Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

This was George Karl's third time leading a team to the finals, and as a non-rookie to the championship, he should have been composed.

However, he couldn't control himself.

He was excited, as excited as when he first started coaching a basketball team.

Eight years had passed since the loss in 1996!

Eight years! How many eights years does one have in life? Most basketball coaches don't even last eight years in their careers.

Karl had thought he would never get another chance to settle scores with Phil Jackson.

But fate had them meet again on the biggest stage of the basketball world.

The day before the finals began, Karl held an old newspaper in his hand.

It was the "Chicago Tribune," published after the Chicago Bulls' championship win in 1996, filled with stories about the team, with a poster of Jordan weeping in the locker room wearing his brand-new AJ shoes on the front.

Phil Jackson was asked how he and his players overcame the defeat of 1995 to win the championship.

At that time, Phil Jackson, with "only" four championships to his name, said, "We had a powerful internal motivation. As a coach, I just helped them turn that motivation into the energy for the game. It was earned through day-to-day coaching and trust. If I were a mad coach who just strutted up and down the sidelines, yelling profanities at the court, maybe things would have been different."

Karl knew from the first glance at this interview that Jackson was talking about him.

But what could he say? A loss was a loss.

The winner is always right, whereas the only thing for losers to do is to shut up.

No matter how logical your defense, it's nothing but sophistry.

Karl had vowed back in 1996 that they would come back, to wash away their shame with the blood on the bull's horns. But Karl and that SuperSonics team never made it back to the finals.

Meanwhile, Phil Jackson and the Chicago Bulls achieved another three-peat.

Then Jackson went to the Lakers, and won yet another three-peat.

Now, nobody would say Karl was Jackson's nemesis — except for Karl himself — among active coaches, aside from Riley, no one could claim to be Jackson's nemesis. Sloan didn't have the credentials, neither did Popovich. In fact, Jackson didn't think Riley had it, either.

Jackson's aim to match was Red Auerbach.

Karl? He shouldn't even be mentioned; to do so would be to disrespect Jackson. Only Karl himself insisted he was Jackson's nemesis. As a long-term NBA head coach, Karl could never escape the nightmare of Jackson. At every NBA Coaches Association meeting, he would approach Jackson's friends, asking them about Jackson, wanting to know how Jackson saw him, and whether Jackson knew how many times he had talked big about him over the years.

Karl wondered if Jackson knew he had won because he had Jordan and Pippen.
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Did Jackson know that he was with the Lakers with OK, while all Karl had were Glenn Robinson and Ray Allen?

Because he had these best players, he won one championship after another. Therefore, his coaching was considered superior to everyone else's. Was this really fair?

Karl had never had the chance to ask Jackson to his face, but he had received his answer from this old newspaper.

Jackson believed the strength of the Bulls and the Lakers was due to his "activation energy," not because his players were powerful. With Karl's yelling and screaming coaching style, neither the Bulls nor the Lakers would have won championships.

So, there was his answer.

Karl had confirmed it time and again.

That day, Yu Fei noticed the old newspaper in Karl's hand and asked, "Is there something special about that newspaper?"

"Nothing special," Karl said with an unchanged expression, "It just happens to have the man I hate most going on about his coaching philosophy."

Yu Fei asked, "May I take a look?"

Karl handed the newspaper over.

So, Yu Fei saw the famous poster of Jordan with the phrase "Daddy, this is for you," crying in the locker room.

"It seems the person we hate the most is in the same newspaper," Yu Fei felt that seeing that poster was enough, there was no need to read further.

Karl took back the newspaper and said to Yu Fei, "I don't care what the outside world says, I believe we are much stronger than the Lakers. They are just a bubble with a fancy facade!"

Yu Fei joked, "The game isn't until tomorrow night, isn't it a bit early to start pumping me up now?"

"Not at all!" Karl said, "The Lakers are under pressure to win the championship, the outside world thinks we will lose the finals within five games, they're calling it the most uneven finals in 28 years."

Yu Fei wasn't interested in the finals from 28 years ago but was surprised by the underestimation from outside, "Are the experts serious?"

Couldn't be, could it?

Yu Fei didn't understand, wasn't their performance in the regular season, which held the Lakers in check, obvious enough?

"So, you know what you have to do, right?"

Such a level of underestimation could only be countered by a resounding slap in the face, making the experts question their own intelligence. If the Lakers displayed even a slight competitiveness, even if they lost in the end, they would say it was due to internal discord within the Lakers.

Yu Fei wouldn't give them that chance.

June 6, 2004, 9:00 PM Wisconsin Milwaukee Bradley Center

Before the game started, the media asked both head coaches for their opinions on each other.

ESPN had wanted to use the finals of 1996 to let Phil Jackson reminisce about the past.