“Maybe it’s time for us to start paying attention” – Scottie Pippen was surprised by Horace Grant’s dominance in the 1995 Playoffs with Orlando originally appeared on Basketball Network.
Throughout his career, Horace Grant was never known to be among the best offensive threats in the league. He was best remembered as a fierce rebounder and defender when he was with the Chicago Bulls. The 6’10” forward did get buckets, but most of it was at close range, as he never really developed his outside shot.
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After leaving the Bulls in 1994 to join the Orlando Magic, the 10th overall pick of the 1987 Draft showed he could improve as a scorer. He averaged 70 percent from the field in the 1995 Eastern Conference Playoffs, something that surprised some of his former Bulls teammates.
“I am surprised,” Pippen said then via the New York Times. “Maybe it’s time for us to start paying attention a little more to Horace. Any time a guy is shooting over 70 percent in the series and hitting all those shots from the outside, you have to pay him a little more respect.”
Looking at Grant’s stats in the Eastern Conference semifinals against Chicago, the All-Star forward continued his hot streak as he shot an impressive 64.7 percent from the field. He was the third-best scorer for the Magic behind Shaquille O’Neal and Anfernee Hardaway with 18.0 points per contest.
Grant claims performance was nothing special
Considering the messy divorce between Grant and the Bulls, most felt Horace was playing hard to prove a point. However, “The General” clarified that he had no extra motivation against his former team.
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“I can’t make this personal; I just have to play basketball,” he said after finishing with 24 points and 11 rebounds in Game 5. “This is not special. I’m just doing my job.”
His take was commendable, although most felt otherwise. It was known then that Grant was not on good terms with MJ, avoiding questions and ignoring him when they crossed paths during the series.
How the Jordan-Grant rift started
It remains unclear when the Grant-Jordan rift started. There are claims that the two’s relationship was rocky in the Bulls, with Horace not appreciating how the veteran forward treated him then.
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This included MJ allegedly taking away Grant’s food after bad games per NBA writer Sam Smith. So when Smith’s book, “The Jordan Rules,” came out, Jordan assumed that it was Horace who fed the scribe the information that put MJ in a bad light.
Jordan let this out in the open on “The Last Dance.” Upon learning about it, Grant was unsurprisingly upset. He called it a big lie and that he had never let anything out of the locker room back then.
“If MJ had a grudge with me, let’s say it like men,” Grant said. “Sam and I have always been great friends. We’re still great friends. But the sanctity of that locker room, I’d never put anything personal out there.”
Considering how the Bulls rose to fame with the help of Grant and Pippen, it is just a shame that both had a falling out with Jordan. Shots were fired and seeing this grudge getting settled doesn’t appear to be in sight. The egos of all the parties involved are probably too big to settle this conflict.
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This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 8, 2025, where it first appeared.