What if? Bulls v Spurs 1999 NBA Finals

I was watching a Bulls v Spurs game from late in the 1998 NBA Season recently and I couldn't help but wonder what if the Bulls had stayed together following the 1998 NBA season?  What if Jerry Krause hadn't made one of the worst mistakes in sport history by getting almost the whole team and coaching staff off side and deciding to rebuild?  Would the Bulls have met the Spurs in the 1999 NBA Finals?

Michael Jordan has stated that the biggest regret of his career was the way that it ended in Chicago. He wanted to keep going and winning as many championships as he could until someone beat them. The Bulls team were coming off three straight championships and seasons in which they won 72, 69 and 62 games.  If they were to have been able to keep Phil Jackson, they could have essentially brought back their core group of players for the 1999 season.  

But Phil knew before the 1998 season started that it would be the last dance. Years of tensions with Jerry Krause had come to a head and Krause already had his sights set on Tim Floyd to be the next Bulls head coach. Over the years, Krause had also managed to get his two most valuable players off side, firstly by devoting his efforts to signing Toni Kukoc rather than re-signing Scottie Pippen in the early 90s. Then, as Michael Jordan vividly recalled in his Hall of fame speech, Krause famously stated that “organisations win championships”, not players. Unfortunately for Krause, he will probably be most remembered for these mistakes rather than the man who drafted Pippen, Horace Grant and Toni Kukoc and signed Dennis Rodman.

But enough about the politics of it all and on to the basketball. If the Bulls had stayed together, could they have won the Eastern Conference again and advanced to play the Spurs in the Finals?

So how would the Bulls have looked in the 1999 season? Firstly, had they re-signed Phil Jackson, I believe Jordan, Pippen and Rodman would all have returned for the 1999 season.  I also believe that Steve Kerr and Luc Longley would have returned as well as Toni Kukoc, Ron Harper and Bill Wennington, who were still in contract for the 1999 season.  This means that the core group that won 72 games just two seasons ago would be intact for the 1999 season.

The 1999 season was shortened by the lockout and the lockout meant a shorter training camp. Having a group of veterans that had played together for the last three seasons and knew the system would have greatly benefited the Bulls in the shortened season. The older players on the Bulls may also have benefited from the shorter season, two months shorter than the standard NBA season.

Although the Bulls won an impressive 62 games during the 1997-98 season, that number is actually quite deceptive. The Bulls were without Pippen for the first 35 games of the season and were 24-11 during those games.  Their record was much worse than that in the first month of the season, staring 8-7 in their first 15 games.

Following Pippen's return, the bulls went an impressive 38-9, which equates to a 67 win season over the course of 82 games.  They easily won the first two rounds of the playoffs, sweeping New Jersey in three games and then beating Charlotte in 5. However, in the Conference Finals against the Indiana Pacers the Bulls looked vulnerable for the first time in years. Of course, they did manage to defeat Indiana in 7 games then beat Utah in 6 games after losing a 3-1 lead in game 5 in Chicago. 

Based on the Bulls record from the 1998 season, the Bulls would have won 37-38 games in the 50 game 1999 regular season which would have secured top spot in the Eastern Conference.  However, if you look at the Bulls record for after Pippen returned from injury, the Bulls would have won 40 games.  But working on the assumption that the Bulls wouldn’t have improved their record from the previous season, they still would have finished first in the Eastern Conference winning 37-38 games. The top three teams in the East in 1999 were the Heat, Magic and Pacers, each winning 35 games. 

Interestingly, had the Bulls made the playoffs in 1999, the Eastern Conference Champion from that year would not have even made the playoffs.  The Knicks finished eighth in the Eastern Conference in 1999.  In order to reach the Finals, the Knicks beat the 1^st seed Heat, 4^th seed Hawks and 2^nd Seeded Pacers.

Had the Bulls finished first in the East, they likely would have played the Milwaukee Bucks in the First round.  The bucks had not beaten the bulls in 3 years, the Bulls winning all 12 games.  It is hard to see the Bulls losing a game against the Bucks in the first round of the playoffs.

 The Bulls would then have faced the Orlando Magic or the Atlanta Hawks and would have dispatched them without much difficulty.  In the 1999 Playoffs, the Magic lost in the first round to the 6^th seeded 76ers.  The Hawks were swept in the second round by the 8^th seeded Knicks.  The Bulls had completely dominated both teams in previous years with an 11-2 record against the Hawks and a 9-3 record against the Magic.  The Bulls had defeated both the Magic (4-0 in 1996 with Shaquille O’Neal) and the Hawks (4-1 in 1997) in the playoffs.

