Posted Sep 11 2009 1:39AM
Veteran NBA reporter and columnist Sam Smith gives us his top 23 Michael Jordan moments. Smith, the author of The New York Times bestseller The Jordan Rules, has been writing exclusively for Bulls.com since October 2008 and covered the Bulls and the NBA for the Chicago Tribune for 25 years. Come back here daily for the rest of Smith's list, and check out NBA.com on Sept. 11 for more on Jordan's induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
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Who Says I Can't Defend :: Dec. 12, 1987 Jordan had been called just a scorer the season before when he averaged 37.1 points and was left off the all-defensive teams. This game was a symbolic one as Jordan had 44 points and nine assists in the win, but also blocked shots of both Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson in leading both teams with five blocks and five steals. Jordan became the only scoring leader to also win Defensive Player of the Year and was first team all-defense every full season the rest of his Bulls career. |
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Pops' inspiration :: May 17, 1992 The Knicks had forced a Game 7 in an angry, ugly, brutal conference semifinals, and Jordan wasn't sure how to proceed. He said he talked at length before the game with his father, James, who counseled him not to lay back but come out aggressive and take the game. Jordan did with 18 first-quarter points and 29 in the first half on the way to 42 as the Bulls won going away. |
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Keeping the Kids in their Place :: Feb. 8, 1998 Kobe Bryant, in his first All-Star Game, was determined like a young gun fighter to show up Jordan in what looked like his last. Bryant came out with a 360-degree dunk and lob dunk, but Jordan led the East to a big win with a game-high 23 points, team-high eight assists, six rebounds and team-high three steals and won his third All-Star Game MVP award. |
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LaBradford Smith :: March 20, 1993 This was pure Jordan. The night before in Chicago, a little-used second-year guard, Smith, scored 37 points against Jordan though the Bulls won. Smith was chirping about it. Jordan told teammates he'd get 37 in the first half the next night in Washington. Jordan scored 36 and missed a shot at the halftime buzzer for 38. Jordan ended with 47 in the easy win. |
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Going Pistons Hunting :: March 4, 1987 & April 3, 1988 Jordan scores 61 points to break his team's regular-season record of 58 as he outduels Isiah Thomas, who had 31 points and 18 assists, in a memorable overtime duel. Then on Easter Sunday in 1988 on national TV and in the final game of a road trip that was primarily in the Western Conference, Jordan scores 59 points, blocks Thomas' attempt at a game-winner with 24 seconds remaining and then is fouled and makes the winning free throws. |
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The Recovery :: May 25, 1991 Game 3 of the 1991 conference finals had the Pistons fighting back for the playoff lives as Joe Dumars was racing in to make it a three-point game down the stretch. Jordan forced the miss and the Bulls with his game-high 33 points went on to a 3-0 lead and eventually the sweep with the Pistons walking off the court prematurely as sore losers in Game 4 and stained forever. |
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Dream Team :: Aug. 8, 1992. Jordan scores 22 points to lead the greatest collection of talent ever, the Dream Team, to the 1992 Olympic gold medal. |
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Charles Smith :: June 2, 1993 After being shown up in New York in the first two games and being dunked on by John Starks at the end of Game 2, the Bulls even the series and return to New York for Game 5. Jordan gets a triple-double with 29 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists and starts an incredible sequence with a strip of a Smith apparent game winning attempt at the basket followed by Pippen and Grant blocks to save the game. The Bulls go home to win Game 6 and the series. |
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The First Warning Shot :: June 1, 1997 Jordan scores 31 points and hits the game-winner over Bryon Russell from 18 feet to win Game 1 of the NBA Finals by two. |
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The Other Double Nickel :: June 16, 1993 Actually, it was the second as Jordan scored 55 in the Playoffs against Cavs in 1988. This was the Finals, Jordan's biggest Finals scoring-game ever as his three-point play with 30 seconds to go and the Bulls up one held off the Suns, who had won the previous game in triple overtime and were looking to even the series. The Bulls would go on to win in six on John Paxson's famous 3-pointer, the only fourth-quarter points the Bulls scored in Game 6 other than by Jordan. |
