SI Article: Guarding Kobe

[Sam Darnold Heisman #8]

good read about defending kobe:

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1155388/1/index.htm

May 18, 2009 [h1]Guarding Kobe[/h1] [h2]The greatest testament to the Lakers' star's offensive brilliance might be the lengths to which Rockets defensive specialist Shane Battier will go to stop him[/h2] CHRIS BALLARD

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Imagine coming face-to-face with a tornado-and we're talking a fast-moving, maximum intensity, mean-#$+ twister that's sucking up livestock-and then being asked to "stop" it. You'd run for cover, right? Well, the brave souls assigned to guard Kobe Bryant don't have that option, even though, just as there is no stopping a twister, there's no "stopping" a player like Bryant, especially over the course of a seven-game playoff series. You don't know in which direction he might spin, when he's going to pick up speed or stop altogether, or how much metaphoric destruction he will wreak. No matter how effectively the defender does his job, he's going to get scored upon, and often in ways that are quite embarrassing: on slippery drives, crazy step-back jumpers, maybe a vicious dunk or two.

Look at the impressive effort being put forth by Shane Battier in the matchup at the heart of the contentious second-round series between the Houston Rockets and the Los Angeles Lakers. Over the first four games, Battier has been tasked with shadowing Bryant on nearly every dribble, twice forcing him into subpar games, including the Rockets' stunning Game 4 victory (accomplished without All-Star center Yao Ming, who is done for the year with a hairline fracture in his left foot) that tied the series at week's end.

For Battier, the Rockets forward who has twice been named to the NBA All-Defensive team, this was not a fluke. Cerebral and obsessive in his approach to defense, he is among that rare breed of NBA player who makes his living trying to contain such elite scorers. These are the guys who play 40 minutes and finish with maybe four points, three rebounds and two assists, yet they're invaluable, especially come the postseason. To watch Battier in action against Kobe is to see defense treated like a science, if not a religion.

In Game 1, Battier executed the Rockets' defensive plan to perfection: He pushed Bryant left (where double-team help would be), kept him off the free throw line (so there were no easy points), contested every shot (with "that hand-in-the-face activity" as Lakers coach Phil Jackson put it) and forced him to shoot deep, off-balance two-point jumpers. The result: Bryant shot 8 for 22 from the field while being guarded by Battier, and finished the game with an inefficient 32 points that required 31 shots. Problem solved, right? Well, in Game 2, Battier made no adjustments-"my game plan was pretty much the same," he said-and again, Bryant took deep, off-balance two-pointers, drove left and took relatively few free throws. Only this time Bryant shot a scorching 16 for 27 from the field and scored 40 points. Outside the Houston locker room after the game, Rockets vice president of basketball operations Sam Hinkie stared at the box score like a man attempting to make sense of a complicated calculus problem. "This is almost embarrassing to say since Kobe scored 40," said Hinkie, a stat head with a Stanford M.B.A. who works closely with Battier in preparing for opponents, "but Shane played really good defense tonight."

And so it went, each game swinging unpredictably: 33 points for Bryant in Game 3, followed by a Game 4 in which Battier shockingly outscored him 23 to 15. Regardless, the toll from defending Kobe is steep and both mental and physical: In the first four games Battier ran face-first through more than 50 screens, was knocked over a half-dozen times, suffered a gash over his left eye that left a spiderweb of blood on his face and absorbed a Bryant elbow to the back of the head that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Muay Thai bout. Not to mention the taunting-"You can't guard me!" Bryant roared at Battier more than once-made worse because Battier can't really respond. After all, as he points out, "What can I say that's going to erase the fact that he's scoring 40 points on me?"

The answer, of course, is nothing. No, the only reward for a specialist like Battier comes on the scoreboard: Did his team win? Otherwise, it is a thankless, inglorious task, one Michael Cooper, the former Lakers stopper, once compared to being a "garbage collector" because "you don't notice them unless they don't do their job. [They] handle the messes and the stinky stuff."

