Michael Jordan took trash talk, it went too personal beyond the NBA, and this happened.
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That Last Dance documentary, is fire.
To understand why Jordan is so mad here, we gotta go back to the 90s to the Bulls and Knicks rivalry. The Bulls and Knicks had faced off 5 times in the playoffs during that time, 91, 92, 93, 94, and 96. It was the Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, John Starks, Allan Houston with Pat Riley coaching Knicks. he Knicks brand of basketball back then was physical, especially with Charles Oakley who was the enforcer. They had Pat Riley who was the ruthless head coach. They were sorta the bad boy Pistons part 2. The Knicks were ranked one of, if not the best defense in the NBA for 6 years in a row. That was their identity. They would rough up Jordan and Pippen in any way they could.
There was a lot of back and forth, a lot of trash talk, a lot of fights like in 92 when Jordan retaliated for a hard foul or in 94 when a fight got all the players involved and almost went to the stands.
The Knicks weren’t all talk, they were good enough to force the championship Bulls to Game 7. And in 1994, they made the NBA finals. So now we’re in the 1996-97 season. Jordan and the Bulls have eliminated the Knicks again in the 96 playoffs. He left the largest contract ever offered to a coach sitting on the table. That meant Jeff Van Gundy who had been the assistant coach since 1991 would become the head coach. And for some inexplicable reason a few days before the Bulls would face off against the Knicks in January 1997, Jeff Van Gundy said this. Yeah he called Jordan a con man on a radio interview, that he’s taking advantage of his friendships with players. Now I don’t know about you, but uhhh that’s some defamation.
And so Jordan responds in the press saying, I go out there playing basketball the way I know how to play it. He says that the comments are way out of line.
Jordan obviously denied those claims, but there was a reason for why Gundy even thought that. MJ was the friendly guy. In the Last Dance, they shared a story of Jordan playing golf with Danny Ainge the day before the Bulls played the Celtics in the playoffs. That time, Jordan used a loss in golf as motivation, told Ainge to send a message to Dennis Johnson that he has something for him tomorrow, and then proceeded to drop 63 points in a game that Larry Bird literally called him God.
The most notable story is with Charles Barkley in the 1993 NBA Finals. Right before game 4, Jordan took Barkley to play 48 holes of golf and then gave him $20,000 diamond earrings.
Jordan would drop 55 in that game 4, Barkley had a triple double with 32, 10, and 12, Bulls end up winning by 6. Barkley didn’t touch Jordan that game and the Bulls would end up winning the series. So maybe the con man wasn’t that far off. On the other hand, Jordan was also good friends with Charles Oakley on the Knicks but when they competed, Oakley roughed up Jordan. They would fight on court and then go have dinner afterwards.
So the Bulls face off against the Knicks on January 21, 2017. And from the getco, Michael Jordan was on. And I mean on. He was scoring over everyone, fading away and everything. He scored 18 in the first quarter all while staring at Jeff Van Gundy after almost every bucket. Did I mention the Knicks were the number 1 defensive team in the league at the time? But there was no stopping him that day no matter how many players you threw at him. Pippen said that he saw that look in his eyes and knew to give him the ball and just get out of his way. It kept going and going until the 4th quarter. By this point, Jordan has 43 points. The game was getting close until Jordan becomes the closer and just hits jumper after jumper to keep the Knicks at bay. He’s literally breaking defenders. Then he hits this over 2 defenders, the dagger. And Jordan just unleashes at Jeff Van Gundy, screaming and cursing him out. I mean just really going at him. The refs allowed it too. The Bulls end up winning and as Jordan is heading to the locker room, he yells at Jeff Van Gundy as he walks by. Yeah it was really that deep just like with Danny Ainge. Jordan ended the game with 55 points on 18 of 30 shooting.
Reporters asked Jordan after the game what he said to Van Gundy and Jordan said it was some choice words. They asked if he could repeat it and Jordan said nah. He might’ve said this, yeah.
So Jeff Van Gundy really said Jordan was a con man and Jordan took out his anger in full effect. Is Michael Jordan the GOAT?
