[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: A guest of honor

Asked if his public endorsement of Walker reminds him of the support Bird once
gave him, Jordan answered, ''The difference is, I listened to Larry.

''Here's the thing about Antoine. I look at him like my little brother. In
some ways, I see so much of me in him. But I also see so much defiance. He's
going to have to learn.

''I've tried to talk to him about his game, about a 6-foot-9 guy shooting
3-pointers, how that's going to leave you one-dimensional. Antoine is capable
of doing more. I've seen it. I've seen him drive to the basket, go down on the
block.

''The thing I want him to learn - and I'll stay on him forever until he does -
is to make others around him better. He's got to learn how to do that. He's
got to sacrifice parts of his game, like scoring. His ballhandling is good. He
could be a point forward, but he's got to be willing to set up as a decoy,
draw the attention, then move the ball to someone else.

''It's not too late for him. He's got great instincts. He can be a good
leader. I watched that Nets playoff game on TV last year [when Walker
addressed the Celtics in the huddle and led them back from a 21-point
third-quarter deficit]. They listen to him. But he's got to do it every single
night.

''I like Antoine. I really do. I'm going to stay on him. I won't stop.''



That is just amazing to me. Does anyone really thik Antoine will ever "get it"? If he won't listen to Jordan......
I don't even know if a real coach would even help at this point. He just has too many bad habits.



From: "Stephen Beauregard" <sb@maine.rr.com>
Reply-To: "Stephen Beauregard" <sb@maine.rr.com>
To: "celtics list" <celtics@igtc.com>
Subject: A guest of honor Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 08:56:50 -0400

A guest of honor

Jordan's Boston visits were something special

By Jackie MacMullan, Globe Staff, 4/6/2003

ASHINGTON - His brilliance has lingered, long after the glory of our local NBA
franchise has faded. The skills have diminished, of course, and the assault is
mostly cerebral now. Michael Jordan can no longer fly; these days, he must be
content to merely walk on water.



He certainly never belonged to us - the good people of Chicago will forever
lay claim to his legacy - and yet we were part of the journey, weren't we? His
greatness seemed to surge whenever he ventured onto the parquet floor and took
measure of resident superstar Larry Bird, rooted in the path of everything
Jordan desired. There was an effervescence about Jordan when he came to
Boston. While everybody else ran, Jordan glided. Others sweated while he
glistened. They attempted jump shots while MJ sculpted mid-air masterpieces.

Jordan will make his final appearance in Boston this afternoon when his
Washington Wizards play the Celtics at the FleetCenter. After 19 years, six
championships, two retirements, and one uniform change, Jordan insists this
time it's really over.

He did things here no one ever did before and will never do again, and maybe
that's why we find it so hard to say goodbye.

Jordan's career scoring average in Boston is 34.8 points per game. His
postseason average in Boston Garden, one of his favorite gyms, was 47.3
points, including a 63-point performance in the 1986 playoffs that remains an
NBA record.

The numbers are astounding, but no less so than the athletic acts responsible
for those gaudy figures. It was never as simple as a stop-and-pop jumper, or a
fast-break jam, or a weak-side 18-footer. It was always a twisting, airborne
drive through a forest of defenders, an overhead tomahawk using the foul line
as a launching pad, or a fallaway 3-pointer with the shot clock dwindling and
a gaggle of shamrocked opponents hanging on his jersey.

''It was never enough for Michael to throw up big numbers,'' said Doug
Collins, Jordan's coach in both Chicago and Washington. ''He had to do it in
spectacular fashion. He couldn't get 30 points on 10 jumpers and 10 free
throws like everyone else. He had to hit those incredible layups, those
last-second bombs, those degree-of-difficulty shots.''

We know this, because we saw it with our own eyes. We saw him take on the
greatest front line in basketball - Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish -
and dare them to stop him. They couldn't, and ultimately took solace in
eliminating Jordan's team instead.

Birth of a legend

As Jordan winds down his farewell tour, every city wants to think it holds
special meaning for His Airness. Boston fancies itself the training ground for
a young superstar who would go on to become the best who ever played the game.
Are we delusional to suggest this is where Michael Jordan grew up?

''No, you're not,'' Jordan said last week. ''Boston is where I got my
legitimacy.''

He established himself against the 1986 world champion Celtics, considered one
of the greatest teams of all time. On April 20, 1986, Jordan, then just 23
years old, stunned the Green in Game 2 of their opening-round playoff series
by torching them for 22 field goals, even though he was double- and
triple-teamed. He was 19 of 21 from the line. He finished with 63 points (and,
by the way, 6 assists) in a 135-131 double-overtime loss.

His life was never the same.

Bird immediately anointed Jordan the best player in the game, uttering the
now-famous quotation, ''That was God disguised as Michael Jordan.''

''For Larry, as a star player, to say what he did, it was ... amazing,''
Jordan said. ''He catapulted me from an Ordinary Joe into a Somebody Joe.

''He created some very high expectations for me. It was a challenge to live up
to those expectations, to be what he saw in me.''

Although his 63-point outburst always has garnered the most attention,
Jordan's exploits were hardly limited to that one superior outing. During his
travels to Boston, he torched the Celtics for 50-plus points twice, 40-plus
points seven times, and 30-plus points 19 times.

In fact, Jordan preceded that historic 63-point outing by dropping 49 on the
Celtics in Game 1. Boston won, 123-104, but the postgame buzz centered on
Jordan. As a beleaguered Dennis Johnson said afterward, ''I read a little
program insert the other day that he could have been a great athlete in any
sport he chose to play. Well, I believe it - and I wish he chose some other
sport.''

