If you’ve ever uttered the phrase “Jordan would never…!”, or anything of the sort, settle in.
This really happened. We pretend it didn’t, or at best, we only give it a passing acknowledgement. But Michael Jordan played in the NBA Playoffs in the mid-’90s, and lost. Before the NBA Finals. He didn’t even make the Eastern Conference Finals. It didn’t even go seven games.
This isn’t meant to prop up any present day athlete, nor discredit the greatness of Michael Jordan. Rather, it’s an exercise crusade against the romanticism of the past and the rampant hyper-critical era in which sports fans exist today.
Take a walk down memory lane to May 18, 1995. Jordan’s Bulls trailed 3-2 in their second round series and hosted an upstart Orlando Magic team. The Bulls found themselves in this hole after alternating losses and wins over the first five games, with Jordan mixing in both great and below average performances. Of note, Jordan had a horrendous Game 1: 19 points on 8-22 shooting, and EIGHT TURNOVERS, the last of which resulted in Chicago coughing up the lead for good in the final seconds.
Sidebar: The most tragic part of this play is Mike was rockin the Concord 11’s when it all went down. Smh
His Game 1 was so piss poor, #45 would never be donned by Michael ever again. The 32-year-old reverted back to his old number prior to Game 2, and in typical Jordan fashion, #23 bounced back tremendously with 38 points, following that with a 40-point Game 3. Fast forward to Game 6—the Bulls trailed the Magic in grueling two-point contest entering the fourth quarter at The United Center.
Below is Michael Jordan’s entire fourth quarter performance that day, with the season on the line (game times are an approximation):
First minute: Jordan fouled, 2-2 FTs, 2 pts
10:00 mark: Jordan blocks jump shot
9:00 mark: Jordan baseline jumper, 1-1 FGs, 4 pts
8:30 mark: Jordan tip in, 2-2 FGs, 6 pts
7:32 mark: Jordan splits two free throws, 3-4 FTs, 7 pts
6:50 mark: Jordan assist to Pippen
6:30 mark: Jordan steal and dunk, 3-3 FGs, 9 pts, Magic begin to unravel
6:04 mark: Phil Jackson calls timeout as Jordan is visibly tired, Jordan checks out, Pippen FT puts Bulls up 5
5:29 mark: Following another Bulls timeout, Jordan checks back in
5:20 mark: Jordan offensive foul
3:45 mark: Jordan rebound
3:24 mark: Bulls go up 8
3:10 mark: Jordan recovers Longley steal, drives into paint and kicks it for corner 3, missed
Under 2 minutes: Jordan passes out of double team, Bulls don’t score
1:05 mark: Bulls up 1, Jordan airballs 15-ft turnaround fadeaway jumper (defended by Nick Anderson), 3-4 FGs
0:33 mark: Bulls down 1, Jordan goes up for a shot (defended by Anderson, double by O’Neal), jump-passes to Longley (similar to the Bill Wennington play vs Knicks), Longley misses bunnie (looks like a foul, no call)
0:28 mark: Bulls down 1, Jordan fouls Scott (75% FT shooter) immediately off the inbound pass, Bulls in the penalty
0:18 mark: Bulls down 2, Jordan spins baseline (defended by Anderson), jump-passes into a turnover
0:12 mark: Bulls down 4, out of a timeout, Jordan doesn’t touch the ball, Armstrong misses 3, Hardaway beats Jordan to rebound
Game over: Magic 108 – Bulls 102
Jordan: 39 min, 24 pts on 8-19 (.421) shooting, 7-10 FTs, 1-2 3PT, 9 reb, 7 ast, 4 stl, 4 blk, 6 TOs
Jordan in the fourth quarter: 9 pts on 3-4 shooting, 3-4 FTs, 1 reb, 1 ast, 1 stl, 1 blk, 2 TOs
Jordan in the final two minutes: 0 pts, 0-1 shooting (airball), 0 reb, 0 ast, 0 stl, 0 blk, 1 TO, commits terrible foul on Scott, lost 50/50 ball, twice forced to pass in the air by Anderson, didn’t demand the ball with 12 seconds left, clearly fatigued
And there you have it. Despite ferocious team defense for the first nine minutes of the fourth quarter, Michael Jordan, in an ELIMINATION GAME, against a team with ONE YEAR of playoff experience coming into the ’95 playoffs (Orlando was swept in the first round in ’94), AT HOME, fell flat on his face in the final two minutes.
Orlando ended the game on a 14-0 run and the Magic overcame an eight point deficit as the Bulls went scoreless for the last 3:24.
This is exactly why the “Jordan was perfect” talk is a false equivalency. Being 6-0 in the Finals is great, but it doesn’t nullify the numerous times where Jordan walked off the court a loser in the last game of the season. Somehow, that mystique has morphed into either the belief that Mike never had bad playoff games/moments, or that his game is now above scrutiny. This metamorphosis has less to do with whether or not anyone actually utters the words, “Jordan never had a bad game”, and more to do with how Michael Jordan is levitating above the standards of today’s players.
We have the data, we have the tape—shouldn’t everything be fair game at this point? By our hyperbolic 2018 rubric, we should be calling Jordan’s GOATness into question because he:
- Failed to score 25 points.
- Shot under 43%.
- Committed six turnovers.
- Went scoreless in the final 6:30.
- Wasn’t in good enough shape to finish the fourth quarter strong.
- Airballed with 65 seconds left.
- Didn’t exhibit killer instinct by deferring to teammates many times, including Luc Longley in the final 35 seconds.
- Fouled a good free throw shooter down one with over 24 seconds left to put Chicago in the penalty.
- Committed a horrendous turnover down two in the final 20 seconds.
- Didn’t demand the ball in the final 12 seconds.
You can only imagine the meme-pocalypse one of today’s stars would face if they pulled this crap in the final minutes of an elimination game.
History has given His Airness a mulligan on this series because he only returned from the baseball diamond two months before after a 21 month absence, but you can only pin so much of his failure on the Birmingham Barons. Jordan recorded his aforementioned “double-nickel” game against a stout Knicks defense just five games into his return, and had drilled a memorable game-winner days before (“He is now back!”). He averaged 26.9 points in 17 regular season games and 31.5 points on .484 shooting in 10 playoff games. He dropped 48 points in his first playoff game against Charlotte and had games of 38, 40 and 39 against Orlando.
Nah, this was simply a case of Jordan being bad in crunch time. Period.
Obviously, MJ came up huge in big spots on dozens of occasions, and him fading in this moment in no way cheapens those heroics. But as time unfolds, more footage is becoming available to those of us who don’t work in the NBA archives. If we’re going to hold today’s athletes to impossible standards on debate shows and social media, then retroactively judging the greats of yesteryear to those same impossible standards should be aboveboard. In a perfect world, we’d do the opposite—putting an end to this outlandish criteria for nightly excellence of players then and now.
This isn’t about any specific player. This isn’t even about Michael Jordan really. But unless you’re unwilling to ease up on the judgment of today’s stars, the “Jordan would never” stuff can stop now. Yes Jordan would, because he did.