The members of the media horde stormed the locker room and Michael Jordan looked at them like so many Jeff Malones.
"You guys don't want to hear what I have to say," he said, "go find somebody else."The cooling-off period was over and Jordan still wasn't cooled off. This game, as Jazz assistant
coach Gordon Chiesa had just finished prophesying in the victorious locker room down the hall, would not be soon forgotten. "For the rest of your psychic existence, you'll remember this one," said Chiesa. "When we're 80 years old we'll still remember the night when Michael fouled Jeff Malone and he made all three free throws. And when somebody asks why there were three free throws, then we'll have to tell them."
Two free throws for the shooting foul, and one free throw for the technical foul that sent Jordan to the showers with :0.5 still on the clock.
Malone's three makes, as it turned out, were overkill as the Jazz used them for their 126-123 final margin of victory after last night's franchise-first triple-overtime game in the Delta Center against Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. One out of three would have been plenty.
That Malone had been allowed to shoot the free throws in the first place was why Jordan, who expressed his displeasure to referee Tommie Wood, was whistled for his technical foul and ejected from the game. And a half-hour later it was why he was pouting.
Coach Phil Jackson, speaking for Jordan and the entire Bulls family, said that calling a foul with :0.5 on the clock violated an unwritten rule of basketball, NBA basketball in particular, that says the outcome should not rest in the referee's whistle when the clock is running out fast and the air is filled with desperation.
"That's a ridiculous call on Jordan," said Jackson, referring to the foul Wood called as Jordan closely guarded Jeff Malone in the frantic final micro-seconds of the Game That Would Not End. "A desperate run at the end like that - you just don't call that foul. It's not done. We've had two of those not called for us on this road trip, at both of our games in Texas."Jeff Malone - and this may not surprise you - agreed with the referee's call entirely.
"I don't see them not making that call. He reached in and hit me across the hand," said Malone. "They just think it wasn't a foul because it was Michael Jordan."
Malone also did not agree with Jackson's terming his awkward, leaning, twisting, last-second shot as "desperate."
"Off-balance is the way I shoot," he said with indignation. "If I'd been going straight up, then that would have been desperate."
It was no surprise that Jordan and Malone were the key figures in the final outcome. From the end of regulation to the end of the third overtime, they took turns trying to win and/or lose the game.
At the end of regulation, with the score tied 89-89 and the Jazz with the ball, Jazz guard John Stockton passed to Malone in the corner at :03.7 - but the pass was too long and the Bulls took over, allowing Jordan to take a 20-footer at :0.3, which he missed.
At the end of the first overtime, with the Jazz ahead 100-99, Jordan fouled Malone on purpose at :19.1. Malone might have sewed up the outcome then and there, but he made just one of the two free throws - allowing Jordan to tie the game on the Bulls end at :06.0. The Jazz tried a game-winning shot at the buzzer, by Jeff Malone of course, but his baseline jumper was too hard.
With the score tied 115-115 at the end of the second overtime, Jordan went one-on-one with Malone and took a jump shot at the top of the key at :01.0 that didn't make it to the rim, allowing Malone to take a truly desperate heave at the basket as the buzzer sounded.
That brought up the third overtime, highlighted first at :05.0 when Jordan made a jump shot over Jeff Malone to tie the score at 123-123. But then Malone trumped that play by getting Jordan to foul him four and a half official seconds later.
All of this trying to win the game did little to help either player's shooting percentage - Jeff Malone finished 4-of-21 from the field while Jordan was 13-of-34. Together they were 17-of-55.
But that didn't stop them from trying, nor did it stop one of them from going into a postgame funk after the game - and the other from sitting back in his locker stall, his body packed with ice, wearing a satisfied smile.
"I understand how they feel," said Malone. "They lost the game. They should be upset."
*****
(Additional information)
That was the terminology local and national sportscasters were using to describe Utah's 126-123 triple overtime victory over Chicago Monday night.
"I'm going to go out on a limb," said KSL-TV's Craig Bolerjack, during his station's 10 p.m. newscast. He said it was the "greatest" NBA game "I've ever seen." At the time, the game was in double overtime. It would get even better after Bolerjack made his statement as John Stockton shortly thereafter hit a 3-point shot to send the game into the third overtime.
ESPN sportscasters on the 12:30 a.m. sportscenter were saying it was a game "that will be talked about for a long time."
Chris Sheridan of the Associated Press, who compiled the NBA roundup Monday night, said, "The Chicago Bulls locked horns with the Utah Jazz in what was arguably the NBA's best game of the season."