Follow Us
Subscribe
Michael Jordan's competitive nature was abundantly clear even in the mildest of settings. As the docuseries “The Last Dance” detailed on Sunday, the Chicago Bulls legend once took Danny Ainge's offer for golf, only to get a massive payback with a 63-point performance against the Boston Celtics in the playoffs.
As Ainge narrated it, he might have been the spark that lit an all-time playoff performance alight after beating the Bulls star in the golf course.
Via NBC Sports:
“I took a few bucks off Michael that day and we’re talking trash to each other,” Ainge said. “That might have been a mistake.”
Ainge may not have been aware of what made Jordan tick by 1986, but trash-talking and celebrating a minor win against the Bulls does not do wonders when there's a high-stakes basketball game to be played.
Jordan took the L on the links but left Ainge with a little message.
“Hey, tell your boy DJ I got something for him tomorrow,” Mark Vancil, who wrote Jordan's autobiography, recalled Jordan saying of Celtics guard Dennis Johnson.
Jordan would explode for 63 points in Game 2 of the series and despite being a Bulls loss, it was a playoff record that stands to this day.
“I played practically every minute in the second game,” Jordan admitted. “I just never stopped.”
Larry Bird would help put the series to bed, but he admitted Jordan put up an all-time masterclass with the torching of Johnson and the rest of the Celtics that night.
“We ended up winning the series, but it was an incredible, incredible playoff performance,” said Bird. “I’ve never seen it before and I hadn’t seen it after. That wasn’t Michael Jordan. That was God disguised as Michael Jordan.”