The Shrug, the Flu Game, eight points in nine seconds. If you saw them live, you never forgot where you were.
The 90s were the best decade to grow up watching playoff basketball. The games were physical, the stars were bigger than life, and every June it felt like somebody did something we would be talking about for the next 30 years. Here are the moments that still come up every time the playoffs roll around.
FIVE FACTS FROM THE 90s PLAYOFFS
June 3, 1992. In Game 1 of the Finals against Portland, Michael Jordan scored 35 points in the first half, a playoff record at the time, breaking Elgin Baylor's 33. After his sixth three of the half he turned to the broadcast table and shrugged. That shrug has been on highlight reels ever since.
June 20, 1993. Down 98 to 96 in Phoenix in Game 6, Horace Grant found John Paxson alone behind the line. Paxson hit the three with 3.9 seconds left, the Bulls won 99 to 98, and Chicago had its first three-peat. Jordan averaged a Finals-record 41 points a game in that series.
May 7, 1995. Reggie Miller scored eight points in 8.9 seconds at Madison Square Garden to steal Game 1 of the East semifinals from the Knicks, 107 to 105.
June 11, 1997. Sick and barely able to stand, Jordan played 44 minutes in Game 5 at Utah and scored 38 points. At the end he collapsed into Scottie Pippen's arms, and it has been called the Flu Game ever since.
June 14, 1998. Game 6 in Salt Lake City. Jordan stole the ball, came down, crossed over Bryon Russell and hit the jumper that put the Bulls up 87 to 86 with 5.2 seconds left. He finished with 45 points and his sixth Finals MVP.
THE SHRUG
Jordan was not known as a three-point shooter, which is exactly why the Shrug hit so hard. Six threes in one half of a Finals game, and even he looked surprised. The story goes that the shrug was aimed at the broadcast table, where Magic Johnson was working the game for NBC. Whether that is true or not, the image was perfect: the best player in the world, just as surprised as the rest of us.
THE ROLE PLAYERS
The 1993 Finals winner is a great trivia question because it was not Jordan. Paxson's three was the only basket scored by any Bulls player other than Jordan in that entire fourth quarter. The Bulls became the first team since the Boston Celtics of the 1960s to win three straight titles, and the shot came from a guard who knew exactly where to stand.
THE KNICK KILLER
Reggie Miller and the Knicks were the best rivalry of the decade. A year before the eight-points-in-nine-seconds game, he scored 25 points in the fourth quarter of Game 5 of the 1994 East finals at the Garden while trading words with Spike Lee courtside. In 1995 he hit a three, stole the inbounds pass, hit another three, then made two free throws, all before the Knicks could get a shot off. The nickname "Knick Killer" stuck for good.
THE FLU GAME AND THE LAST SHOT
Two of the most famous games in basketball history happened against the same team in back to back years. In the 1997 Finals Jordan played through what was first called the flu (he later said in The Last Dance that it was food poisoning) and still dropped 38. A year later in Game 6 of the 1998 Finals came The Last Shot, the jumper over Bryon Russell. For a lot of us it is the last picture of the 90s Bulls.
HONORABLE MENTION: THE FOUR-POINT PLAY
In Game 3 of the 1999 East finals against Indiana, Larry Johnson hit a three and drew the foul with 5.7 seconds left to win it with a four-point play. Those Knicks were the eighth seed and they made it all the way to the Finals.
Which moment did we leave off? Tell us in the comments.
PLAY THE QUESTION
Michael Jordan's famous "Shrug" came against which team?
A. Phoenix Suns · B. Portland Trail Blazers · C. Los Angeles Lakers · D. Utah Jazz
Answer: Portland Trail Blazers. Jordan hit six threes in the first half of Game 1 of the 1992 Finals. (Straight from the Basketball arena in the Sports game.)
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