Bryant poses a particularly vexing-or would that be malodorous?-problem for such men. Whereas some players rely on favorite moves or possess obvious strengths and weaknesses (for example, LeBron James, despite his improved jumper, remains far more effective in the paint than on the perimeter), Bryant is remarkably well-rounded. According to Synergy Sports Technology, which logs every play of every NBA game, Bryant drove right 49.01% of the time this season and left 50.99% of the time. In Synergy's finely parsed statistical analysis, he ranked in the top 20% of the league in (deep breath): shots off cuts, shots off screens, spot-up attempts, shots against single coverage in the post and off one-on-one isolation moves (and he's only slightly less effective in pick and rolls and transition). Lakers assistant coach Brian Shaw used to guard Bryant every day in practice when the two were teammates and is all too familiar with the challenge. "He really has no weaknesses," says Shaw. "And he has the knowledge and the ability to say, I'm going to send you to this spot on the floor where only I know I'm going to take you, and I'm going to raise up and take my shot before you can contest it."

What's more, because Bryant is so accurate with his jumper, very few shots that he takes would qualify as bad ones. Just ask Chip Engelland, the respected shooting coach and Spurs assistant who has worked with Grant Hill and Steve Kerr, among others (and whom Battier called for defensive advice on the day of Game 1). Asked what he would do if Kobe came to him for help on his jumper, Engelland laughs, then says, "I would rebound." No really, Chip, what would you do? He thinks for a moment. "Maybe I'd work on shooting while fatigued, but that's about it. His technical form is amazing. He's one of the great jump shooters of our time."

Faced with such an opponent, Battier tries to focus on tiny weaknesses. For example, Bryant shot a surprisingly low percentage (25.5%) on top-of-the-key three-pointers this year, often because he had to hoist them off the dribble. The Rockets' data-which is plentiful, thanks to the number-crunching emphasis that G.M. Daryl Morey has brought to the Houston front office-also tells Battier to send Bryant to his left, where he's less efficient. But even if this works, sometimes Bryant is merely baiting his defender, waiting for the moment to reverse field. "Sometimes Kobe will let a guy think that he's making [Kobe] do what he wants, and then, at the critical point in the game, Kobe will do what he wants to do," says Shaw. "He'll save things until he really needs them."

Once this happens and Bryant creates space for a jumper, Battier's last resort is the aforementioned "hand-in-the-face activity." We've seen it time and again in the series. Bryant rises up, and as he does, Battier launches at him. For an instant, it appears inevitable that the two men will collide, and if you were watching Battier for the first time, you might think that he was reckless. But Battier invariably turns sideways in midair, his right leg leading the way, and he skims just past Bryant, while simultaneously extending his right hand so that it is inches from Bryant's face, the fingers spread to obscure his vision.



With most players, this is distraction enough-he's going to stick his finger in my eye!-but great shooters like Bryant are so locked in that it's often as if the defender doesn't exist. So then Battier has to introduce an element of uncertainty. Occasionally he might tap a hot shooter on the head, even if it leads to a whistle. "Every now and then I'll just take a foul," Battier says. "I'll hit the guy on the wrist or the elbow or even the face just to put that thought in the offensive player's mind. Because offensive players, they don't like contact. They're shooters. They do not like to be touched. And anything I can do to keep a guy off guard and keep him guessing, I'm going to do."

Even if Battier can succeed in getting Bryant out of sync, however, all it takes is one careless moment to lose the edge. That's why for a defensive specialist like Battier, the greatest fear is heading to the bench while Bryant remains in the game and gets his mojo going. Spurs forward Bruce Bowen in particular is known to fume about this. "I've never seen a guy get mad like that when he's on the bench," says Malik Rose, the Oklahoma City forward who played with Bowen for many years on the Spurs. "When we'd play Kobe, Bruce would do a great job on him. Then when Bruce would get subbed out, he'd be yelling at his backup to 'Get up on him' and 'Do this' and 'Do that,' because he didn't want Kobe to get hot. Because nothing is worse than coming in against a hot player."

This can happen even if you're not on the bench. In Game 1, for example, Battier was guarding Bryant and sticking to his principles: no risks, only jump shots, nothing at the rim. And through the first two quarters, Bryant had settled for tough jumpers and missed most of them, shooting 4 for 12. Then, with 9:40 left in the third quarter, Rockets forward Ron Artest switched onto Bryant in transition and picked him up at the top of the key. From across the court, Battier watched in horror as Artest gambled for a steal, lunging for the ball as Bryant dribbled. With Artest off balance, Bryant finally had a lane to attack and headed straight to the rim, where he finished and drew the foul on Luis Scola. That's all it took; as Battier says, "Kobe had his bounce after that." He went on to hit 6 of 9 shots in the quarter.

