Can you handle it?

When the Bulls met the Magic towards the end of the regular season, Jameer Nelson popped his head in to a Derrick Rose TV interview to tell the now MVP that he’d catch him in the second round. Now in all honesty it was a bit of a throw away comment, and one of those things you say in hope rather than out of disrespect for your first round opponents. However, those words have come back to haunt Jackson, thanks to an extremely funny and cheeky tweet from the Atlanta Hawks.

The Hawks took game one from the Bulls in round two, after knocking Orlando out of the playoffs en-route. Hawks’ public relation’s guy Arthur Triche commented that he’d left two tickets up in the gods at the United Centre for game one against the Bulls, so Jameer Nelson could get to see Derrick Rose in the second round. As well as being a funny gesture, it shows Triche’s PR skills as we’re talking about what he did today, and so are many other media outlets around the world. Needless to say, Nelson didn’t take him up on the offer.

The NBA playoffs always throw up a great story and a war of words as the tension grows inside players and fans’ bodies and minds. More often than not, it can threaten to derail teams from inside their own camp, as a spat in the 2000 playoffs between Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson and Glen Rice (and his wife) demonstrated. The level of feeling runs high within clubs and the testosterone may just be deafening. Former Laker Rick Fox summed-up the situation that might ring true for a lot of locker rooms in 2000 saying “When there’s frustraton, you try to keep it in the community. but when it seeps out, you have to do some damage control…we’re dealing with that now here.”

The Miami Heat players won’t have appreciated it when Coach Spoelstra told the press that his boys had been crying in the locker room, but they are over that for now. But put them up against the Bullls in the conference finals (can I get flights too please Arthur?) and some of those old wounds may just start to re-open under the pressure.

No story encapsulates the pressure of the playoffs better than the 1998 Chicago Bulls. With five titles under their belt in the ’90s, the Bulls began to self-destruct before our very eyes. Pippen looked a shadow of his former self and Rodman’s ego apparently left no room for his brain. But the legend that is Michael Jordan just wanted to play ball. Through all the adversity, the team nicknamed the ‘Unforgettabulls’ achieved greatness, lifting their sixth title of the decade, and their history. The then Phil Jackson’s Bulls beat Jerry Sloan’s Jazz 4-2 in the playoff finals.

Despite the spat with Rice, Jackson also led that Lakers side to championship glory in 2000. Larry Bird’s Pacers were put to the sword in six. Jackson who has two rings from his playing days, is leading his players in an attempt to win his twelfth career championship as a coach. So do you start to worry as a Lakers’ fan, when you see your side give up a sixteen point lead against the Mavericks? Jordan pulled through to lead that ’98 team to the title, and Kobe has pulled though time and time again to lead his team to a championship as he goes for a sixth ring to match Jordan. But yes, of course you worry, it’s your team, and sport was invented to take us so low that the highs get so high. But you shouldn’t worry, because like Jordan and the ’98 Bulls, Kobe and Phil Jackson can handle it.