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The Switch Hands :: June 5, 1991 Jordan's famous switch hands layup toward the end of a blowout win over the Lakers to even the Finals at 1-1 going to L.A. Jordan again demonstrated, this time against Magic Johnson, there were no stars who shined brighter. |
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Nothing Personal, Cleveland :: April 28, 1988 In the first Playoffs series win in Jordan's career and in his fourth Playoffs appearance, Jordan scores 50 points in Game 1. Ron Harper says he'll defend Jordan in Game 2 and Jordan wouldn't get 50 on him. Jordan scores 55 in Game 2. |
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The Biggest Game :: March 28, 1990 Jordan continues to torture the Cleveland Cavaliers with his career-high 69 points in an overtime win and he also has 18 rebounds, six assists and four steals. |
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The Snub :: Feb. 12, 1985 The first game after the famous All-Star Game snub when Jordan allegedly was the victim of a freezeout by Isiah Thomas and pals, the Bulls hosted the Pistons and won in overtime. Jordan had 49 points, 15 rebounds, five assists and four steals, all team highs. Thomas had a quiet 19 and shot 5-for-15. It was clear who owned Chicago. |
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He's Back! :: March 25, 1995 and March 28, 1995 Jordan goes into Madison Square Garden in his fifth game back on the 28th after nearly a two-year retirement and scores 55 points and assists on the game-winner to Bill Wennington with the Knicks collapsing on Jordan. In the previous game, Jordan hit the game-winner at the buzzer over Steve Smith to beat Atlanta. |
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So How'd You Like that Draft Pick? :: Jan. 8, 1987 The Trail Blazers still were trying to justify the Sam Bowie draft pick and their general manager said Clyde Drexler was a better player because he made teammates better. Jordan scored 53 points in the Bulls' win. Later that season, he scored 46 against the Blazers followed the next season by a 52-point outing against Portland. |
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The Dunk :: Feb. 7, 1988 Jordan won the Slam Dunk Contest back home in Chicago Stadium in an All-Star weekend celebration in which he was MVP with 40 points and did the foul-line dunk made famous by Dr. J., whom Jordan had supplanted as the game's greatest showman. |
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The first :: Nov. 11, 1984 Jordan hits his first of more than two dozen game-winners in the last seconds, a 12-footer with four seconds left to beat the Pacers in Indianapolis. The next game, back home against the Spurs and the ninth of his career, Jordan scored 45 points to beat the Spurs. He was no fluke. |
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The Shrug :: June 3, 1992 The way you start sets the tone, and Jordan would again get the Bulls off right with 35 first-half points and six 3-pointers as the Bulls blew away Portland in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. There also were those who thought Clyde Drexler should be MVP that season and Jordan dominated Drexler in Game 1 and throughout. He shrugged a famous quizzical look after that sixth trey. |
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The Sickest Performance :: June 11, 1997 Playing with the flu and literally having to be held up at the end, Jordan played 44 minutes and scored 38 points, including the game-winning three, as the Bulls won Game 5 of the NBA Finals in Utah and headed back home to clinch the fifth championship on Steve Kerr's jumper on a pass from Jordan. |
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The Game :: April 20, 1986 Pick a moment from that game. There were so many, the 63 points in playoff Game 2 in a losing effort against maybe the best Boston team ever. There was a time Jordan went through his legs past Bird and past Parish and McHale at the basket. There also was a classic iso on Bird from the right wing in which Bird in his prime was helpless against Jordan. It was a breathtaking individual performance. And, by the way, Jordan scored 49 points in Game 1. |
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The Shot :: May 7, 1989 There was the one at North Carolina to win the National Championship March 29, 1982, and the so-called Shot II to sweep the Cavs in 1993. This one probably has been shown more than any shot in the NBA with poor Craig Ehlo the victim. But, to me, it represented the true beginning of the Bulls' great run of the 1990s as Jordan rescued the Bulls against a superior team and kept the needle heading forward for the franchise. |
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The Sequence :: June 14, 1998 This has to be one of the greatest minutes in pro ball and Finals history with Jordan stripping Karl Malone, who was trying to lock up the win with a one-point lead, making the steal and recovery and taking the ball fullcourt and pulling up for a jumper to win the 1998 NBA championship in Jordan's last shot ever with the Chicago Bulls. |
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