This, as you can imagine, can be quite frustrating. As such, part of the challenge of guarding Kobe over a series is staying positive. Take the case of Utah guard Ronnie Brewer, who is a respectable defender, though not in Battier's league. During the first round of the playoffs, Brewer had to stick Bryant. And for three games he did a decent job. Then, in Game 4, Kobe went off, scoring 38 points on 16-for-24 shooting as the Lakers went up 3--1 in that series. Afterward, Brewer was disconsolate, sure he'd let down his team. "I got down on myself because I felt like, Man, if I could have slowed him down a bit, the series could have turned around," says Brewer. "But when he got hot, it was like there was nothing I could do." Engelland has seen this reaction before, having witnessed many a Bryant detonation as a Spurs coach. "I think the hardest thing when you're playing against Kobe is not getting deflated," he says. "You have to stay positive on him every play."

If anyone can commiserate, it is Craig Ehlo, who was Shane Battier before there was Shane Battier. A 6'7" forward, Ehlo played 14 NBA seasons, 10 with the Hawks and the Cavs, and ended up as something of Michael Jordan's personal defender. Perhaps you remember Ehlo from the deciding game of the 1989 Eastern Conference first-round playoffs between the Bulls and the Cavs. With three seconds left, Jordan took an inbounds pass, dribbled to the free throw line, hung in the air as a guy flew by, then sank the series-winning jumper. As Jordan leaped in the air, pumping his fist, the guy who sank to the floor as if he'd been teargassed was Ehlo.

It was not an isolated incident. Year after year, Ehlo tried to guard Jordan, and year after year he came away flummoxed (though not for lack of talent; Ehlo was athletic, long and persistent, one of the better cover guys in the league). One time late in his career, Ehlo remembers Jordan coming off a down screen in the triangle offense. Reading the play, Ehlo stepped out into the passing lane, only Jordan instinctively countered him and stepped back, where he caught the ball, changed direction and hit a jump shot.

"How did you do that?" Ehlo asked as they ran back down the court. "I totally had you covered on that one."

Jordan shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, Craig, it just happened."

Of course, nobody ever figured out how to stop Michael Jordan when he was just happening. Many were the nights when Ehlo would spend 40 minutes shadowing M.J. only to surrender four dozen points and secure goat status in the eyes of the Cavs' fans. Still, Cavs trainer Gary Briggs knew better. Says Ehlo, "After the game, he would look me dead square in the eye and say, 'He may have scored 45 points, but you were dead in his s- all night.'" Ehlo pauses. "And that was all I needed to hear."

Similarly, Kobe's victims take pains to keep perspective. Battier says he thinks of himself as a factory worker approaching his task-he punches the clock and puts in the time, and "that way I don't get too high or too low." Brewer says his friends tried to buck him up but that it can be especially tough because "sometimes you're the villain either way": If Bryant scores a lot, you've failed, and if he doesn't score a lot, well, a lot of people come to the arena to see Bryant score, so now you've let them down.



But that's not Brewer's worry anymore, it's Battier's. If the Lakers prevail and advance, the job of containing Bryant will probably fall to Dahntay Jones, whose Denver Nuggets held a 3--0 series lead over the Dallas Mavericks through Sunday. Then it will be Jones who will have to run face-first into screens and take elbows to the head. And beyond that, in a month or so, perhaps it will be a certain MVP forward from Cleveland, one who also bears a striking resemblance to a force of nature. In which case we'd get to see something rare and precious: two unstoppable players trying to stop each other.

Of course, just maybe, if Battier does his dirty, stinky job well enough, he could save everyone else the trouble.

 

[krey1231]

Damn, first time I doubled.

 

[krey1231]

Shane is the only guy who I've seen slow LBJ down.

