Something about your teenage years makes everything seem so much more important than any other time in your life. I don't know if it's the hormones or the fact that I really didn't have the slightest inkling about what really mattered in the world. Maybe it was the fact that I was still a virgin and the buildup was affecting my brain chemistry.
Yeah, right. There was no buildup at all. In fact, my teenage years is the reason why my right arm is bigger than my left. Regardless of what the cause is, though, there are just certain things from those years that seemed larger than life and for whatever reason, a lot of what happened during my teenage years seemed to always stick with me. Certain things I've never really gotten over. Especially when it comes to sports.
For most guys, we live or die with our favorite sports teams and it just seems that the stuff that happened to them when we were teenagers sticks out just a little bit more. For me, it was things like when Dominique Wilkins was traded. I still haven't truly gotten over that, and it was in 1994. It's taking a great deal of restraint to keep myself from dropping 4000 words on why this was wrong. Or the Nebraska/Penn State National Championship game in 1994. What's that? You don't remember it? Neither does anyone else, and that's what makes it memorable. Because it never happened. And to this day, it's the reason why I don't watch college football. But there was one event that really stung when I was 17, probably more than all the rest. Game 1 of the 1995 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals. The Chicago Bulls vs. The Orlando Magic.
The main thing that I remember is Michael Jordan bringing the ball up, and Nick Anderson snuck up behind him, knocked the ball away and Michael Jordan fell flat on the floor. Nick Anderson kicked the ball up to Penny Hardaway, who passed off to Horace Grant for the dunk. The Orlando Arena exploded. Magic win.
The image of Michael Jordan falling on the floor is burned into my memory to this day. The turnover, the sinking feeling in my stomach, the fact that I was going to have to face everyone I had talked shit to at school that day, the dunk by Horace Grant...all of that has stuck with me since 1995.
See, back then, like most kids, whether they want to admit it or not, I looked up to Michael Jordan. I wore his red jersey like a second skin. I couldn't find the white one, so I bought it off of this guy's back in the drive-thru when I worked at Burger King. I own a life-size cut out of this man. I bought a plaque containing an autographed picture of Michael Jordan that I knew was probably a forgery (and it is), just because I figured it was as close to Michael Jordan as I was going to get. Did you see the picture of his statue that I posted? Read the caption. Just seeing the statue was almost like a religious experience. So, basically...I'm a Michael Jordan fanatic.
So in my mind, this man could do no wrong. Michael Jordan didn't fail. Michael Jordan didn't make mistakes. Michael Jordan didn't lose. Yet, in this one game, he did all three and shattered the image I had of him. And he didn't do it in just one game...he did it in the space of 15 seconds at the end of a playoff game. It was the first time I had ever seen him truly lose. It shook my faith that Michael Jordan was going to do something special and the Bulls would win. Since he started winning championships, that hadn't happened.
I'm sure a lot of people remember all the news headlines, talking about Michael Jordan being mortal after all, but to me, it was a serious change in the way i viewed him. The dunk over Shaq that I swore he would get never came. And at one point in the series, Nick Anderson blocked his fadeaway. I had never seen Michael Jordan get blocked before. Well, not without getting mugged first. I tried to put up a brave face at school. I kept talking shit to that kid with the Shaq jersey, but one thing kept running through my mind: maybe Michael Jordan didn't have it anymore.
Yeah, we all remember that he tried to get it together. The next game, he incurred the league's wrath by switching back to number 23, and they won, but the series was really over after Game 1. After the Bulls tied the series at 2-2, they were blown out in the next two games in Orlando. I really don't even remember those games. I just remember seeing the traitorous Horace Grant celebrating about how his new team had taken down his old team. I hated Horace Grant for years after that. I hated his less-talented brother, Harvey, because he looked like him. This was the guy who put the dagger in the Bulls' heart, way back in Game 1. The Bulls went 6 games, but we all knew it was over at the end of Game 1. If you watched the game, you could just feel it. One mistake was all it took. One turnover changed more than just the game...it changed the series. The Bulls just weren't the same after that. Meanwhile, Orlando's confidence was growing by the minute.
Oh, yeah...it hurt to watch. That's something I do remember.
Of course, we all know how this ends. The Bulls went a record setting 72-10 next year, beat Orlando so bad in the playoffs that the team broke up (Shaq left for LA...had Orlando beaten Chicago, Shaq and Kobe would have been a wet dream), and won the championship. It helped me get over the previous season, somewhat. I still have those games on tape. And when I watch them, it makes me smile, because we got ours back against Orlando. That kid with the Shaq jersey had conveniently graduated the previous year, so I couldn't talk shit to him.
1996 was the last time things were ever in doubt, in my mind. I was never really worried that anyone else would beat them after that. Not after Michael proved that he was the real MJ again and won the championship. I mean, it was possible that someone could beat them, but it wasn't gonna happen. We had Michael Jordan. But even now, when they show that image of him on the ground, followed by the Grant dunk, it still stings. Just a little.
That was Michael Jordan, too.
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