In 1999, a 36-year MJ sat at his 2nd retirement press conference and reflected on not only the championship winning shot that he hit just 7 months prior, but also his amazing 13-year NBA career that re-defined sports and the business of sports thanks to his pioneering presence.
But it was a full decade before that press conference that Jordan went from being known as a super high-flying scoring machine, to a game-changing champion-in-the-making.
The Shot.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the moment that catapulted Jordan to a new level of greatness and re-defined his career. It also put him on an entirely new path, which would ultimately lead to a treasure trove of NBA championships and a lofty status as the gold standard of basketball excellence.
That famous shot took place in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference first round series between Jordan's Bulls and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The series was tied 2-2 heading into the fateful deciding game. MJ, at age 26 was in the midst of his 5th NBA season and had led the league in scoring for the 3rd consecutive campaign. Going into the series with the Cavs, the Bulls were heavy underdogs thanks in large part to an 0-6 record against their division rivals during the regular season. Jordan, however was undaunted and continually claimed that Chicago would win the series.
MJ's unpopular prediction seemed like a genius move when the Bulls found themselves up by 20 points in Game 1. Going into Game 4 in Chicago, the Bulls held a 2-1 series lead and the team got a gigantic performance from Michael, as he scored a sizzling 50 points. Ironically, this effort seemed to play right into Cleveland's hands and before they knew it, they had won the game in overtime heading back to their home-court to decide who would move on to Round 2.
Sunday, May 7, 1989 was the date. Richfield Coliseum was the location and Jordan was seething with fury after he missed a couple key free throws in the closing moments of the previous game. He could care less about his 50 points. He felt as though he let his team down.
He couldn't wait for the chance to be in that position again.
The game was as highly competitive as one would expect a deciding playoff game to be. The lead changed hands 9 times in the final three minutes and with every Cavs basket, Jordan answered. He beat Cavs guard Craig Ehlo off the dribble and drilled a 10-foot pull up jumper with 6 seconds left to give the Bulls a 99-98 lead. After a Cleveland timeout, Ehlo inbounded the ball, then took a return pass from forward Larry Nance and scored on a driving layup to the basket with 3 seconds left to put the Cavs up, 100-99. The arena went wild and started celebrating the apparent victory.
But MJ still had 3 seconds to work with.
Bulls forward Brad Sellers went to inbound to Jordan, who was heavily guarded by a Nance-Ehlo double-team. MJ broke free and cut to an open area to receive the pass, then went hard left with a couple dribbles and raised up for the shot inside the foul circle. He was met by Ehlo who got a hand up and would have blocked the shot if it were not for Jordan hanging a split second longer in the air to double clutch the ball before releasing it.
The ball dropped through the hoop just as the horn sounded giving the Bulls a stunning 101-100 victory. Jordan jumped high into the air and fist pumped several times before being mobbed by teammates and coach Doug Collins in an absolutely shell shocked arena. His final tally: 44 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists.
The legacy of Jordan's classic moment is two-fold. It sent both franchises in opposite directions. The Cavs had been contenders for the NBA crown that season and had an outstanding core of young star players in Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, Nance and Ron Harper. They also had key players beyond the stars such as John "Hot Rod" Williams and Ehlo. But after just a few games at the start of the '89-'90 season, they surprisingly traded star Harper to the L.A. Clippers for the rights to college star Danny Ferry.
Also, during the next four seasons, the team was hit hard with major injuries, especially to Price. Along with Harper's exit, Daugherty missed half of the '89-'90 season and Price missed 66 games in '90-'91. They were back on a roll for the '91-'92 season, but lost in the Eastern Conference Finals. In '92-'93, they lost in the semifinals. Both times, the Bulls knocked them out while en route to their second and third NBA championships.
MJ's historic shot infused the Bulls with tons of confidence and momentum and they enjoyed a much longer than expected playoff ride in '89. They got past the New York Knicks in Round 2, then took the eventual defending champion Detroit Pistons to 6 games before losing in the East finals.
With new coach Phil Jackson's guidance for the '89-'90 season, the Bulls gained a new dedication to defense and Jordan grew leaps and bounds as a leader. They took defending champion Detroit to Game 7 in the East finals before losing. They bounced back in a huge way in 1991 as Jordan led them to their first ever NBA championship in a 4-1 series victory over Magic Johnson's L.A. Lakers.
Fast forward back to Jordan's 1999 retirement press conference. By then, he had been long revered as the greatest ever and had amassed an unbelievable 10 NBA scoring titles, 6 NBA titles, 6 NBA finals MVPs, 5 NBA MVPs and innumerable heroic moments in several championship series. He capped his Bulls career in 1998 with a dramatic title clinching shot with 5.2 seconds left.
The decade between Jordan's shot over Ehlo and his retirement just after the '98-'99 lockout was a period filled with great success for him and the Bulls, but the Cavs became a perennial laughing stock. After Jordan eliminated them AGAIN with a buzzer jumper in the 1993 semifinals, coach Lenny Wilkens left the organization and nothing was ever the same. Daugherty was forced into an early retirement after a horrible back injury shelved him in 1994. Price was sent away to Orlando in 1995 and Danny Ferry remained a constant and untradeable disappointment with a huge contract year after year.
It wasn't until 2003 that the Cavs finally gained some real hope of turning their long path of bad luck and non-contending teams around. That was when their miserable, 17-65 record earned them the number 1 pick in the draft, which they used to draft LeBron James, who held enormous potential to become one of the all-time great NBA players. Ironically, '03 was also the year that Jordan left the NBA as a player for good. He had returned for the '01-'02 season to play at a very advanced age for Washington, then retired for the 3rd time about a month and a half before James was drafted.
What a coincidence!
In my final estimation, I look back on Michael Jordan's legendary shot, 25 years later with continued awe and humility. For a man as driven and competitive as him, that moment now seems like it was destined to take place. But greatness has a lot of points of despair which is usually needed to propel us beyond what we were originally capable of doing.
That is a big part of Jordan's iconography.