 

[crazy dav0]

"Of course, nobody ever figured out how to stop Michael Jordan when he was just happening. Many were the nights when Ehlo would spend 40 minutes shadowingM.J. only to surrender four dozen points and secure goat status in the eyes of the Cavs' fans. Still, Cavs trainer Gary Briggs knew better. Says Ehlo,"After the game, he would look me dead square in the eye and say, 'He may have scored 45 points, but you were dead in his s- all night.'"Ehlo pauses. "And that was all I needed to hear."

yes this is about kobe but damn ... jordan

 

[no vert]

Let the hate begin.

 

[CP1708]

Shane is by FAR the best I have ever seen at stopping Kobe. He is a great defender.

But again I say, a guy in the league scores 30, and people all around say he had an awesome game, or a great game, or whatever. People callStat a beast after he nets 26.

Kobe scores 40 and people praise the guys defending him.

Sit back and think about that someday.

 

[ThaxbyChamblis]

You can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him
in a room w/ a white woman.
Shane can't really STOP him for game after game after game.

 

[vctry20]

Shane is by FAR the best I have ever seen at stopping Kobe. He is a great defender.
yeah I never thought too high of Battier until one Rockets/Lakers game towards the end of last season where I believe the Rockets won and he heldKobe under 25. I was just like

 

[dman14]

its nearly impossible to guard a great player and with the way the nba rules are it makes it even tougher

guys like kobe can get whatever shot they want, you just got to try to make them work a little hard for it. shane does a good job, but kobe will still get hisnumbers

ron has lost a step over the yrs, he's better off guarding the 3

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Kobe shoots 43% over his career vs Shane Battier...
Kobe Shoots 48% vs Ron Artest...

Kobe is going to get his points but shane makes him take tough contest lower percentage shots and significantly better than even Ron at guarding Kobe.

 

[infinite04]

Battier is by far the best perimeter defender out there right now.....those contests on Kobe's jumper are crazy.....I guess it's even crazier that Kobeis still hitting them...

 

[downtown43]

Ron is just going on reputation nowadays.. his defense has really declined.

Battier still does an admirable job against Kobe, but Artest has just become an embarassment everytime he steps out on him.

Kobe embarassed Artest badly on that long buzzer beater to end the quarter earlier on in the series. Ron tried so hard to defend him on that play.

 

[wings90]

Good read. Battier really is pretty impressive.

 

[sticky2385]

Battier gets his props but thas where it stops cause the real KING of the jungle cant be stopped no matter wat hes gonna do wat he wants!

 

[tmoney85]

kobe shooting 48% this series for 29.9 points a game, thats including the HORRIBLE game 4 he had.

 

[wallyhopp]

Originally Posted by SelfishSociety

KOBE IS UNSTOPPABLE POINT BLANK PERIOD.... Its funny how people praise the dude who takes the challenge to get his %#% handed to every night

you sound like the type that would laugh at alonzo mourning or shawn bradley for contesting a dunk and getting dunked on. those attempting to try deservecredit. they dont care about their all too precious egos.

 

[mjsaver]

Originally Posted by Infinite04

Battier is by far the best perimeter defender out there right now.....those contests on Kobe's jumper are crazy.....I guess it's even crazier that Kobe is still hitting them...

BATTIER is a true pro...

Any team would be lucky to have a PLAYER like him...[esp L.A.]

He should shoot more tho, because he can really shoot it.

 

[hybridsoldier23]

........................

SWISH.

 

[goldmember]

^^ Well, Kobe can still see

 

[mister friendly]

Kobe is the only guy that can stop Kobe

 

[pdoggy85]

Originally Posted by CP1708

Shane is by FAR the best I have ever seen at stopping Kobe. He is a great defender.

But again I say, a guy in the league scores 30, and people all around say he had an awesome game, or a great game, or whatever. People call Stat a beast after he nets 26.

Kobe scores 40 and people praise the guys defending him.

Sit back and think about that someday.

 

[davidisgodly]

At the end of the day. bleep laker fans.

Take away Yao + t-mac, i'm still a rockets fan.

 

[kobefan23]

I completely agree with CP...

I've watched Kobe for almost his entire career and I've never seen anyone defend him better than Shane Battier. I told some friends before the playoffsthat if HOU/LA met in the second round, I'd expect Kobe to have two, maybe three good shooting games max.

