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No one doubts the greatness of Air Jordan - the greatest basketball
player since Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, he was the driving
force behind the six-time NBA champion Chicago Bulls.
Many remember him as the UNC freshman who hit the last-minute jumper
in 1982, to give his team a 63-62 win over Patrick Ewing and
Georgetown to give is team the NCAA title. Few know that he was cut
from his high school basketball team as a sophomore.
Jordan left us with one more indelible memory in his final
game - a game-winning sequence to give his team a 87-86 win in Game
6 of the NBA finals. After John Stockton hit a three-pointer with 41.9 seconds left, Utah
had a 86-83 lead. Jordan almost immediately got the ball at the other end,
drove past the Jazz's Bryon Russell and scored a layup, using
up only 4.8 seconds. On the other end Jordan sneaked up behind
Utah's Karl Malone and stripped the ball from him. Jordan ran
the ball back upcourt, faked Russell nearly out of his
hightops to free himself for a 17-foot jumper, and buried it
with 5.2 seconds left to give the Bulls a 87-86 lead.
Stockton had one
last chance, but missed a three-pointer, and the Bulls were
champions for the third straight year. Jordan's game-winning
sequence, which capped a 45-point performance, may have
surpassed the countless other memorable moments of his career,
including Game 5 of of the 1997 Finals, in which, despite
being sick with a stomach virus, he scored 38 points to lead
the Bulls to victory.
Just another thrilling finish for Jordan - just another
demonstration that the
more pressure-packed the moment, the more unstoppable Jordan
becomes. Jordan
had overcome fatigue and finished with 45 points, as he won
his sixth Finals Most Valuable Player award.
On that night, Jordan shot 15-of-35 from the field and
12-of-15 from the line. He scored 16 points in the fourth
quarter alone, including Chicago's final eight over the last
2:06, carrying the offense as Scottie Pippen - hampered by a
back injury - struggled. It was Jordan's last game as a pro.
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