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If you ask any of the greats, shot-taking and shot-making amount to more than the willingness to take them and the work put into them to consistently make them, but also citing a clutch gene that makes those great players magnetically attracted to those clutch situation, those who have the fabled “clutch gene.”
During Wednesday's edition of ESPN's The Jump with Rachel Nichols, familiar guest panelist Scottie Pippen was not afraid to admit he just wasn't one of them.
“I'm not afraid to say that, I don't have clutch genes,” said Pippen to the surprise of everyone in the panel. “I played with a guy that took all the clutch genes off of me.”
“I had the best clutch player ever and I'm good with it.”
From #TheJump: The time when Scottie Pippen said "I'm not afraid to say it, I don't have a clutch gene," and T-Mac asked him about the 1.8 😂 pic.twitter.com/XKahDdCgru
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) May 24, 2017
When asked if he was aware of who the alpha dog was and where the ball should go down the stretch, Pippen was very candid about his approach to playing with the legendary Michael Jordan.
“Yes,” he said. “You know what you're doing. It was a relationship that me and Michael had, it was a relationship built to where I knew where I wanted the ball at the end of a game and I knew who wanted the ball at the end of that game.”
“You would never see a game where you'd see Michael just watch who took the last shot, that would just kill him.”
Part of what made Jordan-Pippen one of the best one-two punches in the history of the league was their synergy and instinctual understanding of each other in a nearly effortless way, making them one of the hardest tandems to defend throughout their time with the Chicago Bulls.