It's sad that the NBA All-defensive team is such a joke; Battier should be first team every year....

 

[dlo13]

SI recycling stories...

Found the article, too...

[size=+3]Cover Story[/size]

[size=+1]Checking Michael Jordan isn't so strenuous, but it's sure frustrating, says Steve Smith, who did the thankless task for Atlanta[/size]

[size=+by Phil Taylor[/size]
[size=-1]Issue date: May 19, 1997[/size]

Steve Smith is beaming, looking nothing like a player who has just had his ticket punched to basketball hell. It is Sunday, May 4, and the Atlanta Hawks have just beaten the Detroit Pistons in the deciding game of their first-round NBA playoff series, thereby earning the right to play the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference semifinals. This means Smith, the Hawks' shooting guard, has been sentenced to at least a week of hard labor-trying to shackle the best player on the planet, the Bulls' Michael Jordan.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Smith donated $2.5 million to his alma mater, Michigan State, in January; he buys 40 tickets to every Hawks home game and passes them out to youth groups and senior citizens; and he gives $50 to the Georgia chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation for every three-pointer he makes. "And for all that, what does he get? Michael Jordan, for a whole series," says his teammate, forward Tyrone Corbin. "That's not fair. The only thing tougher than guarding Jordan all night is guarding Jordan every night."

Playing defense against Jordan for an entire playoff series is like facing Tiger Woods for 72 holes of match play. Guarding Jordan grows more difficult over the course of a series, which is why so many of the teams he faces in the postseason rotate defenders against him. "He can really work you over physically and psychologically during a game," says Atlanta assistant Bill Hanzlik. "But in the regular season you see him for a night, and then you don't have to worry about him again for a few weeks. In a playoff series he gets to work on you over and over again. You have to be so mentally strong not to let the frustration build, not to let up even if it seems like nothing you do against him is working. Guarding him night in and night out is the ultimate challenge."

Smith knows this well; he has been matched up against Jordan more times than he cares to count in his six-year career. At 6'8" he is two inches taller than Jordan, and with his long arms he is well suited to guard him. But he has only once faced Jordan in his most lethal form, the postseason Jordan, and that was in 1992, when Smith was a rookie playing for Miami and Chicago swept the Heat 3-0 in the first round. "I know what's going to happen," Smith says. "I know his eyes are going to get even more intense. His cuts are going to get even sharper, his moves are going to get even quicker." And Smith is going to get a close-up view of it all. He's going to be chained to the all-you-can-eat Jordan buffet. But if Smith is worried, he's doing a superb job of hiding it during this postgame celebration. Someone asks how he will try to contain Jordan. Smith laughs and says, "I don't know. I don't want to think about that until tomorrow."

MONDAY, MAY 5

Video day. The Hawks go over videotape of the Bulls in preparation for Game 1 on Tuesday night. Smith studies the Bulls in general, not Jordan in particular. He believes the best approach to guarding Jordan is to make sure his mind does not become a 24-hour, all-Jordan, all-the-time channel. Some players get so-called individual edits, tapes that have been put together to isolate the player they will be matched up against. This is the last thing Smith wants to prepare for Jordan, even though he has nothing against watching videos; he has every episode of Sanford and Son on tape and rarely goes a day without watching at least one. But he gets far more amusement from Fred and Lamont than from Michael. "If I wanted to watch a tape of strictly Michael Jordan, I'd buy one of his highlight videos," Smith says. "You don't want to study him too much because you can find yourself starting to be in awe a little bit. Besides, it's not like I'm going to find a weakness to take advantage of, because he doesn't have any."

Smith's teammates keep their advice to a minimum. "There's not a lot you can say that he doesn't already know," says reserve guard Jon Barry. "It's more like, 'Hey, Smitty, do your best, and, uh, we're right behind you.'" Atlanta coach Lenny Wilkens tries to offer more concrete help. He would like to get away with having Smith guard Jordan one-on-one as much as possible, but the Hawks will send over one of their big men-usually 6'11" forward-center Christian Laettner but sometimes 7'2" center Dikembe Mutombo-for an occasional double-team. Wilkens wants to send a big man rather than a guard because he knows Jordan's favorite weapon these days is the fadeaway jumper, and Laettner and Mutombo are more likely to disrupt that shot. "He doesn't seem to want to take the ball to the hoop as much," Wilkens says. "So if we can force him to do something he doesn't want to do, that's one small victory." Smith expects help from the big men, but he isn't picky. "Anybody who wants to help, Christian, Dikembe, the popcorn guy, the Gatorade kid, I'll take it," he says.

