During Game 6 of the 1992 NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Portland Trail Blazers, the late Tex Winter told Phil Jackson to remove Michael Jordan from the game.
Scottie Pippen, who won six championships with Jordan, wrote about it in his book, “Unguarded.”
“Michael, meanwhile, was trying to do too much,” Pippen wrote in his book. “And it was backfiring. ‘You have to get him out of there,’ Tex Winter, one of our assistant coaches, pleaded to Phil. ‘He’s holding the ball too long, destroying the action.’”
The Bulls were down by 15 points heading into the fourth quarter of Game 6. With Jordan on the bench, Chicago went on a 14-2 run to start the fourth quarter.
Jordan returned to the game with the score at 81-78 in favor of the Blazers. The Bulls won Game 6 by a final score of 97-93, with Jordan finishing with 33 points in 43 minutes, while Pippen put up 26 points.
“The Last Dance” docuseries, which came out in 2020, covered the 1992 NBA Finals in Episode 5. However, there was no footage of what happened in Game 6, which deeply upset Pippen.
“The only footage of Game 6 was showing the final seconds ticking off,” Pippen wrote. “It wouldn’t have enhanced Michael’s legacy to show his ‘supporting cast’ being the difference in a game of such magnitude. The Bulls would likely have lost that game if Phil had put Michael back in earlier in the fourth quarter. Tex was right. Michael wasn’t moving the ball.”
Jordan averaged 31.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 2.5 steals and 0.9 blocks in 930 games with the Bulls. He won five regular-season MVPs, six Finals MVPs, one Defensive Player of the Year Award, three steals titles and 10 scoring titles. He’s universally recognized as the greatest player in NBA history.
Meanwhile, Pippen averaged 17.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.1 steals and 0.9 blocks in 856 games with the Bulls.
Chicago went 6-0 in the NBA Finals and three-peated twice behind Jordan and Pippen. The Bulls defeated the Los Angeles Lakers, Blazers, Phoenix Suns, Seattle SuperSonics and Utah Jazz (twice).
Jordan and Pippen are no longer on speaking terms. Pippen is mad at Jordan because of how “The Last Dance” turned out, and Jordan doesn’t want to talk to Pippen because of comments Pippen made in his book about not offering condolences after James Jordan was murdered in 1993.
“I don’t usually allow our lack of closeness to bother me,” Pippen wrote. “I have plenty of friends. Yet there are occasions, and watching the doc was definitely one, when I think about the relationship I wish the two of us had, and it hurts. It hurts a lot. By no means am I an innocent party here. I missed some openings that might have made a difference, and I have to live with that.”
Pippen and Jordan skipped the Bulls’ Ring of Honor ceremony this year in Chicago. Pippen also didn’t show up to Cleveland in 2022 for the NBA 75th Anniversary Team ceremony.
Jordan was in Cleveland and interacted with pretty much everyone except for Isiah Thomas and Charles Barkley, two guys he’s not friends with anymore.
