Bill Cartwright, Portland, Jeremy Grant discussed on The Lowe Post
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I mean, me personally, I think they can go deep with the team they've got, but if they really, really want to get out of the Eastern Conference, I think they're honestly, you know, one player way, especially at the four position, not having Patrick Williams back for the whole season. He may come back for the playoffs, but as you know he's going to be rusty. He's going to be out of shape and that's not really what the bulls need. But if you can swing a deal to get, you know, Jeremy grant, without having to give up something like pat awesome, but you know, that's not going to happen. Well, they do have Portland's pick that they can trade. My answer for now is the finals feels like a stretch to me. I think Brooklyn's better, I think Milwaukee's better. The fact that they give up the most shots at the rim on defense and take the second fewest threes on offense. They're kind of battling math on both ends of the floor in a way that makes me a little bit nervous, so they have the personnel to battle to win that battle against math on a lot of nights. That said, man, if they stayed number one and the seeds break right for them and you've only got to be one of those two teams, that's a huge deal. People really underestimate look at Atlanta last year. They got into that sort of situation. And I just think that if they can only be one of those teams, all of a sudden, you need less, you need fewer breaks than it looked like you were going to need. Can I ask you a couple old bulls questions before I let you go? Yeah. Yeah. I can't not do it. So 1992 finals against Portland. Your second straight finals, great series, by the way. That was an awesome series as a fan. Awesome. Game three. Bill Cartwright in Portland is one one. One one Bill Cartwright fouls out of the game, Stacy king comes in 8 points, almost all in the fourth quarter, I think, one of the biggest moments of your career on a port against the Portland team that was geared up to beat you guys. What do you remember about that game? And that's his high pressure as it gets one one on the road in the finals number is called for a little bit longer than you expected maybe. Well, and that's one of those situations. You know, you think about, you know, hey, look, you know, everyone has a role on a championship team. You know, when your numbers called, you have to be ready. Now, coming from Oklahoma, I was a big time score. You know, I always tell people, you know, they said, oh, you know, you know, your career is not the way you wanted it. Now, my career is exactly where I wanted it because I'm a winner. I want to be on a winning team. I want the opportunity to win championships. And you know Zach if I went to the clippers when they were struggling and gone to a team that was losing, like lottery picks, normally are supposed to do. You know, I probably the average 25 points again. I've probably been you know an all star at that level. We don't know, but coming in off the wave that I was coming in off at Oklahoma, I mean, the numbers do show that I probably would have been that. But coming on the team with Michael Jordan two, you know, Scottie Pippen, two, you know, the greatest players of all time. You know, a veteran like Bill Cartwright, whores grant. I had to me and BJ had to find our roles as young players and find our pecking order. And it may not have been the role that we wanted to play. But in order to win championships, man, you gotta make sacrifices. You gotta be able to put your ego to the side. So when you go back to that Portland series and many games throughout my career, you know, when field would come to me and say, hey, we need you to score tonight. You know, my eyes would light up. Like, yeah, you know? But there'd be other nights he'd be saying, we need you to rebound, defend and run the floor. You know? So your role is different every single time. But when he gave me that that green light to score, obviously my chance, baby, I was like, you ain't gotta tell me twice. I'm getting shots up. Next season, obviously the John Paxton three pointer wins the finals in Phoenix. And I can close my eyes and see that play in my head. Jordan to pippin, Barkley gambles on the steel, pippin drives, pippin to grant grant kick out to packs. You were on the bench, you're jumping off the bench to celebrate. I don't know when you close your eyes. What do you remember about the huddle drawing up that play or the huddle after that play where Phoenix says one more possession with 3.9 seconds left on the clock? I don't know either of those huddles or either of those moments. Like, what do you remember of that play? Well, the time out when we were in the huddle was very calm. You know, no one was panicking because we've been in those situations before. We were in that in our first championship against Los Angeles. By the way, this is to be clear this is down to facing game 7 on the road. Exactly, and you don't know, even though, you know, you don't know what a game 7 is going to be because we'd never been in the game 7. And those are pressure situations. And I would bet the house that we would win against him because we had that man on our team. MJ, I would bet the house, okay? And we're lost. I lost everything, but I still would do it again. But definitely trade for Jeremy grant. If you're in a bet the house on game 7 and Phoenix, you gotta trade for Jeremy grant. Exactly. I don't know about that one. Okay..