TUESDAY, MAY 6

"You ready?" Smith says to Jordan as they meet at half-court for the tip-off.

"I'm ready. You ready?" Jordan replies, smiling.

It is the first of what will be many exchanges between Jordan and Smith during this series. "A little late on that one, weren't you?" Jordan says after making a jump shot over Smith. "Is that all you got?" Smith asks on the way downcourt after a Jordan miss. On one of Jordan's highlight videos, he is seen sneaking up behind an opposing player and tickling his fingertips during a break in the action. The player is Smith. "I enjoy playing against Steve," says Jordan. "We have the same kind of personality out on the court. We like to exchange a few words out there, but we're careful not to cross the line."

Jordan sometimes seduces his opponents into forgetting how dangerous he is by engaging them in conversation. This is what New York Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy was referring to in January when he called Jordan a con man-and unwisely incurred his wrath. "I definitely wouldn't say that about him," Smith says, "but I would say you have to always keep in mind that he's looking for a way to take advantage of you."

On this night Jordan finds little to take advantage of early. Smith handles him without much double-team help, partly because it seems that Jordan is floating around the edges of the game, waiting to see what shape it takes before he fully involves himself. At halftime Jordan has only 13 points, but in the third quarter he decides it's time: He hits two free throws, then scrapes Smith off a screen and makes a three-pointer. Later in the quarter he gets away from Smith for a fast-break dunk, one of two for the period. He is on one of his rolls, and the Hawks are just hoping to ride it out. By the time the quarter ends Jordan has scored 20 points in the period, and a 50-39 Atlanta halftime lead has become a 77-70 advantage for the Bulls.

Jordan is quiet again in the fourth quarter, but Chicago forward Scottie Pippen hits a three-pointer with 43.9 seconds to give the Bulls a 100-97 win and a 1-0 lead in the series. "I stayed in front of him for three quarters," Smith says afterward of Jordan, who nevertheless finished with 34 points. "But in the third quarter he got that look in his eye. He started making his move to the basket right away, and he had no pattern. He went left, he went right. He drove, he pulled up. When he gets like that, you just have to do your best and hope he eventually cools off. I'll go home and think about the good things I did against him more than the problems I had. But most of all, I'll think about Game 2."

THURSDAY, MAY 8

Smith sits in the visitors' locker room at the United Center before Game 2, ignoring the tape of Game 1 that is playing across the room. He calls out to the reporters who are leaving the room, having completed their pregame interviews. "I want to see you guys come rushing back in here after we win," he says.

One night of guarding Jordan hasn't shaken his confidence. "I can't afford to get frustrated, not against him," Smith says. "He reads you. If he sees you get down, drop your head, he'll try to crush you. You can't let yourself get frustrated, because it will show, and then he's got you."

There's a theory that Jordan's favorite shooting spot is on the right wing facing the basket. Smith and the Hawks don't subscribe to that, and as Game 2 starts Jordan seems intent on proving that he has no favorite place on the court. He takes Smith to the right wing twice for turnaround jumpers, then takes him to the left side for another basket. Smith will see much of Jordan's repertoire tonight. He will be reminded of one attribute of Jordan's that is often overlooked-his speed-when Jordan grabs a rebound while Smith is down on the baseline and goes the length of the court for a bucket before Smith can chase him down. Jordan will also show off a few veteran tricks, including one, in the third quarter, when he grabs Smith's shirt and pulls him one way while he goes the other for an alley-oop pass and a dunk.

