At first, I thought the shot was no more astounding than, oh, a dozen or so other astounding shots Michael Jordan has pulled off in his seven seasons in Chicago. On seeing the replay, I granted that, no, this one was right up there–top three or five. Of course, Jordan does this sort of thing so regularly that there is no real ranking of his greatest shots; one sees one and, after one begins breathing again, one says, “Yes, that’s one of the great ones, right up there.”
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The shot wasn’t the turning point in the Los Angeles series–we didn’t then know it, but that point had already been turned–yet it did come in the midst of the run in which the Bulls first proved they were the superior team. After holding a 48-43 halftime lead and padding that to 58-51 early in the third quarter, the Bulls ran off a 39-20 extended spurt, beginning with a pair of Scottie Pippen free throws resulting from a flagrant-foul call that Lakers coach Mike Dunleavy labeled “the big play in the game.” I’d seen the Bulls play at this level around last Thanksgiving and again in January and February, before their slight slump, but this was the NBA final, against the Western Conference champions, the Lakers, and they just ran them off the court. The Lakers never really recovered.
In the second game, the Bulls were simply playing good basketball and expanding their lead until John Paxson wrestled the Lakers’ center Vlade Divac to a jump ball in the third quarter. Divac deflected the toss to Earvin “Magic” Johnson, just as he was supposed to, but Pippen leapt and tipped the ball into the air from behind Johnson, then beat the Lakers’ Terry Teagle to the ball, batting it down the center of the court, then beat Johnson to the ball near the Bulls’ free-throw circle, grabbed it, and jammed it left-handed over Johnson. Jordan, who had picked up two quick fouls early guarding Johnson, returned to action with four fouls, Jackson later explaining, “He wanted back in. I really didn’t want to put him in but he wanted back in. He wanted to be part of it.”
Or, as Johnson saw it, cracking up the 100-plus members of the media with his humor: “When Michael has it going like that, that’s where all his creativity goes as well. He had his jumper game going and that’s when he’s dangerous, because he gets the feeling of being unstoppable, invincible.
The Lakers got the benefit of most of the calls in all three games in Los Angeles, but the NBA’s notorious “home cooking” didn’t bother the Bulls any more than it had at any other time this season. They believed themselves a good road team, and they were composed right up until they won it all. In a tight third game, Pippen fouled out in the final moments on a very questionable call in which Divac ran over him, put the ball up, and made it, sending him dancing down the lane kissing his fingers. (Divac later clarified that he was not blowing kisses to the fans but was simply thanking his hands for doing such fine work.) With the Lakers two points up and only seconds to play, the Bulls inbounded it to Jordan, who went the length of the court, pulled up just right of the free-throw circle, and popped the shot off the back rim and through the hoop; it couldn’t have been done in a more forthright fashion, especially in light of his game-losing miss in the first game. Jordan then carried the Bulls through the overtime, driving again and again past the wearied Lakers. The Bulls, then, had done what they wanted to: the series would definitely be coming back to Chicago.
He did.
