Of all the unforgettable moments in NBA history: Willis Reed coming onto the court to inspire the 1970 New York Knicks to victory, John Havlicek’s 1965 steal, and Magic Johnson’s play as substitute center in the 1980 championship game at Philadelphia, Michael’s moment was the zenith.
It was game six of the 1998 Chicago Bulls-Utah Jazz final. The Bulls led the series 3-2, and they were going for their sixth NBA championship. But the Jazz, anchored by Jerry Stockton and Karl “The Mailman” Malone, were dangerous adversaries who were up by three points with less than a minute to play when Michael Jordan drove to the hoop and brought the Bulls to within one. Utah brought the ball up the court and got it in low to Karl Malone who was virtually unstoppable near the basket. Would “The Mailman” deliver?
Michael snuck in behind Malone, reached around his huge frame, knocked the ball out of his hands and back between his legs. Michael grabbed the ball, dribbled down the court, faked an opponent so completely that he fell onto the floor (or did Michael bump him and get away with one?), pulled up and launched a 20-foot, game-and-series-winning jumper that you could have bet the farm on the instant it left his hand.
The shot showed what the superb mechanics of a great player can deliver in the clutch. As he returned from his levitation over the hardwood, Michael held his eye on the basket and his arm in full, follow-through extension until well after the ball went through. The graceful, athletic curve of his arm, wrist, and fingers mirrored the arc of the ball in flight, nothing but net.
Michael’s mechanics were so refined and repeatable he probably could have made the basket with his eyes shut. In another game, in a different season, a grinning Michael at the free-throw line silenced his trash-talking opponents by closing his eyes and swishing the shot. A year or two earlier when Miami Heat coach Pat Riley was asked about his or other teams’ chances in the playoffs against the Bulls, he said in effect forget about it, until Michael retires nobody is going to beat the Bulls.
When Michael Jordan won six NBA championship rings in a decade he never let Magic Johnson forget that he had won “only” five. If Jordan hadn’t detoured into professional baseball at the height of his basketball supremacy, the Chicago Bulls would likely have won seven titles.
The final play against Utah was the capstone of Michael Jordan’s career. It said everything about him as the premier basketball player in history. Scottie Pippen, the Bulls number two star was playing hurt, and Michael took the team on his own shoulders. Displaying his usual clairvoyance, he kept them in the game with defensive gems, creative passing, a late string of baskets, and a total of 45 points in the game.
After his drive to reduce Utah’s lead to one point, the unfazable Jordan knew the ball would go to Malone, and he was there (timing is the music of sports). As Erskine Childers wrote about a dexterous character in his novel The Riddle Of the Sands, “He had, too, that intuition which is independent of acquired skill, and is at the root of all genius.” After the steal and dribble to advance the ball into the forecourt, he made the consummate fake that left room for the perfect shot he knew would go in. Using Alexander Pope’s phrase, Michael Jordan snatched a grace beyond the reach of art.