A big reason why I love basketball so much is growing up in the 90s in suburban Chicago under the magic of Michael Jordan and the Bulls. One of my first memories growing up is my dad coming home from Montgomery Ward with a brand new Mitsubishi 46-inch TV and watching Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals, or more commonly known as “The Shrug” game.
We start off with a reminder of just how spoiled people were in the 90s. The NBA on the NBC was the pinnacle of sports broadcasting and it’s kind of painful to think of how crappy it’s become. The theme music! Let John Tesh course through your veins.
It takes Bob Costas about 20 seconds to name-drop Carl Sandburg, Charles Dickens and Great Expectations. I forgot how much of an insufferable cock this guy was.
Marv Albert has a magnificent head of hair, who knew he was hiding a biting fetish underneath it?
Now here’s where nostalgia works. The player introductions for the Chicago Bulls have never, ever been topped. I would kill all of you for a chance to time travel back to the Chicago Stadium.
Ahmad Rashad AKA Michael Jordan’s personal media lackey is here to remind you that yes, this is 1992.
And we’re off. One of the weirdest things is how…small the players look. Not height-wise but unlike nowadays every player doesn’t look like they were chiseled by the gods.
Another weird thing, it is absolutely silent in Chicago Stadium except for crowd noise. No rap songs blaring during each possession, no stupid sound effects or promotional gimmicks at each dead ball.
No idea how one of the five greatest players could know so little about basketball, but Magic Johnson makes it happen. Makes me miss Mark Jackson.
Bulls look anything but historically great in the early goings. Jordan is taking some bad perimeter shots and his teammates look tentative. Meanwhile the Blazers have hit their first 8 shots and are running all over the court.
And then…Jordan hits a three-pointer, a recurring theme in this half. Followed by a turnaround jumper plus the foul. Eight point lead cut to two in about 40 seconds. But the Blazers remain aggressors. They play an extremely wild style, lots of early shots and reckless drives to the hoop.
Jordan hits two more three-pointers and another jumper, then another where he goes behind the back to elude a double-team and hits a fadeaway jumper. Eighteen points in ten minutes. Blazers hit their first nine shots yet now trail by one. Their aggressive play has basically turned into “Run into Scottie Pippen and turn the ball over.”
The Bulls are definitely in this game now. The defensive effort is much better, the long arms of Jordan, Pippen and Horace Grant are making life hell for the Blazers. End of the 1st quarter, Bulls lead 33-30.
NBC returns from commercial break by rubbing salt in Blazers’ fans wounds by replaying the 1984 NBA Draft. Or as most people know it, “Portland passing up on the greatest NBA player of all-time for a guy with bum knees.”
Jordan takes a rest and the game turns into a back and forth affair. Both teams are playing a pretty frantic pace.
MJ comes back. Portland plays great team defense for 20 seconds, Jordan says to hell with it and hits a jumper angling away from the basket.
Jordan’s return energizes the Bulls. He’s hitting everything in sight. The amazing thing is just how well the Bulls turn a Blazers miss into a successful possession. Everything is either an open jumper, a shot at the rim or Jordan doing something amazing. Their spacing in the half-court is a thing of beauty. Everyone understands their role and executes. This is why basketball gets a bad rap. Even when Jordan is having a legendary game, everyone else is still contributing. Without the other 4 guys knowing how to space he doesn’t get open shots.
Meanwhile the Blazers have no clue what they’re doing on offense. They haven’t executed a set play in the halfcourt in about five minutes and instead of closing the gap before halftime the Bulls just keep pouring it on. They seem shell-shocked at Jordan’s outburst (32 points with 1:30 remaining).
A Clyde Drexler airball leads to a wide-open Jordan three-pointer…
Which leads to this obscure, never before seen image:
They may as well have called the game at that point, because this shit is over. Michael Jordan sets the Finals record for most points in one half with 35. The Bulls are playing with relentless energy and the well-fed Chicagoan crowd (seriously, it’s a portly bunch) is rocking out to Gary Glitter. Marv Albert has climaxed at least seven times this quarter. It’s kind of crazy how fun it is watching a game that happened 20 years ago. But that’s all the broadcast is! There’s no product placement, no cross-promotion for shitty sitcoms, no camera shots of chesty female fans (ok, that last part isn’t so bad). The only two songs the stadium PA is aware of are cheesy rock songs. And the cheerleaders kind of look like cheerleaders as opposed to athletic exotic dancers. The Bulls ended up winning their second title and cementing themselves as an all-time great franchise while Portland languished in the “very good but ultimately had to play against Jordan and the Lakers too much” purgatory.