Wizards forward Charles Oakley was a rookie on that Bulls team. He had seen
Jordan accomplish some amazing things, but the playoff game, he said, elevated
his friend to a new level. The presence of Bird, Oakley maintains, ratcheted
Jordan's resolve up another notch.

''I just remember standing underneath the boards waiting for the rebound -
except there weren't any rebounds,'' Oakley said. ''They were all going in.''

''You've got to remember, I missed 63 games that year [with a broken foot],''
Jordan said. ''The Celtics hadn't really gotten a grip on me yet. I think I
kind of shocked them a little.''

Still, as spectacular as Jordan was, the Bulls simply weren't good enough.
Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant had not yet been drafted, and John Paxson had
not yet been signed away from San Antonio as a free agent. Even if he wanted
to pass off, MJ had few options.

The Celtics held Jordan under 20 points only once in his 26 trips to Boston
(playoffs included). It was a regular-season loss on April 17, 1987, when
Jordan was limited to 17 points on 5-for-15 shooting.

Yet the performance that still haunts Jordan was Game 3 of the 1986 playoffs
in Chicago, when Boston sandwiched Jordan with defenders in front and behind,
preventing him from popping out from behind a screen and hitting jumpers. He
finished with 19 points, and Boston won, 122-104, completing the sweep.

''The one time they shut me down,'' said Jordan. ''They did what good teams
always do. They decided, `I'm going to take this guy out of the equation, and
have the others beat us.' They knew we didn't have enough.''

The Bulls fired coach Stan Albeck and replaced him with Doug Collins for the
1986-87 season. The Bulls returned to the playoffs, and were swept, 3-0, by
Boston again.

By the time the Bulls assembled a supporting cast that would allow them to
compete with the upper-echelon teams, Boston had been supplanted by Detroit as
the team to beat in the East. Jordan never played against the Celtics again in
a postseason series, leaving him with an 0-6 lifetime playoff mark against
them.

''It doesn't bug me,'' Jordan said. ''It was a situation where we just missed
them. I would have liked to have played them in their prime, but it wasn't
meant to be.

''I'm sure the Lakers are wishing right now they could have played our Bulls
team, but it doesn't always work that way.''

A Walker parallel

Not long after the decline of the Celtics, Jordan and Bird became good
friends, brought together through endorsement opportunities, charity golf
outings, and the movie business (Bird had a supporting role in Jordan's film,
''Space Jam'').

''Larry Bird, to me, was the greatest,'' Jordan said. ''I still consider him a
friend. I don't get to see him, or talk to him as much as I'd like. He plays a
lot of golf - we've had fun doing that together - and he's someone who means a
great deal to me.

''I came into the league trying to gain respect, to establish some notoriety,
and he gave it to me.''

Even though Bird is no longer connected to the Celtics in an official
capacity, Jordan still has ties to Boston. In the summer, he talks trash to
Antoine Walker during pickup games in Chicago, and offers bits of wisdom to
the young Celtics star afterward.

Asked if his public endorsement of Walker reminds him of the support Bird once
gave him, Jordan answered, ''The difference is, I listened to Larry.

''Here's the thing about Antoine. I look at him like my little brother. In
some ways, I see so much of me in him. But I also see so much defiance. He's
going to have to learn.

''I've tried to talk to him about his game, about a 6-foot-9 guy shooting
3-pointers, how that's going to leave you one-dimensional. Antoine is capable
of doing more. I've seen it. I've seen him drive to the basket, go down on the
block.

''The thing I want him to learn - and I'll stay on him forever until he does -
is to make others around him better. He's got to learn how to do that. He's
got to sacrifice parts of his game, like scoring. His ballhandling is good. He
could be a point forward, but he's got to be willing to set up as a decoy,
draw the attention, then move the ball to someone else.

''It's not too late for him. He's got great instincts. He can be a good
leader. I watched that Nets playoff game on TV last year [when Walker
addressed the Celtics in the huddle and led them back from a 21-point
third-quarter deficit]. They listen to him. But he's got to do it every single
night.

''I like Antoine. I really do. I'm going to stay on him. I won't stop.''

Times have changed

Jordan has tried to coax similar results out of his young Wizards, but he can
no longer conceal his displeasure with kids such as Kwame Brown, a former No.
1 pick who has not come close to reaching his potential. While Jordan has
spent many hours attempting to tutor his young bucks, he has chosen to play
out his final days in the company of Oakley and assistant coach Patrick Ewing,
his former Olympic Dream Team pal.

''I told someone if I had one wish for this season, it would be to have a
training camp with two-a-days, and have Patrick and Charles and Michael all be
25 again,'' said Collins. ''No games - just practice - so our guys could watch
those three go about their craft.

''Guys can't practice like they used to when they get older. Even Michael. I
tell our guys, `Michael used to devour practice.' He wouldn't come in, check
his watch to see what time we started, then wait to see what time we finished.
There was no watch.''

Still, time has a way of marching on, and Jordan welcomes the end. He has
vowed not to scour the country for good pickup games in retirement, the way
Magic Johnson has. In fact, he says, he has no intentions of playing at all.

''I can go cold turkey,'' Jordan said. ''I'm going to give myself a break
physically, and get back to that comfortable 249 pounds I was before.''

He is 40 years old, and he is not the same, yet our curiosity lingers, in
hopes that this man, who still glistens instead of sweats, who now wears
designer blue instead of menacing black and red, can pull one more move out of
the air, for old-time's sake.

Will today be special for Michael Jordan? He insists it will.

''Because of that green,'' he said. ''But I know it's not the Garden.''

So do we, Michael. So do we.

Thanks,

Steve
sb@maine.rr.com

[demime 1.01b removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of W.gif]

[demime 1.01b removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of colonial_auto_big_ad_nov5.gif]

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail