These Bulls Don’t Look So Immortal Bob Ryan Chicago Tribune

Chicago? Chicago?

Yup, Chicago, City of the Broad Shoulders and the Fearful Basketball Fans. We’re back in Chicago for a Game 6 today because the Seattle SoooooooperSonics suddenly think they’re Bela Lugosi and it’s time to get out of the coffin and get some fresh air.

I just want you to know that this is where I came in, approximately a month ago. The Chicago team I saw throughout the second-round series against the Knicks were the VulneraBulls. They could not run their offense. They were almost timid. It looked like Michael vs. The World, and you seriously wondered how they ever won 42 games, let alone 72.

Those VulneraBulls are back, and the situation is better now in one way and worse in another. The good news: Just one more W and it’s cork-popping time. The bad news: The Seattle SoooooooperSonics are younger, friskier and much, much more talented than the New York Knicks.

The Sonics have decided to pretend that Games 1, 2 and 3 in this series never happened, especially Game 3.

“We obviously got our butts kicked in Game 3,” says Detlef Schrempf in that astonishingly unaccented English of his. “We thought that was a fluke. We’re playing better now, and if we play the same way in Chicago, it will be interesting.”

But hold on here, Detlef. You’re talking about winning four straight against a 72-win team, the last two in their own building, where they have lost only twice all season. You’re talking about making history. You’re talking about becoming the first team in NBA history to win a best-of-seven series after starting off 0-3. And you’re talking about doing it against a team led by Michael Jordan, whose athletic mailing address is a two-bedroom condo (complete with Jacuzzi) on Mt. Olympus.

“You can’t philosophize, ‘Well, they can’t beat Chicago three in a row, or four in a row,”’ reasons Seattle coach George Karl. “It doesn’t matter, because when we play, it’s one game, one basketball game, and that’s all we’ve got to worry about. We’re like in a high school tournament, double elimination. We’ve lost one game. We played 11 o’clock on Friday and we get to play at 2 on Sunday, and if we win we get to play for the championship at 7.”

Life reduced to high school. And you wonder why we media geeks love George Karl?

Fortunately for the Seattle fans and the Seattle organization, the 1995-96 SuperSonics are not a high school team and Karl is not a high school coach. You might have argued to the contrary a week ago, but in the last two games, we have borne witness to Seattle’s athleticism, aggressiveness and, yes, intelligence. The real Seattle SoooooooperSonics are now on display.

“I think right now we’ve switched the momentum a little bit. We know we’re a team that can beat them,” proclaims point guard Gary Payton. “They play defense and we play defense, and they know this now.”

Oh, you mean something like holding them to 38-percent shooting and 78 points, Gary? You think perhaps the Bulls are now a bit more respectful of your team’s defensive ability?

Any objections to a brief X-and-O discussion?

Good playoff series have traditionally been about adjustment, and the Sonics - coaching staff and players alike - have made some key adjustments. No act of God was responsible for the frightening number of times a Bull found himself burdened with the basketball some 25 feet away from the hoop with fewer than 5 seconds remaining on the 24-second clock in Friday night’s Game 5 (Karl believes there were eight such Chicago possessions in the fourth period alone). ‘Twasn’t divine intervention causing these Chicago problems. It was Seattle.

“Seattle is learning to defense the vaunted triple-post offense,” maintains Dick Versace, NBA coach-turned-TV guy. “The more you play against it, the more you learn to take away the cuts and the counters.”

Chicago’s ordinary response in times of offensive peril is elementary. They give the ball to Jordan or Scottie Pippen and get the hell out of their way. But in Games 4 and 5, Jordan was superbly defensed and Pippen was the basketball equivalent of a letter bomb addressed to “Self.” The (reportedly ailing) Pippen is shooting so poorly that the rims have contacted their attorneys concerning possible assault charges. Pippen shot 5 for 20 in Game 5, and it looked, sounded and felt even worse.

As for Jordan, may I risk heresy? Ahem - and I ask the Hoop God not to strike me dead by mistaking my honest, fallible human analysis for blasphemy - is it possible Payton, he of the 26-year-old legs, really can impede Jordan on a one-on-one basis, just a teeny-weeny bit?

Something is going on. Jordan was flat-out bad in Game 4 and under reasonable control in Game 5. OK, now he’s home, and he can smell the title, etc., etc., etc. But now perhaps there is a glimmer of mortality in those 33-year-old legs.

Chicago. Game 6, a game that a week ago was an abstract along the lines of a Bob Dornan presidency, a Paulie Shore Oscar or a Red Sox World Series triumph. Chicago. Wow. A Game 6 is one thing, but if I’ve got a Chicago dateline Wednesday, we can assume that the local suicide hotline will be in danger of an overload.