After two games, the New York Knicks were down 0-2 in the 1996 Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Chicago Bulls. Jeff Van Gundy had the colossal task of guiding his team out of the rut. It was a difficult order, especially since the Chicago Bulls were led by Michael Jordan.
Van Gundy got firsthand experience of how Jordan played the game. He was athletic, an absolute beast on both ends of the floor, and was extremely physical. Interestingly, Mike’s physicality seemed to tiptoe the line between craftiness and roughness.
A dirty player?
Whether Jordan was a dirty player or not was beside the point. Van Gundy told his players to match the shooting guard’s mentality and physicality.
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“You’ve got to compete against him and be as nasty as he is,” said Van Gundy. “Everytime you block him out, he elbows a guy in the face. I’m not calling him dirty. He’s an aggressive, physical player. He does whatever it takes.”
Dirty isn’t a word people associate with Mike. Most people describe him as a freak athlete with cat-like quickness. He also has the strongest mental fortitude ever — a trait he leveraged in clutch situations. If there were anything negative about Jordan, people would point to his gambling addiction, which the GOAT claimed was just an extreme passion for competition.
Whatever the Knicks told their players didn’t work. The Bulls dominated the Knicks, 4-1, and moved on to the Eastern Conference Finals. They went on to win the 1996 NBA Finals after beating the Seattle Supersonics. Perhaps Jeff and the Knicks should’ve admitted that Mike was indeed a dirty player and matched his intensity.
Cheap-shots
Perhaps the Knicks head coach isn’t the authority on MJ’s play style. Chris Childs, who joined the Knicks in the 1996-97 season and was known as a guard who never backed down, claimed Mike as one of the most malicious players ever. The most irritating thing about the “Black Cat” is that after delivering a sharp elbow to your rib, he’d turn to the referee for some aid.
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“And what people don’t understand is Michael was one the dirtiest players who ever played the game, you know?” Childs said.
“He would cheap-shot you and then look at the ref for help. One thing that I stood on from the beginning is that I’m a man like you’re a man and I want to be treated accordingly. If you don’t treat me accordingly, then I’ll take that respect … and that’s one thing that when I stepped on the court, I let that be known from the beginning.”
Was MJ just a product of his upbringing? Note that before he reached the pinnacle, the six-time NBA Champion was stonewalled by the Detroit Pistons Bad Boys for three straight seasons. Their extremely rough and brutal play style came to define the 1980s.
To an extent, other teams borrowed this style, too, especially against the Bulls. It bordered on illegal, but was effective in containing Jordan. So why not employ a similar playstyle? The goal of the game is to win, right?
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Jordan was no chump and didn’t take these new Bad Boys iterations sitting down. He fought fire with fire. He sharpened his weapons for battle and prepared his body for combat. He dished out sneaky elbows, delivered cheap shots, and shoved his foes when the referees were not looking. Some call it dirty, some call it fair game.