Monday Milestone: Air Jordan
Jordan with 43. Malone is doubled. They swat at him and steal it! Here comes Chicago.”
– Michael Jordan in the final moments of Game 6, 1998, his final in the Bulls dynasty
This Week in History
1998, June 14
The Chicago Bulls complete their second three peat winning their sixth NBA championship in eight years led by Hall-of-Famer Michael Jordan, sparking a fascination with the NBA across Australian schoolyards,
Michael. MJ. His Airness. Call him what you want. Number 23 for the Chicago Bulls, means just one man. Michael Jordan.
Sporting phases come and go but few have punctuated the Australian sporting landscape such as when Australian kids fell in love with the NBA in 1990s.
It was a peculiar phase really. It disappeared as unusually as it had appeared, but for a few short seasons it was manic. Caps appeared, and basketball singlets became a legitimate fashion option. Basketball cards were everywhere. And Michael Jordan was at the heart of it all.
The Milestone is deep Bulls territory and MJ’s career has been tracked here more carefully than most. Since the 1990-91 NBA season, when Jordan, along with Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant, oversaw the changing of the guard in Magic Johnson’s final NBA Finals series against the 1980s Showtime Lakers, to take home their first NBA Championship. Through the next season when the Bulls returned to the NBA Finals on a huge season denying Clyde Drexler’s Portland Trailblazers, and then when the Bulls completed a three-peat against Sir Charles Barkley and the Phoenix Suns, heralding a new dynasty in the NBA, growing up in Australia, it was impossible to ignore the swell of support.
But then it stopped. Jordan retired. His father was murdered. He lost desire. He tried baseball. He was mediocre. The Bulls went into the wilderness. But of course, it didn’t last. After two years away from the game he loved, it took just two words to announce his return
“I’m back”.
Michael returned for his first full season with a deepened resolve, and a Bulls squad among the most famous in NBA history. Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Harper, Longley. Throw in Kukoc and Kerr in 1995-96, and their 72 wins that season remains an NBA record. But not until Jordan clutched the ball to his chest during the final seconds of Game 6 against the Seattle Supersonics, were the Bulls were truly back, winning their fourth championship in six years.
However Chicago were not finished. They would go back to back again next season dispatching Karl Malone’s Utah Jazz in six games before going onto 1998, the toughest NBA Finals Series Michael Jordan had ever faced. The resurgent Jazz returned but by the time they headed to Utah for Game Six, the Bulls were four quarters away from another championship. Pippen played the match with a back injury. The Jazz led 86-83 with just 41.9 seconds remaining. But then, Michael Jordan was Michael Jordan. Suddenly a layup, a steal, another two points, and the Bulls had victory, and their sixth championship in eight years…
After that, the Bulls disbanded. But over those eight years, when Australia fell in and out of love with the NBA, and tracked it religiously, Michael Jordan was the centrepiece. The 1990s were the Chicago Bulls, and they were Michael Jordan.
Whatever you called him.
Milestone Five: Five Greatest Michael Jordan Playoff Matches:
5. v Phoenix Game 3, 1993. Piling in 44 points in triple overtime, Jordan did everything except manage the victory against the Suns.
4. v Phoenix Game 4, 1993. Backing up two nights later with 55 points in a truly dominant display that gave the Bulls a 3-1 lead, leaving them one game from a three peat.
3. v Utah Game 5, 1997. “The Flu Game” –wracked with the flu, Jordan piled in 39 points and five assists to wrest the series from Utah in Salt Lake City.
2. v Utah, Game 6, 1998. Michael Jordan scores a game high 45 pts running on fumes and wraps up his sixth championship in eight years.
1. v Boston, Game 2, 1986. Michael Jordan amasses 63 points against one of the all time great NBA teams, as the Bulls were defeated. It still remains a record today.
Thanks to Jonathon Daniel/Getty Images North America for the photo
