Affront and center

Alonzo Mourning would never survive. Not a chance. And not because of his play, but his scowl. No, to play center for the Bulls, one definitely must have a sense of humor, as well as a good deal of humility. When Michael Jordan threatens to take your head off with his next pass, as he did with Will Perdue years ago and as he did just last season with Luc Longley; when he promises not to pass to you in crucial moments of the game, as he once did with Bill Cartwright; or when he simply comes bolting through the lane, bounces off your back and then stares a laser through your forehead, it helps to laugh about it.

Longley has this ability. So does Bill Wennington. James Edwards and John Salley? They have perpetual grins pasted on for no more reason than they're still wearing uniforms in May. "If you have a problem with that as a player, of accomodating the world's greatest player. perhaps history's greatest player," Longley says, "then you've got an ego problem. Then you're too big for your boots.

"A lot of people take themselves too seriously, and you can't take yourself too seriously when you're playing with these guys."

Grazing inconspicuously among the pedigrees, the centers of the Bulls are not exactly the creme de la creme of NBA big men, to be sure. Between the four of them, they have the combined speed of a Zamboni. They have been derided b NBA officials, cast aside by other teams and are generally regarded as the weak link of this team. Together, however, they continue - as Bulls centers have done in the past - to hold their own against the league's elite.

"I'm like any good scab," Longley said, however indelicately, earlier this season. "You can pick at me and pick at me, but Ill keep coming back." For more tangible evidence of the resilience of the Bulls' foursome, look no further than this postseason, where they have already humiliated Mourning, in the first round, holding Miami's morose center to 10 and 14 points in the first two games of the eventual sweep - before he padded a Game 3 blowout with 30 points - and only six rebounds per game.

In the second round, Patrick Ewing averaged 22 points over the first two games on 43 percent shooting and 13 rebounds. Although he was much more successful last weekend after making adjustments to Longley's game and scored regularly, in the fourth quarter for the first time in the series, the Bulls' decision not to double-team him enabled them to focus on the Knicks' other scorers.

Next up could be Shaquille O'Neal, and if the Bulls advice, perhaps another elite center such as David Robinson. No biggie for the Bulls.

"The more tough centers we come across, the better it is for my credibility, and like that," Longley says. "That's what I'm here for: I'm not here because fm a great 3-point shooter or an incredible post player. I'm her(, because I'm a fair post player and it good defender."

He's here, a starter in Chicago, primarily because he is 7-2 and nearly 300 pounds, just the big body coach Phil Jackson and assistant Tex Winter like in the middle; and because he accepts the role that Stacey King, whom he was traded for two years ago.. wouldn't and couldn't fulfill.

"We all give this team what it needs," says Wennington, 7-0, who played in Dallas, Sacramento and Italy before finding a home in Chicago. "Sure, we're not going to be a Hakeem Olajuwon, but if you put Hakeem Olajuwon on this team, we're a different team. He's not going to be happy shooting three or four times a game."

Winter laughingly says he would gladly take Olajuwon, should he ever arrive on the Bulls' doorstep, just as he would take any of the top centers in the league. "But I think they'd have to understand the role they play in this offense," Winter says. "I had Elvin Hayes when I was head coach of the Houston Rockets, and he was probably one of the most selfish ballplayers that ever played the game. In his case, it was difficult for him to make the adjustment to be the feeder because he wanted to score every time he touched the ball and we don't want our centers to do that."

In Winter's triangle offense, which is as difficult to explain as it is to combat, everything is predicated on flexibility and getting the ball to the open man, presumably for the easiest shot. And while that open man invariably turns out to be Jordan, the ball must go through the center's hands first.

"The centers in our system have to recognize their roles, and their roles are not what most people think centers would be." Winter says. "I've always said that the center is the apex of the attack. So that makes him pretty important, because the easiest penetration we can get is passing into tile post. From that position, we're not concerned about him being a big scorer. We, revolve around him, so he becomes very important.

"First, we want him to be a big target an easy target, which Luc is at 7-2, so we can get the ball inside, because that's penetration. It depends how we read the defense as to how the center reacts. But first he's a feeder." Wennington says ifs not that the centers aren't capable of scoring more (together they average about 13 points per game).