So it wasn't meant to be. On the seventh game, they will rest.
After 102 games, 77 wins, a Midwest Division title, a Western Conference championship, and making even the Unbeatabulls begin to wonder, the Utah Jazz's karma ran into reality Friday night on the west side of Chicago, where the Chicago Bulls successfully defended their NBA title with a 90-86 Game 6 win.The Jazz might have staged a successful comeback anywhere else, but not here, not the way the wind was blowing, not in the shadow of the Michael Jordan statue already erected in perpetuity outside the United Center, where the inscription reads: "The best there ever was. The best there ever will be." Hey, it's hard to beat people after the eulogy.
In the end as in the beginning, it was Jordan who made the difference. At 34, he hoisted the Bulls on his back and carried them to their fifth NBA title in seven years. The Jazz's big mistake, their only sizable mistake, was being born in the Mike era. If only he could have hit curve balls.
All series long, the Jazz handled and often manhandled the rest of the Bulls. Some of them may never recover. They could very realistically have sent Dennis Rodman into retirement, which, when you think about it, takes some of the emptiness out of taking second. They had players the calibre of Ron Harper and Luc Longley - who combined for two points last night - talking to themselves. They had Toni Kukoc, the best player ever to immigrate from Europe, longing for home.
But that still left Jordan, and he wasn't just interested in winning a ring for his thumb, he was very interested. He played hurt, he played sick, he played like he needed the winner's share of the purse.
Without Jordan, the Jazz are pouring champagne on each other before Game 6. Think about it: There were three games that came down to Jordan's final shot. He made two, missed one. Reverse that, and the series is still alive. Make him 0-for-3 and Salt Lake is Championship City.
To seal the Jazz's fate, the Jazz finally did what they said they wouldn't do - double team him - and, sure as Lake Michigan is wet, when they did he found the open man, Steve Kerr, who couldn't quite believe that, finally, for the first time of a very frustrating fortnight, John Stockton wasn't pestering him like a man with a flyswatter.
But not astonished enough not to nail the jump shot that now puts him in the Chicago Bulls annals with John Paxson, who also once hit a title-clinching jump shot because Michael was so popular.
Kerr scores. Chicago goes delirious. Maybe the Jazz had led at least 80 percent of the game - just as they'd led a vast majority of the series - and maybe they had five seconds to still make a case that they were Team Destiny, but with the United Center crowd finally turning off their cellulars at once and singing all the words to "Hey, Hey, Hey," the only chance for the Jazz was for another fire. And quick.
In the end, the Jazz could take consolation that for two weeks they kept all of Chicago on edge - as it became more and more apparent that they were ready to rumble.
You knew the series had reached an extremely high competitive pitch when Jordan told Rodman after Game 4 to cool it on trying to intimidate the likes of Karl Malone.
"This is skill versus skill," Jordan said, and that was as big of a compliment as was the reaction of the United Center crowd last night when the p.a. announcer, as the confetti was falling from the ceiling, said, "Congratulations to the Western Conference Utah Jazz."
And the crowd booed.
It was over and they were still worried.
Worried that John Stockton might pull through with another three to the heart. Worried that Karl Malone might again get the ball down low. Worried that maybe it was all a mirage, this celebration, because, man, it seemed like the Jazz always had the lead.
When it was all over but the barricading of the downtown streets, it remained for Jordan to celebrate his title - which he did exuberantly, thrusting his hand to the adoring crowd as if to give them all five, which in fact he just had.
And it remained for Jordan to write the Jazz's epitaph. He'd done everything else.
He got that right, too. He praised the team from Utah, said they "showed a lot of heart," and took time to single out the series-long longshoremanlike defensive effort of Bryon Russell.
"Bryon, not Byron," he said.
The Jazz didn't get the Bulls' title, but they sure did get their attention. Sometime later this summer, when even the great Jordan looks at the films, he'll realize just how close the team from Utah came.