By Dick Rosetta
Salt Lake Tribune

CHICAGO -- Two NBA Finals plots are being prepared as you read this.

One is Grant Park in downtown Chicago, where the Bulls' sixth championship party of this decade is scheduled Monday. The other is in Salt Lake City at the site of the Jazz's most recent burial service.

The only glitch in the respective plans is for the Jazz to rise from the dead Friday night at the United Center.

Phil Jackson deserves a lot of credit. The Bulls didn't go out on the floor to stop John Stockton and Karl Malone individually. They went out to stop Utah's system, which allows those players to produce points. By shutting down the system, you shut down the players.

Malone gets his points because of the pick-and-rolls, the back-picks and the diagonal screens Utah runs. The Bulls are trapping those areas where he usually gets the ball, taking the ball out of Malone's hands. And when you have a great defensive player like Dennis Rodman, it makes it tough for anyone he's guarding to score.

The vital signs are not good.

Chicago won't cut the reeling Jazz any slack. The Bulls have pummeled Utah into a degree of submission, and one more stiff jab will topple the best team that will ever come out of the NBA's mountain country.

No, the Jazz can't expect anything less than rat-a-tat jabs mixed with an occasional Dennis Rodman-like haymaker. They certainly shouldn't expect any relief from the NBA officials who have demonstrated they desperately want to waltz with the Bulls during The Last Dance.

OK, Utah has been downright bashful at attacking the Bulls through the first four games. And that can be traced mainly to Karl Malone's obsession with his outside jump shot. The Mailman shot an average of 10 free throws per game in the regular season and has averaged that many in his playoff career. In this series? Less than seven charities per game and only two in Game 4.

No mad rushes down the lane, no free throws. But however good the Bulls are defensively, they aren't that damned good. Not Luc Longley and Rodman, anyway. Malone, whipsawed unmercifully by both, does not use excuses. They are for wimps, he insists.

Which allows me to speak for him. NBA officiating is simply lousy. Some of the best referees the league has are enmeshed in that greedy money-for-airline-tickets fiasco. The rest are essentially old, vendetta-driven egomaniacs who rely on players' seniority to determine respect, a trait NBA officials needn't worry about.

In a series that reeks of win-the-last-one-for-the-Gipper(s) overtones, the officials have outdone themselves. How else do you explain Jordan being whistled for only one foul in each of the last two games?

Puh-lease.

At 35, he hand-checks with the best of them. But M.J. has shot 44 free throws in the four games. The Jazz have attempted 69.

Then, there's the trivial matter of Scottie Pippen's illegal, freelancing defense. The guy is good enough -- a perennial NBA all-defensive team selection -- but hey, Scottie, guard a man, not a zone.

Granted, the Jazz don't have much offense beyond Malone and Stockton, but neither is Scottie's responsibility unless he intrudes in the Pippen zone. Pippen's a smart one. He knows the refs are ignorant of his bliss.

Oh, the feather merchants are ready to pounce. Sour grapes, they will wail. Homerism at its ripest. It's pure and simple, they will respond ... the relentless Bulls vs. the reticent Jazz. Men of heart vs. boys with no heart. The deadly vs. the dead.

But there's no need of it all being exacerbated by the Bulls' thug-like approach that is merely laughed off by inept officiating.

In Game 4, the Jazz's Chris Morris was knocked nearly unconscious in the second quarter by Rodman and the refs looked the other way. Rodman committed assault and battery on Malone in the last minute and official Jack Nies made The Mailman post bond.

The league doesn't need a lockout. It needs a breakout -- of tax-evading officials. We've got replacement nominees for the holding cell -- a whole bevy of 'em.

No one will ever remember this sage advice when the Bulls ride through the confetti Monday while taps are played for the Jazz.

Chicago should reserve a convertible for the NBA referees. After all, The Last Dance was for them, and orchestrated by them, too.