The Bulls then would have played one of their opponents from the previous two eastern conference finals - the Miami Heat or the Indiana Pacers.  The Bulls won 14 of 19 games against the Heat in the past three seasons, including a 4-1 victory in the 1997 Eastern Conference Finals.  They won 2 of 3 games against them in 1997-98 season.

The Indiana Pacers would have been a tougher challenge for the Bulls.  Although the Bulls had won 9 of the last 12 regular season games against the Pacers, the Bulls were forced to 7 games by the Pacers in the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals.  However, the 1999 Pacers lost to the eighth placed Knicks in the Conference Finals and were not as strong as they were in 1998. It would have been a tough series, but I believe the Bulls would have won.

The 1999 NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs would have been a great series.  It is often argued that the Bulls never faced a team with a dominant center in the Finals, missing out on Olajuwon in 1994 and 1995, David Robinson in 1999 and Shaq in 2000.  Of course, the Bulls did have to face Ewing, Shaq, Mutombo and Mourning in the Eastern Conference Playoffs and defeated each of them.

Home court advantage may have been an important factor in the 1999 Finals.  The Spurs finished with a 37-13 record in 1999 and possibly may have had home court advantage against the Bulls in the Finals.  The team which had home court advantage may have come down to the only meeting in the Regular Season meeting between the teams on 14 February 1999 at the United Centre in Chicago.  The Spurs actually won that game by 13 points against the Jordan-less Bulls.  However, if the Bulls had won that game, the Spurs win total would have been 36 games that season and the Bulls would have held the tie break had the two teams finished with the same regular season record.  Given that the Bulls were 115-8 at the United Centre in the previous 3 seasons, it is likely that the Bulls would have won that matchup.

The 1999 Spurs team was comprised mostly of the same players as the 1997-98 Spurs.  The key players Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Sean Elliot, and Avery Johnson all returned from the 1998 team.  They did add Mario Elie and Antonio Daniels who were important contributors to the 1999 Championship team.

The Bulls swept both games against the Spurs in 1997-98; winning in Chicago by 4 in double overtime and in San Antonio by 10.  

The early season game in Chicago was played without Scottie Pippen and the Bulls needed Jordan to hit a 3 pointer at the buzzer to send it into overtime.  Jordan scored 29 points and Robinson and Duncan had 21 and 19 points respectively.

Interestingly, the game in San Antonio the Bulls played without Luc Longley and the Bulls started a small lineup of Jordan, Pippen, Kukoc, Rodman and Harper against the Spurs Twin Towers.  Robinson dominated the game with 35 points, but Duncan was held to 14 points by Dennis Rodman’s defence.  Jordan and Kukoc scored 30 and 21 points respectively and the Bulls won quite easily.

The great shot blocking of Robinson and Duncan could have caused problems for the Bulls, but by the 1998 season the Bulls were very much a perimeter orientated team.  The triangle offense almost always gave the Bulls good opportunities to score from the perimeter and also would not have allowed Duncan and Robinson to place close to the rim on defence.  The strength of the Bulls centers, Longley and Wennington, was their medium range jump shots, which would have drawn Duncan and Robinson away from the rim.

The Spurs may actually have had more trouble scoring than the Bulls.  The Bulls almost never double teamed dominant post players, leaving Rodman and Longley to defend Duncan and Robinson one on one.  The Bulls were more focused on shutting down the other perimeter players to make sure that they did not get open 3 point attempts and Jordan, Pippen and Rodman were three of the greatest perimeter defenders ever. The Spurs only averaged 84.8 points per game in the 1999 Finals against the Knicks, who were an inferior team defensively to the Chicago Bulls.

It may have come down to the fact that the Spurs just did not have anyone that could stop Jordan.  Jordan always raised his game in the Finals, with a career average of 33.6 points per game in the Finals and Robinson and Duncan’s great interior shot blocking would have been negated by Jordan’s outstanding perimeter jump shots.

The Spurs couldn’t beat the Bulls in the 1998 season and there is no reason to believe that they could have in the 1999 season.  I think the Bulls would have won in 6, but it would have been a great series.