This was the Portland Trail Blazers' chance to come bolting out of the locker room and put it to the big bad Bulls.
For once, they could take the initiative, fire up their fans early, and ride the emotion to a victory that would send the NBA Finals back to Chicago with a 3-2 series lead."We wanted to jump on them," Portland's Cliff Robinson said. "But they jumped on us."
The Bulls have been jumping to early leads on the Trail Blazers all series. They did it again Friday night and, this time, Portland wasn't able to recover, losing 119-106.
"We've got to give them credit," Blazers coach Rick Adelman said. "They jumped on us early, got the lead and stayed out ahead of us. They've done an excellent job of coming out aggressively. On Sunday, we'll have to find some way to combat that."
If they do, it'll be the first time. Chicago has held the early lead in each game, but wasn't able to hold on in Games 2 and 4.
"The sign of a championship team is to get back up after having a bad game and do a better job the next time out," Bulls coach Phil Jackson said. "Offensively, we played a precise control game with a lot of poise."
Portland had seven turnovers, good for 17 Chicago points, in the first quarter. The Bulls, who didn't trail after taking a 10-2 lead, were up 39-26 after one.
"We're getting it going too late," the Blazers' Danny Ainge said. "Coming out of the locker room, we just don't have it for some reason, whether we're tight, nervous, trying too hard, whatever."
The Blazers began the game with 6-foot-3 Terry Porter guarding Chicago's 6-7 Scottie Pippen, the first time they've tried that matchup. Pippen scored 13 first-quarter points, one more than Michael Jordan.
"We were trying to pick him up a little sooner and not let him get a head of steam," Porter said.
"Obviously," Adelman said, "it didn't work."
As was the case with most of Portland's matchups.
"Jordan and Pippen are fantastic," said Ainge, who tried to defend each. "Anybody we put on those guys is a tough matchup."