NBA: ’95-’96 Chicago Bulls vs ’15-’16 Golden State Warriors

Chicago Bulls 145 Golden State Warriors 140 Final (2OT)

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CHICAGO(AP) With the Golden State Warriors taking Game 1 in Chicago, the Bulls were in a must win situation in Game 2. They could not go down 0-2 in the series and expect to go to Oakland and win both on the Warriors home floor. The buzz around this game could be heard around the world.

And the game did not disappoint.

A double overtime thriller — that’s bound to become an instant classic — featured 50 point games from both Michael Jordan and Stephen Curry, the Bulls outlasted the Warriors 145-140.

The Warriors came out of the gate on fire, hitting 11 of their first 12 shots, seven of which came from Draymond Green — who had 16 points in the first quarter.

Lost in the offensive assault for the Warriors was Klay Thompson picking up two quick fouls trying to defend Michael Jordan.

The Warriors tried to go with their patented small-ball lineup in the second quarter, but with Thompson on the bench in foul trouble, the strategy backfired.

Without Thompson, the Warriors went to a small-ball lineup of Curry, Shaun Livingston, Harrison Barnes, Andre Iguodala, and Dray Green. The Bulls countered with their own version of small-ball, putting Dennis Rodman at the five, with Steve Kerr, Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Toni Kukoc rounding out the lineup.

Livingston is not the offensive threat that Thompson is so Jordan was able to exert all his defensive efforts on Steph Curry with Kerr picking up Livingston. The Warriors tried to counter this by exploiting the Kerr/Livingston matchup but were largely unsuccessful due, in large part, to the help defense of Pippen and Rodman.

On three straight possessions, the Warriors tried to put Livingston in the post against the much smaller Kerr. The results; a blocked shot by Pippen when he came to help on a double team, a contested three-point miss by Barnes on a kick out in which Pippen recovered from doubling down, and a turnover on a double team by Rodman.

On the other side of the court, the Warriors had no answer for Jordan in the post, where he scored at will against a multitude of defenders.

When he wasn’t scoring — with his patented fade-a-way jumper — he was hitting his teammates for wide open three-pointers. Kerr was 3-for-3 on three’s in the second quarter. Even Ron Harper knocked one down from behind the arc.

The Bulls finished the first half on a 20-4 run and entered the intermission down only two points.

The third quarter belonged to the Bulls defense. More specifically, the defense of Rodman on Dray Green.

Rodman, as he has been known to do, got into the head of Green, forcing him into five 3rd quarter turnovers, and baited him into a technical foul when Green shoved Rodman after a particularly hard foul.

The Warriors weren’t sure what hit them in the 3rd and it resulted in a season low 12 points in the quarter. The Bulls seemed primed to cruise to a Game 2 victory after building an 18-point lead.

Then Steph Curry went…well…Steph Curry.

Scoring 28 of his game high 55 in the 4th, the Bulls did not have an answer for him. At one point they even tried to have Pippen guard him, thinking the size might bother him.

It did not.

Curry hit seven three-pointers in the quarter and even shrugged his shoulders a la Michael Jordan from Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals against the Trailblazers.

With 8.2 seconds to go in regulation, tied at 114, the Warriors had the ball, with a chance to win a game they had no business winning. The side out-of-bounds play, which was designed to have Curry inbound the ball then quickly get it back, was thwarted by Pippen and Jordan overplaying the passing lane, not allowing Harrison Barnes to get the ball back to Curry. The result was a forced shot by Barnes at the buzzer that did not even draw iron.

Overtime.

The first overtime was a back and forth affair in which each team exchanged baskets, neither of them gaining more than a three-point lead at any time in the period. Tied at 124, an errant shot by Scottie Pippen at the buzzer ensured we would see the second overtime.

And an unlikely hero.

With both teams running on fumes, the offensive flow on both sides became stagnant, leading Phil Jackson to make a controversial substitution. Jackson took Pippen out of the game, hoping to buy him some rest for the stretch run where his defense would be needed.

It wasn’t.

Replacing Pippen in the lineup was Toni Kukoc, who, to this point in the game, had seen very little court time. His defensive liabilities kept him watching from the bench for most of the game, which may have been a blessing in disguise.

With his fresh legs matching up against defenders that had already logged 40-plus minutes, Kukoc got hot — really hot. Entering the lineup with 3:30 to go, Kukoc scored eleven points over the next minute 30 seconds, helping the Bulls build a nine-point lead with under two minutes to go, and though the final score doesn’t seem to suggest it, the Warriors never truly threatened the Bulls for the rest of the game.

The Croatian 6th man for the Bulls hurt the Warriors from the outside on 3s, inside on the block, and had 3 assists in the quarter as well. On a night that saw Jordan score 52, Curry 55, and Pippen and Green both one assist shy of triple-doubles, Toni Kukoc was the game’s MVP and the reason the Bulls are going to Oakland tied 1-1 instead of down 0-2.

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