Day Of Killers: Air Jordan and Columbine

CLEVELAND - Today is one of the most historical days in American history. As far as I'm concerned, one horrible tragedy and one incredible triumph will forever define this day of winners and losers, victims and assailants.

It is a day of killers.

It was 24 years ago today that a young NBA hotshot named Michael Jordan took the floor with his woefully overmatched Chicago Bulls to compete against the imposing Boston Celtics at their very best and put on a seminal, groundbreaking performance worthy of an Academy Award. Also, it was 11 years ago that two twisted teens went on a shooting spree at their own high school in Littleton, Colorado and killed more than a dozen people including themselves.

Jordan murdered the Celtics with a playoff record 63 points. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the Columbine High School whack jobs, murdered innocent students and one teacher. Though the Bulls lost that Sunday afternoon classic in double OT, 135-131, it was clear that MJ was the assailant. Despite missing a whopping 64 games with a broken foot in his 2nd pro season, Jordan dazzled, slithered, soared and scored with impunity against the seemingly invincible Celtics in their nearly impervious building, who were 40-1 at home and boasted the iconic Larry Bird in his prime along with superstars Kevin McHale and Robert Parish.

For the Columbine killers, they were assailants as well...just far more ominous and sinister. They were cast as social mis-fits after the fact and information came to light about just how calculated the April 20, 1999 shootings really were. Going back to 1997 and 1998, Klebold and Harris (pictured at right) had studied how to make bombs at home and also acquired themselves an extensive collection of rifles and other high powered weaponry. Apparently upset with the way they were ridiculed and outcast in school, they ignored their otherwise privileged lives and masterminded an evil crime that still stings.

I joke when I put Michael Jordan into the same category as Klebold and Harris. But the sad part is, Jordan simply played a phenomenal game. The Columbine boys considered their heinous actions to be a game as well.

What did the rest of us learn?

Jordan Should Have Been Arrested in Boston in '86

CLEVELAND - Chicago Bulls basketball was never the same after Michael Jordan joined their awful team in 1984. For Jordan, he wasn't ever the same after a historic afternoon in Boston in 1986.

That is when he became a basketball immortal.

Jordan, wearing his familiar uniform number 23 broke a 24-year old NBA Playoff record in Game 2 at age 23 by scoring 63 points 23 years ago today in the nearly impenetrable force field known as Boston Garden, a hoops mecca that saw the 1985-86 edition of the home team roll to a glittering 40-1 home mark in the regular season.

He was simply smashing.

It occurred to me earlier that MJ had been a premeditated assassin that day. Indeed, after netting 49 points in Game One, Jordan came out "guns" ablazin' and became a relentless marksman, a shooter without a conscience and no regard for his "victims." As it turns out, his "victims" were wowed by his slithering moves even as he evaded their grasp only to "knife" through rotating defenders en route to nearly scoring an unlikely heist; a Bulls victory in Beantown.

Almost.

Jordan, who was only in his 2nd pro season had suffered a stress fracture in his foot three games into the season, causing him to miss 64 games. Chicago was a putrid 21-43 in those games but saw a glimmer of hope to make the playoffs as the lowest seed when the super hoopster returned in Mid-March. That means that it took him less than five weeks to ascend to the level that he played at in Boston.

Wow.

Though the briefly stunned Celtics won the game, 135-131 in double OT, the series and eventually, the NBA championship, Jordan made an indelible impact on the sports world and his legend continued with its meteoric rise in the coming years.

And even though he didn't kill the Celtics that day, he should've been arrested for assault, battery and attempted murder.

But he got away with it! Lucky us!