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When the Zen met the true Master....
'Golden State’s record 73 regular-season wins prompted much conjecture about how the Stephen Curry-led Warriors would have stacked up against the Michael Jordan-powered Chicago teams that once posted 72 victories. In 1998, the Bulls won the last of their six N.B.A. championships with Jordan, but only after finding themselves in circumstances similar to what these Warriors are now facing.
That spring, the top-seeded Bulls were taken to a seventh game by the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals. Between Games 6 and 7, the Bulls’ coach, Phil Jackson, huddled with his players and told them not to fear failing.
“The fear is not losing,” Jackson told them. “The fear is not producing the effort needed.”
Steve Kerr, now the Warriors’ second-year coach, was an important reserve on that Bulls team, and he remembers distinctly what happened next. Jordan spoke up and said something to the effect of “forget that,” only his language was too blue for black-and-white newsprint.
His teammates got the point. Behind sparkling performances from Luc Longley, Toni Kukoc and Kerr, who contributed 11 points off the bench, the Bulls handed the Pacers a 5-point defeat at United Center in the series-deciding game and went on to beat the Utah Jazz in six games in the N.B.A. finals in Jordan’s last rodeo with the Bulls.'
'Golden State’s record 73 regular-season wins prompted much conjecture about how the Stephen Curry-led Warriors would have stacked up against the Michael Jordan-powered Chicago teams that once posted 72 victories. In 1998, the Bulls won the last of their six N.B.A. championships with Jordan, but only after finding themselves in circumstances similar to what these Warriors are now facing.
That spring, the top-seeded Bulls were taken to a seventh game by the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals. Between Games 6 and 7, the Bulls’ coach, Phil Jackson, huddled with his players and told them not to fear failing.
“The fear is not losing,” Jackson told them. “The fear is not producing the effort needed.”
Steve Kerr, now the Warriors’ second-year coach, was an important reserve on that Bulls team, and he remembers distinctly what happened next. Jordan spoke up and said something to the effect of “forget that,” only his language was too blue for black-and-white newsprint.
His teammates got the point. Behind sparkling performances from Luc Longley, Toni Kukoc and Kerr, who contributed 11 points off the bench, the Bulls handed the Pacers a 5-point defeat at United Center in the series-deciding game and went on to beat the Utah Jazz in six games in the N.B.A. finals in Jordan’s last rodeo with the Bulls.'
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