Bulls' two-year rampage is remarkable

Stats Class: Is this the best run ever?

Until now.

"Have I ever seen what the Bulls are doing now? No, no,'' Auerbach said recently. "I've never seen anything like this."

"This" is:

• A 142-22 record over the last two seasons, including playoffs.

• An 80-3 record in the United Center during that same span, including a league-record 44-game home winning streak.

• An average margin of victory that is on par with the largest ever in NBA history, 12.2 points per game, established last season by the Bulls.

The Bulls feed off of Michael Jordan's confidence.

"This" might just be the most dominant two-year stretch ever seen in the history of pro sports.

You want to argue in favor of the Auerbach-led Boston Celtics? Their 11 titles in 13 years are the standard by which all other NBA teams are measured. Well, the builder of that dynasty has some news for you.

"Sure, we dominated the playoffs some years in Boston,'' Auerbach told the New York Daily News from his Washington, D.C., home, "and we dominated some seasons. But not like this. Never. What the Bulls are doing is unreal."

What they've done is turn the NBA into a mockery, one varsity team against 28 JVs. Last year, as they rolled to a league-record 72 wins and fourth title in six seasons, arguments raged whether they were the greatest team of all-time. Today, after winning 56 of their first 65 games, most with relative ease, they have taken the argument to a higher plateau.

Go ahead, name a more dominant team over back-to-back seasons.

The Steelers of the '70s, who won back-to-back Super Bowl titles twice?

"When I look at what the Bulls are doing," said Chuck Noll, coach of the famed Steel Curtain teams, "it reminds me of the great Yankee teams of the '50s. They're in total control. A dynasty."

Or a machine, like the Big Red Machine. The 1975 and '76 Reds were something special. They won back-to-back championships and the '76 edition is still the only baseball team in history to sweep both the League Championship Series and World Series.

But Sparky Anderson's teams don't compare, according to none other than Reds legend Pete Rose.

"We dominated the playoffs some years in Boston, and we dominated some seasons. But not like this. Never. What the Bulls are doing is unreal." --Red Auerbach

"What the Bulls are doing is scary," said Rose, now the host of a syndicated sports-talk radio show out of Florida. "We coasted in stretches during the regular season. The Bulls don't. Nobody has ever been as dominant over a two-year stretch like this, with the exception of the '72 Dolphins, maybe."

The '72 and '73 Dolphins were as dominant as they come. They won 32 out of 34 games, back-to-back Super Bowls and, of course, posted the only perfect season in NFL history when they went 17-0 in '72.

"The morning we beat the Redskins in the Super Bowl, I was sitting in the coffee shop of our hotel in Newport Beach with Manny Fernandez,'' said Nick Buoniconti, leader of the Dolphins' legendary No-Name Defense. "Bob Griese walked in and sat down next to us. Griese was the most conservative guy in the world, didn't say anything controversial.

"Suddenly, he looked over at us and said, 'I want to tell you something: No way these guys can beat us.' I was stunned. But that's the kind of confidence that permeated our team. Every time we walked out on the field that season, we knew we were going to win.

"You can see the Bulls are the same way, and it all starts with Michael Jordan. He sets the tempo."

The Bulls have been on an absolute rampage. Their longest losing streak over the last two seasons? Two games. And they've had only three of those "streaks."

Their worst month? An 11-3 mark any other team would die for, way back in February 1996.

Dennis Rodman has been able to coexist with the Bulls, thanks in part to coach Phil Jackson.

They might not be perfect, but they're darn close. Like those great Celtic teams, none of the Bulls' key players ever gets hurt. Jordan has played in all 161 games these last two seasons. Scottie Pippen has missed just five games.

"I see similarities between our undefeated team and these Bulls,'' former Dolphins coach Don Shula said from Florida last week. "We took a great deal of pride working for perfection and excellence, just like the Bulls show. The trademark of our team was intelligence, unselfishness and a tremendous pride in performance. I saw the same thing in the Bulls."

Shula saw those qualities the night he took in the Bulls-Heat game in the Miami Arena. How did he spend the whole night? Glued to Jordan? Nah. Dennis Rodman. Hated him, right?

Wrong.

"That guy was diving and hustling every second on the floor," Shula said. "I can understand why a coach would love to have him on his team. But I never had to worry about a player like that. There's never been another player like Rodman."

You don't have to tell Chicago coach Phil Jackson. The Bulls' extraordinary level of play is all the more phenomenal when you factor in Rodman's outbursts and suspensions. During his 20 games worth of suspensions over this season and last, they still have won 17 times without the game's top rebounder and their best low-post defender.

"What amazes me is that Jackson is still able to get the other players to get along with Rodman," said former UCLA coach John Wooden, who knows a thing or two about dynasties, albeit on the collegiate level. "That has to be extremely difficult. Rodman is a great basketball player. But he is not quite in this world."

Yet the Bulls have still been out of this world, even with all the distractions and disruptions Rodman has caused.

The team with the next best record over the last two seasons has been Seattle, at 121-45. As fine as that record is, it pales when you put it next to the Bulls' mark.

"Nobody does anything without great material. But not everyone can do it with great material. Believe me, it's very hard to do what they're doing." --John Wooden

"What the Bulls are doing looks easy from the outside," said Wooden, whose Bruin teams won 88 consecutive games at one point and won nine NCAA titles in 11 years.

"When you've got the best basketball player who ever played the game -- before, I was very reluctant to say anyone was the best, but I have to admit now that Michael Jordan is the best, moreso than ever -- and you have 60 percent of the All-Defense team on your team, it doesn't look that hard.

"Nobody does anything without great material. But not everyone can do it with great material. Believe me, it's very hard to do what they're doing, year in and year out. They remind me of the Celtics, who won year after year."

For all their greatness, the Celtics never won more 62 games in a season during the Bill Russell era. Yes, the league was smaller, the competition tougher, the product not nearly as watered down. All those facts were thrown in the Bulls' faces last season when they broke the Lakers' record for wins in a season.

"Phil has a lot of easy games now," Auerbach said. "But that's being picky. What they've done is phenomenal, and there's no taking away from it."

OK, the Bulls do have one weakness. They can't win in Toronto. They're 1-2 there during these two seasons. Must be the water. Or the night clubs. But try finding another flaw.

"You would think other teams would be able to get stronger and start figuring out how to shut us down," Pippen said. "But we are pretty much in the same position as last year."

Running away with it.

But this season, there is one notable difference. When teams beat the Bulls now, it doesn't make their seasons. It makes their careers.

Case in point came Feb. 27 when the Cavaliers defeated the Bulls 73-70. When Jordan's 3-point attempt to tie the game at the buzzer missed and bounded into Terrell Brandon's hands, the Cavs ran off the bench to mob their point guard.

Cavs coach Mike Fratello walked off the Gund Arena floor with a look on his face as if he'd just won a big playoff game. Pandemonium broke out in the stands

"Did you see them?" said Rodman afterward. "They acted like they won the championship."

So did the Knicks after their four-point win March 9. And after New Jersey upset Chicago last Friday, Nets swingman Kendall Gill said, "We're champions for one night."

Obviously, when you beat the Bulls these days, it calls for nothing short of ticker-tape parade.

Mitch Lawrence, NBA columnist for the New York Daily News, is a regular contributor to ESPNET SportsZone.