Chicago ? No Bulls teammates asked Stacey King to take a shot at Danny Ferry if he got one during Game 5 of the 1992 Eastern Conference Finals. None of the coaches issued orders while going over the game plan, nobody said a word to King.

He just knew.

“It was the reason we won championships, we looked out for each other, especially in the playoffs,” the former Bulls forward-center recalled. “So whoever had the first opportunity that game was going to get Danny Ferry.”

The 14-year-old incident came to King’s mind Thursday night in the fourth quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference playoffs after James Posey of the Miami Heat floored Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich with one of the best body blocks a United Center audience had witnessed all year.

King was sitting courtside as part of the Comcast SportsNet broadcast team and immediately criticized Posey for taking the kind of cheap shot that has been known to spur the team on the receiving end to playoff success.

“Back in the day, if Posey would have done something like that to Michael (Jordan) or Scottie (Pippen), he would have gotten it the next game he played or maybe someone else would have (gotten him) even before the end of that one,” King said.

Opinions are split whether the altercation will awaken the aged Heat from a midseries nap even without Posey, who was suspended for Game 4, or infuse the youthful Bulls with even more confidence they have used to intrude on the psyche of the East’s second-best team.

Many observers expected the Cleveland Cavaliers to rally around LeBron James on Tuesday night after Washington Wizards center Brendan Haywood hammered James, for example, but Washington went on an 18-0 run after that and James never attacked the basket with the same gusto in the loss.

A larger consensus exists about the effect such a decision threatens to have on Posey’s reputation.

“There are hard fouls in the playoffs and there’s crossing the line. Posey crossed the line because he blindsided Hinrich,” King said. “It’s the last thing you expect driving in transition. It looked to me like a guy who gets clipped in football on special teams and doesn’t see it coming.”

At least when King flattened Ferry 14 years ago, as he pointed out, it was a layup in traffic. And he was quick to say he acted with the idea of finishing something, not starting it.

Ferry had put a bounty on his own head because he took a swing at Jordan in Game 4, an outburst interpreted in Chicago like someone spitting at the Pope’s feet. According to the unofficial NBA penal code in those days, such brazenness against His Airness brought sure retaliation.