{"id":686574,"date":"2026-03-29T19:43:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T19:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/686574\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T19:43:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T19:43:22","slug":"michael-jordan-on-his-1992-buzzer-beater-to-beat-detroit-pistons-either-way-im-running-off-the-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/686574\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Jordan on his 1992 buzzer-beater to beat Detroit Pistons: “Either way, I’m running off the court”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Jordan<\/a>\u00a0has 27 game-winning baskets to his name over the course of his career. Nine of those were buzzer-beaters, including one against the\u00a0Detroit Pistons<\/a>\u00a0early in the 1992-93 season.<\/p>\n

One thing that made the moment unique was Jordan hitting a deep 3-pointer to defeat their rivals. The\u00a0Chicago Bulls<\/a> icon didn’t usually pull these off, but that time, Jordan pulled up from way beyond downtown and got the win.<\/p>\n

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One clutch shot deserves another<\/p>\n

The Bulls and the Pistons engaged in some serious battles during the late 80s and early 90s. Detroit got the better of Chicago on numerous occasions until Jordan and company broke through in 1991 with a sweep.<\/p>\n

Of course, the ending of that year’s Eastern Conference finals was very controversial. The Bad Boys\u00a0decided to walk out<\/a>, refusing to shake hands with the Bulls, a testament to how serious the bad blood was between the two squads. Over 30 years later, it’s still a matter of contention between the parties involved.<\/p>\n

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By 1992, the Bulls had already established themselves as a growing dynasty. They had just won two straight titles at the expense of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers, and they were eyeing a third straight ring, something that no team has ever done since Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics.<\/p>\n

Still, the matchups between the Bulls and the Pistons were must-see TV. Some members of the back-to-back champion squads were gone, but Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman and Bill Laimbeer were still around (the 35-year-old Laimbeer mostly came off the bench that season).<\/p>\n

And with so much history between the two franchises, expect the standings to go out the window. The Pistons started the first two games of the season at 1-1 and drew the Bulls for their third contest. It was a heavily contested duel, and the defending champions got Detroit’s best shot.<\/p>\n

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Dumars, who finished with 22, hit an 18-footer near the right elbow to give the Pistons the upper hand, 96-95, setting up Jordan’s heroics with 4.1 seconds left. His Airness caught a pass from Bill Cartwright, faked left, went right and rose up for the 3 as time expired.<\/p>\n

“That was an unbelievable shot,”\u00a0Chicago’s B.J. Armstrong\u00a0said<\/a>. “I’ve\u00a0seen him do it so many times, you kind of expect it.”<\/p>\n

Related: “Guyana is a slam dunk!” – How Hakeem Olajuwon invested millions into the real estate business in Latin America<\/a><\/p>\n

What went through MJ’s mind<\/p>\n

As mentioned, the matchup was Detroit’s third game of the season and Chicago’s fourth. It carried little weight, except for the history between the two teams. Jordan certainly would have wanted to win by any means necessary, but he was surprisingly calm and stoic when asked what went through his head as the action transpired.<\/p>\n

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“I felt I had a good shot at the goal,”\u00a0Jordan\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0in a pre-game interview against the Phoenix Suns weeks after drilling the game-winner.\u00a0“It was one of those shots. Phil said, ‘Just take the shot,’\u00a0but either way, I was running off the court. If I missed it, we lost; if I made it, we won, so there really is no debate.”<\/p>\n

According to Pistons head coach Ron Rothstein, they tried to double-team Jordan as soon as he caught the ball, but couldn’t make it in time. Starting center Olden Polynice tried to cut off Jordan’s path, but ended up getting faked out of his shoes at the last moment.<\/p>\n

“Usually with four seconds left, it’s enough cushion to keep the other team from scoring, but not tonight,”\u00a0Dumars admitted.<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately for the Pistons, “usually”\u00a0didn’t mean anything when it came to Jordan. Four seconds were enough time for him to get to his spot and decide the outcome.<\/p>\n

Related: Jason Williams recalls a wild story of meeting\u00a0Michael Jordan\u00a0at his private golf club: “I didn’t want to let go”<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Mar 29, 2026, where it first appeared in the Old School<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Jordan\u00a0has 27 game-winning baskets to his name over the course of his career. Nine of those were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,4982,75,329,296,188,3860,3125,150,935,6,472,297,471],"class_list":{"0":"post-686574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bill-laimbeer","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-chicago-bulls","12":"tag-detroit","13":"tag-detroit-pistons","14":"tag-detroitpistons","15":"tag-joe-dumars","16":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","17":"tag-michael-jordan","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-phoenix-suns","20":"tag-pistons","21":"tag-portland-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116314177863900640","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}