the end. Make no mistake, the Bulls really, really blew this one. It was really the same story as the previous game: a combination of ratcheted-up Miami defense (led by LeBron James) and shaky, unconfident Bulls offense led to a scoring drought at the end of the game that wasted a double digit lead. I believe the Bulls were up by 10 with three minutes to go. At the same time Dwayne Wade (who was mostly crappy in the games that I watched from this series, and he may be hurt) hit some jumpers, including a crazy three where he was also fouled by Rose, and LeBron was very, very good. I believe LeBron made the last three Heat baskets, one of which was a game-tying three pointer.

The bad news for the Bulls in all of this is that they were defeated by a Miami team that was not hitting on all cylinders. D. Wade was not himself in the last several games, and they showed him having his shoulder treated several times in the second half of last night’s game. I think he’s hurt. Also, Mike Miller, who is potentially a crucial role player for the Heat, something like the perfect complementary fit for the ‘big three,’ is really banged up. He has problems with his hands and it is clearly affecting his shooting. Take that away, and he is mostly a non-factor. And Udonis Haslem, who serves a similarly valuable complementary role in the post, is just returning from injury and is still working himself into playing shape. The reason why Miami won is simple: LeBron James was awesome on both ends of the court. Already today the Michael Jordan comparisons are being thrown around. Apparently Scottie Pippen said during a telecast during last night’s game that LeBron may already be a better overall player than Jordan was. He essentially said that Jordan was a better scorer, but that James is better at getting his teammates involved. Horace Grant, by the way, is already on record with a strong denial of Pippen’s view, and specifically the notion that James is a better team player. LeBron is 26, and remember that MJ didn’t win his first title until he was 28.”

In sheer physical terms, LeBron is even more impressive to look at than Jordan. He’s taller, more powerful, and more explosive.

And there’s no question that teammates prefer playing with LeBron. Jordan wasn’t always that nice to his teammates. There was a case where he punched Steve Kerr during practice one day, for example, and more generally he would ride them verbally and glare at them when they underperformed. In my opinion he also took his taunting of unpopular Bulls general manager Jerry Krause too far. Whatever one’s objections to Krause as a person (and there are reports of many problems with him), he didn’t deserve to sit in front of the team bus and have Jordan taunt him from the back row as the other players laughed along, as reportedly happened. Just dumb, mean stuff: “Jerry Krause, want to come fishing with us? You don’t even have to fish. You can just eat the bait!”

That said, this mean streak in Jordan (who doesn’t seem like a bad guy on the whole) is what made him almost indestructible in important games. We’ve not yet seen anything comparable from LeBron, but maybe he’s finding himself this year.

And it’s true what Paul says. LeBron is only 26, and Jordan didn’t win a championship until he was 28. Jordan became so synonymous with winning late in his career that it’s easy to forget what people were saying about him in the late 1980’s. “Jordan is too selfish about his own scoring.” “No team with Michael Jordan will ever win a championship,” etc.

Funny how that last statement eventually flipped into: “No team with Michael Jordan will ever lose a championship.”