Friday, May 15th, 2020

Game 6, 1998 — MJ in rap — AI named MVP

Friday, May 15th, 2020

  The Opening Tip

  • Not many endings are perfect, but Michael Jordan’s final Bulls game was 

  • The best MJ rap lyrics 

  • AI was named MVP 19 years ago today

1. The Lead: MJ’s final (Bulls) moments are why he’s untouchable    

The reason Michael Jordan will always be the Greatest of All-Time is because he had a sense of the moment that no one in the history of American sports -- maybe Tom Brady aside -- has had.By 1998, already five titles in, he had a silent maturity and professionalism to him that no one has matched before or since. So, in the final minutes of Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, there was a sense of inevitability you could hear in Bob Costas’s voice and feel in Utah's crowd.Of course, he delivered in his final moments as a Bull, with the shot above, but also in the entire final-minute sequence.

  • With 59 seconds left and Utah winning, 83-81, Jordan drew a foul and hit two free throws to tie the game. 

  • With 41 seconds left, John Stockton hit a 3-pointer to make it 86-83, Utah. 

  • With 37 seconds left, Jordan took an inbounds pass from Scottie Pippen at halfcourt and drove to the basket for a layup, making it 86-85, Utah. 

  • With 21 seconds left, Jordan cheated off Jeff Hornacek to double-team Karl Malone in the paint, stripping the ball from Malone and regaining possession down by one point. 

  • With five seconds left, Jordan nailed a jumper to give the Bulls an 87-86 lead. On the other end, Stockton missed a game-winning 3-pointer, and the Bulls had their sixth ring. 

The layup. The steal. The shot; other than Pippen’s inbounds pass with 40 seconds left, no other Bull touched the ball in the final minute. It doesn’t get better than that.Costas’s call immediately after Jordan’s shot was similarly money: 

“Michael Jordan, running on fumes, with 45 points. … That may have been -- who knows what will unfold in the next several months -- but that may have been the last shot Michael Jordan will ever take in the NBA. … If that’s the last image of Michael Jordan, how magnificent is it?”

This Game 6, and the series as a whole, will be the prolonged subject of this Sunday’s final two “The Last Dance” episodes. Keep in mind you’ll see footage from this game and its aftermath that have never been seen before.

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 2. "The Mailman doesn't deliver on Sundays" 

The 1998 NBA Finals was memorable enough that it often overshadows the 1997 NBA Finals, which also featured a six-game series between the Bulls and Jazz.In it, Michael Jordan hit a Game 1 winner and Steve Kerr hit a Game 6 winner. (“I guess I gotta bail Michael out again.”)Another forgotten great moment: With nine seconds left in Game 1, with the score tied at 82, Karl Malone went to the free throw line with a chance to take the lead. In a moment of uncharacteristic mischievousness, Scottie Pippen strode by Malone and whispered, "The Mailman doesn't deliver on Sundays."It was indeed Sunday and Malone was nicknamed the Mailman, and the Mailman proceeded to brick two free throws, setting up Jordan’s game-winner.ESPN released an oral history of that moment today. You can read it here.

3. Some of the best times hip hop name-dropped MJ

A great barometer for how popular an NBA player is can be answered in one simple metric: Has he been name-dropped in a hip hop song?For example: How relevant was Rajon Rondo in the early-2010s? Relevant enough to make it onto Tyga’s Rack City.No one has blended himself into hip hop lyricism like MJ -- and we aren’t just spewing conjecture, here’s proof.Here are five good ones:1. Baby Phife's Return, A Tribe Called QuestYeah, you know my flava/Rip this whole jam apart/Fuck around and have your heart/Like Jordan had Starks2. Let ‘Em Have it L, Big LFacts on tracks, I recite well/Everybody wanna be like Mike, but Mike wanna be like L3. It Was a Good Day, Ice CubeGet me on the court and I'm trouble/Last week fucked around and got a triple double/Freakin' ****** every way like MJ/I can't believe today was a good day4. What if?, JadakissWhat if hate ran through me?/And what if Portland would've drafted Jordan, instead of Sam Bowie?5. ****** in Paris, Jay-ZI'm liable to go Michael/Take your pick, Jackson, Tyson, Jordan, Game 6

4. 05/14/2001: Allen Iverson gets his MVP trophy  

On this day 19 years ago, David Stern, the NBA commissioner who implemented a dress code to thwart outfits like this, handed the MVP trophy to the man who inspired the dress code that stemmed from outfits like that. Allen Iverson, who was in the middle of his playoff run to the NBA Finals (his only deep playoff run), became the shortest at 6-feet tall and the lightest at 165 pounds to win MVP.If we’re being honest, Iverson has become a tad overrated in the decade or so since he retired, but his 2000-’01 season is the one that undeniably combined stats and winning.His team, in which the second best player was 34-year-old Dikembe Mutmbo, went 56-26, went to the Finals, and shocked the Lakers in a Game 1 road win, with AI scoring 48 points.In the regular season, AI put up these stats:

  • 42 minutes per game, 31.1 PPG, 4.6 APG, 42 percent shooting, 24 PER. 

He stepped it way up in the playoffs:

  • 46.2 minutes per game, 32.9 PPG, 6.1 APG. 

Sure, he shot 30 times a game with a 38.9 field goal percentage, but that was AI. You just had to be there. 

5.  Off the press

  • How Scottie Pippen lifted Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls [ESPN]

  • Mike Storen, one-time commissioner of the ABA who also ran three of its teams, dies at 84 [The New York Times]

  • Imagining the Bulls-Rockets NBA Finals we never got to see [CBS Sports]