Jordan is giving the Hawks a difficult time, but he has trouble of his own. He's guarding Atlanta's Mookie Blaylock, exactly the kind of small, quick guard he detests covering, and Blaylock is on his way to scoring 26 points, including eight three-pointers. Jordan not only has to chase Blaylock but also fill the rebounding void left by Chicago forward Dennis Rodman, who does not seem to be of sound mind or body tonight. Rodman, hampered by a knee strain, finishes with just five rebounds and earns his nightly technical, so Jordan picks up the slack with 16 rebounds. But all this extra work leaves him too tired to perform his typical late-game magic. He misses a three-pointer with Smith standing flat-footed at the top of the key and later runs Smith off a pick and frees himself for a layup, which he misses. He finishes with 27 points, as does Smith, on 12-of-29 shooting, and the Hawks tie the series with a 103-95 win.

The Hawks' plan of sending a big man at Jordan seems to have helped, but fatigue appears to have been Jordan's biggest obstacle on this night. "He just had to do too much tonight," Smith says afterward. "He was trying to take over in the fourth quarter, you could see it in his eyes. I tried to make him go over me, not around me, and he just missed some shots. He's human, even though sometimes he makes you wonder."

SATURDAY, MAY 10

The series shifts to Atlanta with the Hawks in position to put a scare into the Bulls. "There are two situations where you have to be especially careful with Michael," says Wilkens. "When he thinks he has you in trouble, and when you think you have him in trouble."

Smith is braced for an early flurry from Jordan, but he's not worried, as some of his teammates are, that guarding Jordan will ultimately take its toll on Smith's offense. He scored 19 points in Game 1 and 27 in Game 2. "Guarding Michael is easy-wait, I don't mean easy, don't say that," he says. "I mean in some ways you don't get as tired as you do guarding other players. Somebody like Reggie Miller will run you back and forth across the floor through a million picks on every possession. But Michael doesn't waste much motion, he doesn't play with you. When he doesn't have the ball, he doesn't do much, except wait for an opening. When he gets the ball, he lets you get set, then he does what he's going to do. It usually won't be more than a couple of dribbles. So you don't get especially worn out guarding him."

Smith doesn't have much chance to get tired early in Game 3. He picks up his second foul in the first quarter, and he sits down with 8:04 left in the period. But Jordan and the rest of the Bulls have trouble finding offensive consistency in the first half, and they trail 52-46 at intermission. In the second half the Chicago starters continue to struggle offensively. Jordan and Pippen each make only 8 of 20 shots for the game, but reserves Toni Kukoc and Brian Williams combine for 30 points to spark the Bulls to a 100-80 win and a 2-1 series lead.

Afterward, reporters come in waves to Smith's locker, asking about the Hawks' collapse; no one asks about guarding Jordan, who finishes with a quiet 21 points. Someone says that the lack of questions must mean Smith did a good job. "Not good enough to win," he says.

SUNDAY, MAY 11

Through the first three games of the series, the Hawks couldn't be happier about Smith's work on Jordan. "He's only really had one explosive run, in the third quarter of Game 1," says Wilkens. "As great as he is, he has not been the story of this series, which is a credit to Steve."

Still, the Bulls are in position to go up three games to one, and when they take a 75-53 lead with 4.4 seconds left in the third quarter, it's clear Wilkens needs to try something different. He sends in backup point guard Eldridge Recasner to defend Jordan and, after briefly resting Smith, sends him back to guard Pippen. Recasner gives up three inches to Jordan, but the different look seems to catch Jordan by surprise. Recasner hits a pair of threes and helps harass Jordan into a traveling violation as the Hawks stage a furious comeback, getting within 83-80 with just under a minute left. Then Jordan breaks the Hawks' heart. He posts up Recasner, draws a foul and makes both free throws. He seals Chicago's 89-80 victory with a steal and a dunk.

In the locker room later Smith is considerably more grim-faced than he had been a week earlier. Seven days of having Jordan on the brain had taken its toll. In another part of the locker room, Recasner was being complimented for his work against Jordan in the fourth quarter. "We just wanted to show him something different," Recasner is saying. "It worked for a little while at least."

Would Recasner like to try his luck against Jordan full time? "I would give it my best if I was asked," he says. "But guarding Jordan for a whole series? I couldn't imagine that."

 

[dman14]

^ i think the detroit defense did a good job on him in the finals, but i think rip ran his @%$ off when kobe tried to d him up on the other end.