It’s No Joke, Kerr Comes Up Game 6 Hero

Now we know why Michael Jordan didn’t make it in baseball.

He was totally out of position. The outfield is no place for a natural closer.

When the Utah Jazz threatened to push the NBA Finals to a seventh game Friday night, when Jordan was missing every other shot, when the Chicago Bulls for a critical stretch were better off without him, it was still left to Jordan to put the basketball season to rest.

That the Bulls’ drive for five - their fifth championship in seven seasons - would come down to him is no surprise.

That Utah’s John Stockton would abandon his man, Steve Kerr, to double down on Jordan was no shock, either, since Kerr in this series had yet to make the Jazz pay.

So there he was, Steve Kerr, unlikely hero, home alone while Jordan the lightning rod drew off all but 2 seconds from the shot clock and every amp of defensive energy the Jazz could summon.

He’d told Kerr to stay loose, the ball would be coming his way.

I can make the shot, Kerr responded as the Bulls broke the huddle with 28 seconds left. Only after his 14-footer went down with 5 seconds to go did he laugh about the second thoughts.

What was he thinking after assuring Mr. Jordan that he could take it and make it?

“I can?”

Jordan called it redemption.

Kerr called it a joke.

Me, knocking down the shot to win the NBA championship. What a thrill. It’s a joke, he said.

The last to meet the press - “Sorry,” he laughed, “I didn’t know where this room was” - Kerr was asked how he felt about a repeat of the three-peat. Jordan had spoken of the need to keep the Bulls together for a run at a sixth championship next year.

Kerr was almost too tired to laugh.

The accumulation of the last two championship seasons was a grind. Eighteen months of striving with barely three months in between had drained him. Last year was fun, he said.

“I wouldn’t characterize this as fun.”

Satisfying?

No question.

Jordan - packing a championship cigar and a world-class-sized bottle of champagne to the interview room - told of how low Kerr felt after missing the potential game-breaking shot in Chicago’s Game 4 loss in Salt Lake. Kerr, he said, had stayed in his room with his head buried under a pillow.

Kerr amended that to say he did feel a little low for a while.

Jud Buechler, Kerr’s fellow Arizonan who hit a key 3 to pull the Bulls to within six points late in the third quarter, was yelling, “You made the big one, you made the big one,” Kerr related.

“Good,” Kerr shot back, “because I missed all the little ones.”

The Jazz will remember what could have been. They left for home without a trace of awe. John Stockton had career moment after career moment in Utah’s two wins.

He had done himself proud.

When the misery passes, what will he remember about coming up two games short of an NBA title?

Stockton talked of belonging with the best.

“Being here was a great experience,” the Gonzaga Prep and Gonzaga U. grad said. “Granted, they beat us. They did all the things that champions do. But I think everybody is leaving the locker room feeling that we belong in the Finals.”

This year, and next.

Shandon Anderson hits two open layups and they’re playing Sunday.

Close - this close - is OK.

As for Jordan, he’ll share the spoils of the championship series MVP award with Scottie Pippen.

“I’m keeping the trophy,” His Airness said. “Scottie can have the car.”

Fair split.

Pippen was the center fielder, Stockton said, the guy who ran down everything.

“Scottie was in the way a lot,” Stockton said. “He’s rangy. That (Pippen’s defense) was one of the more difficult things we had to deal with.”

Jordan, as always, was a long way from center field.

As usual, he fired the last strike.

, DataTimes