Good afternoon, everyone. I am here to talk about Episode 8 of “The Last Dance”, the documentary about the Chicago Bulls’ championship dynasty of the 1990s. Without any delay, let’s get started.
The episode begins with the Bulls taking on the Charlotte Hornets in the second round of the 1998 playoffs. BJ Armstrong, who was a key contributor to the first 3 Bulls titles, was playing for Charlotte in that series. The Bulls took Game 1 of the series, while the Hornets took Game 2 behind Armsrtong’s clutch shots. After the Game 2 win, BJ talked a lot of trash to the Bulls, which gave Michael motivation to take over the series. Before the episode focuses on the rest of that series, it goes to March of 1993. The Bulls and Washington Bullets played each other in a back-to-back. On March 19, 1993, LaBradford Smith scored 37 points against the Bulls, who still won that game. After the game, Jordan claimed that Smith said to him “Nice game, Mike”. Jordan responded the next night in D.C. with 36 first half points (47 overall) in a dominating Bulls win over Washington. Later, Michael admitted that the whole thing was made up. The episode then focuses back on the series against the Hornets in ’98. There was a funny moment with Michael talking about trash talking with a cigar in his mouth while holding a baseball bat. The Bulls responded to the home loss in Game 2 by winning the next 3 games (including the 2 in Charlotte) to move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. During this 3-game stretch, Jordan went right after BJ Armstrong in each game.
The episode then flashes back to March of 1995. Jordan wanted no part of being a replacement player for Major League Baseball following the 1994 strike, which cancelled the World Series that year. He walked out of the White Sox training camp after that decision. He met up with BJ Armstrong for breakfast one morning and went to Bulls practice with him. Jordan practiced for a couple of more day with the team, which made people wonder whether or not he will be back. On March 18, he sent out a fax simply saying “I’m back.” The next day, he played his first game in 21 months in Indianapolis against the Pacers. It was kinda tough for him at first because it would be the first time playing in the NBA without his father watching him. He wore the number 45 instead of 23. His first game back was not great, as he scored only 19 points on 7 made shots out of 28 attempts in a Bulls loss. 6 days after that loss, he made the game-winning shot against the Hawks in Atlanta. On March 28, Jordan scored 55 points in a 113-111 win over the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. The shot that won the game was a dunk by Bill Wennington assisted by Jordan.
Eventually, Jordan helped lead the Bulls to the playoffs with a 47-35 record (they were 34-31 before Jordan’s return) and the 5th seed in the East. After beating the Charlotte Hornets in the first round, they faced the top-seeded Orlando Magic, led by Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway (Horace Grant was on that team as well). In Game 1, the Bulls had a one-point lead over Orlando. Michael was dribbling the ball to burn out the clock when Nick Anderson stole the ball away from him. Horace Grant took an assist from Hardaway and dunked the ball with a few seconds left. Jordan had a chance to win, but he passed the ball out of bounds. After the Magic won Game 1, Nick Anderson said something along the lines of “45 ain’t 23.” When Jordan heard about that, he brought 23 back from retirement and led the Bulls to a Game 2 victory. The Bulls lost the series in 6 games to the Magic, with Horace Grant being lifted up after Orlando won the series in Chicago. Jordan was at 80% and was tired by the end of the series against the Magic. The day after the loss, he started getting back into basketball shape (with the help of Tim Grover). While filming “Space Jam”, the people at Warner Brothers built the “Jordan Dome” to give him a place to get back into full form after he was done filming. During this, he invited all of the top players (including Reggie Miller, Dennis Rodman, Shawn Bradley, and Patrick Ewing) to play pickup games with him. Michael used this partially as a scouting report on the top players.
Michael came back with a vengeance in the 1995-96 season, but not without conflicts with his teammates. During a practice, he had an incident with Steve Kerr where he punched him in the eye. After the punch, he was kicked out of practice by Phil Jackson. Jordan apologized to Kerr for what he did to him and they moved on. In the regular season, the Bulls won a total of 72 games, which was an NBA record at the time. Phil Jackson was named Coach of the Year and Jordan won league MVP. In the first round, they swept the Miami Heat in 3 games. In the semifinals, they took care of the Knicks in 5 games. In the Eastern Conference Finals, they got revenge on the Magic and swept them in 4 games to move on to the NBA Finals. This time, the Seattle Supersonics (led by Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp) were the Bulls’ opponent. The Bulls won the first 3 games over Seattle and were looking to sweep the Sonics to win the NBA title. Seattle had other plans, as they won Games 4 and 5 to force the series back to Chicago. Starting with Game 4, Gary Payton was assigned to guard Michael Jordan exclusively. In those 3 games (4-6), Jordan shot under 37% from the field (averaging 23.7 points per game) while being defended by Payton. There was a moment in the episode where Michael laughed at Gary Payton while watching him from a tablet. I have to give Payton credit for his defensive play in those 3 games of the Finals. Jordan, however, said that other things were on his mind. The Bulls took care of business in Game 6 in Chicago to win their 4th title in 6 years on Father’s Day. After the game, Jordan cried with the ball in the locker room by himself. It was emotional for him because it was the first title without his father James by his side. The episode then goes forward to May 1998 and ends with a teaser of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Indiana Pacers. The last shot is the opening tip of Game 1.
As always, this episode had some things that were intriguing to me. It was interesting for me to see the footage from the “Jordan Dome”, which was where Jordan trained at while filming “Space Jam.” I did not really know about the LaBradford Smith story in 1993, which was made up by Jordan. It was funny seeing Jordan talking with a cigar in his mouth while holding a baseball bat. It was emotional hearing Jordan crying after winning the title over Seattle. I have seen the picture and the NBC footage before then.
The next episode will be the last one with flashbacks of any kind. Stay tuned for my thoughts on the ninth episode. Have a great day, everyone.
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