Jordan's Wizards, NBA Running in Right Direction

For years, particularly in the mid-1990s, Eddie Jordan would watch film as an assistant coach and hate most of what he saw the NBA becoming stylistically. Actually, it was almost devoid of style. "There was so much isolation," he recalled yesterday. "The Pistons, the Knicks and the Heat were leading the way, it seemed, in playing this banging, grueling, half-court basketball."

On and on it went into the late 1990s and into a new century. Jordan would think: "This is not basketball. The game should be played with more movement, with more rhythm. Everybody should be touching the basketball. We should see more skills being displayed, like the Celtics of the 1960s, the Knicks of the 1970s, the '80s Lakers and those early '90s teams, the Bulls teams."

Jordan, as it's turning out, is one of the leaders in turning around the game offensively. While there's no doubt the star-minded NBA would dearly love to have Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and LeBron James in the playoffs instead of at home, at least the postseason promises something that looks more like our daddies' basketball, a brand of play complete with passing, movement without the ball and teams interested in scoring more than 100 points. While the playoffs may lack individual star power, the rise of the Phoenix Suns, Seattle SuperSonics, Denver Nuggets and even Jordan's long-asleep Washington Wizards could provide not only a brand of basketball that is aesthetically superior to what we've seen the last dozen years, but several compelling series early in the playoffs.

While the first round is still too long at seven games and drags on too many days for the convenience and dollar-maximization of television, there's plenty of reason to want to watch Dallas vs. Houston, San Antonio vs. Denver and Chicago vs. Washington. Even New Jersey vs. Miami, which might not sound like much, could have a little sizzle if Jason Kidd and Vince Carter can run past a limping Shaquille O'Neal in the first couple of games off South Beach.

And for the first time since Charles Barkley was in his prime in the early- to mid-1990s, people will be looking very closely at the Suns. Actually, a whole lot of folks will be rooting for the Suns to advance because of the way they play . . . because they take the ball off the glass or throw it inbounds and run.

"When our games are over," Wizards veteran swingman Laron Profit said yesterday, "I run home to watch Phoenix. I love what Phoenix is doing. I think it's good for basketball. The NBA is a copy-cat league. In the 1980s, people felt they had to keep up with Bird and Magic and everybody scored 100 points a game. Even the Bad Boy Pistons averaged 100 points.

"Then when the Bulls brought all that skill, teams thought the only way to combat Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant was with strength, and everybody tried that for a while. That Rockets-Knicks NBA Finals series in 1994 looked like a boxing match. And the scores reflected everybody copying that style of play . . . one guy on one side of the court, the other four standing on the other side. . . .

"I think we're seeing the skill come back," Profit continued. "The way Phoenix plays, everybody is involved. It really started, I think, with Detroit playing a very team-oriented style last year. Plus . . . why put so much money into two guys when you can more easily get five guys who'll share the ball and play the game the way it's meant to be played. Phoenix goes out there and says, 'Okay, you're going to have a hard time stopping all five of our guys.' "

Memphis won't do that, so Phoenix will advance to the second round.

The big question is whether these new aesthetically pleasing teams can play enough defense to win in the playoffs. The Suns, Wizards and SuperSonics are probably the weakest teams in the playoffs, defensively.

And Anthony Peeler, the only Wizards player with real playoff experience, said after practice yesterday: "I think the playoffs are going back to bump-and-grind basketball. There's always another pass.

"And you don't just react in the playoffs like you do in the regular season. You think about every cut, every pass. . . . "

Jordan, as hopeful as he is that this new movement will completely change the NBA, doesn't see it happening in the next seven weeks. "I think it's going to go back," he said, wincing at the thought of all that postseason congestion returning. "When we had that recent five-game losing streak, we started to see more physical play, more half-court defense, holding and grabbing, but no fouls called."

One veteran coach points out that teams, coaches and players will revert, at least temporarily, to what they've done for years, particularly in stressful playoff moments, and so will referees who have been calling games for 10, 12, 15 years.