When Jordan became Jordan: even after Michael Jordan plays his last game sometime this spring, his legend will continue to grow. Once, however, he was just another scorer who couldn't win the big one. On a night in June 1991, that changed

Sporting News, The, April 7, 2003 by Jeff Ryan

When he retires at the end of the Wizards' season, Michael Jordan will leave behind a body of work as heavy on record-book rewrites as it is light on failed expectations. It's the stuff of which legends, not to mention Madison Avenue powerhouses, are made. To see where that legend was launched, we must return to ancient Chicago Stadium and the night of June 5, 1991, when the Bulls faced the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

"Before then, Michael wasn't viewed as a winner," says Chicago Tribune columnist Sam Smith, who covered the Bulls as a beat writer that season. "He was viewed as a great player who could score a lot of points."

Jordan and the Bulls, making their first appearance in the Finals, were coming off a 93-91 defeat at the Stadium in Game 1. To fall behind, 2-0, with the series shifting to L.A. for the next three games, would have been dire. Though his players were well aware of their predicament, Bulls coach Phil Jackson emphasized the circumstances in his pregame talk.

"We talked about how, when you get to a championship series and haven't had that opportunity before, you really don't want to mess it up," recalls Jackson, who had played on the Knicks' 1973 title team and now is coach of the Lakers. "It's something you have to take advantage of because nobody knows when you'll ever get back to it again."

Chicago took advantage, all right, routing the Lakers, 107-86. With that win, the momentum shifted and the Bulls went on to win the next three games and their first of six titles. It was that second game, however, that was Jordan's coming-out party. In 36 amazing minutes, he totaled 33 points, 13 assists, seven rebounds, two steals and one block and executed one of the most acrobatic layups ever seen. Just as importantly, he displayed for the first time on such a grand stage the characteristics that would come to define his greatness.

LEADERSHIP. The Windy City media blasted the Bulls for their one-dimensional attack in Game 1, in which Jordan was responsible for nearly 40 percent of Chicago's scoring, and he and Scottie Pippen were the only two Bulls with more than six points.

"In the first game, Michael tried to carry too much of the load," says guard John Paxson, today a Bulls radio analyst. "In Game 2, he had it in his mind to right things. He got everybody involved early, making passes inside to Bill Cartwright and Horace Grant. He hadn't distributed the ball all year the way he did that night."

Says guard B.J. Armstrong, who now works in the Bulls' front office: "Michael came into that game with a mindset that he had come too far to fail in his mission. We saw he was willing to do whatever it would take."

With all that ball movement, the Bulls shot 61.7 percent from the floor, still a record for The Finals, with the starters hiring on an incredible 73.4 percent of their attempts.

Playing with Jordan made the rest of the Bulls better, but it took Jordan a while to understand that. When he came to the conclusion that he couldn't win a title by himself, he began recognizing the value of his teammates' contributions. That explains why, in subsequent runs to the title, the usually impatient perfectionist was able to tolerate Pippen's moodiness, Dennis Rodman's eccentricities and the offensive limitations of lumbering big man Luc Longley.

POISE. Entering the '91 NBA Finals, the Bulls had won 11 of 12 playoff games. But after the Game 1 setback, they found themselves in a must-win situation. Jordan never had faced this kind of pressure as a pro before, but he quickly discovered that he loved every bit of it. This was the first example of how he could raise his level of play at the most crucial times. After taking just three shots in the first 20 minutes of Game 2, Jordan caught fire in the third quarter. He made 15 of 18 shots in the game and 10 of 11 in the second half. At one point he made 13 in a row.

"When he was on that streak, he was doing it in every way," says Paxson. "Fallaway jumpers, pullups, taking it all the way on the break"

Says Timberwolves radio analyst Mychal Thompson, who played center for the Lakers in that game, "I remember him looking over at our bench as if to say, `Well, what are you guys going to do about this? You have no answer for it.' It wasn't a show-them-up type of look. It was just that he knew there was nothing we could do to stop him."

In the 12 years since, Jordan has proved unshakable. Down by a point with 5.2 seconds remaining, he drilled the series winner against the Jazz in Game 6 of the '98 Finals and looked so calm doing it that you'd have thought he was shooting jumpers in an empty gym. Can anyone recall a situation that ever rattled him? Not falling behind, 2-0, to New York in the '93 Eastern Conference finals. Not trailing Indiana late in the seventh game of the '98 conference finals. Not even trying to cope with a queasy stomach in Utah in '97 with The Finals tied at two games apiece.

Must-win situation? To M.J., that was no cause for concern. It was a reason for being.