When we last left these 90-91 Bulls, they were coming off 20 wins in 21 games: a 50-15 record with 17 games to play. They were on track to have the best regular season record in Chicago Bulls history.
19 years earlier, the 1971-72 Chicago Bulls were 57-25. Coached by Dick Motta, this was a very talented team. They were led by the 2 players, not named Jordan or Pippen, who have their jerseys hanging in the rafters in the United Center. #10 was Butterbean Bob Love and #4 was Jerry Sloan. They also had Norm Van Lier, Chet Walker, Clifford Ray, and Tom Boerwinkle. They were a very good basketball team. They ran into the Los Angeles Lakers that year in the playoffs. The Lakers were coming off the best regular season of all time that season, with a record of 69-13. That record stood 24 years until some team went 72-10… one record at a time please.
So 58 wins was a certainty, right? Well, after the historic run, the Bulls went 7-6 over the next 13 games to tie that win total at 57. They had 2 losses to the 76ers, whom they would meet in the playoffs later this year. One of the losses was in OT. That was only the 2nd OT game the Bulls had played all year. The first was in this stretch as well, of the 2OT variety… a loss at Boston Garden. The final game in this 13 game stretch was back in Detroit against the Pistons. The Bulls had expelled those demons right? Wrong. The Pistons would beat the Bulls in Detroit again with a 95-91 victory. The silver lining here was that there was no way the Pistons would catch the Bulls in the regular season. At that point, the Bulls sat 9 games ahead of them in the standings, so if by some chance these two would meet in the postseason again, the Bulls would hold the home court for the first time.
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The Bulls had achieved their first goal. They finished as the #1 seed in the East. They were 5 games better than Boston, and 11 games better than the hated Pistons. Now it was time for the playoffs. They had made the playoffs every year since Jordan was drafted. They had finished short in each of the first 6 seasons. In 1985, it was the Bucks knocking the Bulls out in the 1st round. The next 2 years, the Celtics performed that honor. The past 3 years, it was the Pistons. In the Conference Semis in 1988, and the Conference Finals in 1989 & 1990, each year the Bulls did a game better vs Detroit. Losing in 5, 6, then 7 games respectively, with the key word being “losing”. Would this year be different or would the past playoff failures repeat themselves?
The 8 seed that year was the New York Knicks. Thursday, April 25, 1991 would be Game 1 of those 1991 playoffs at the Chicago Stadium. History was already made that year in the regular season with the 61 wins. 15 more wins would be required to bring home the franchise’s first championship. Let the second season begin.
MK
61-21 was a Bulls record that would be broken. They had the top spot in the east and homecourt. Would this year be different? Could the Bulls make it past detroit and out of the east? The knicks were up first. 15 wins away from their first title. Playoff basketball is next!