The 1993 NBA Finals prove Michael Jordan would dominate in this era too
Michael Jordan averaged 41 points per game in the 1993 NBA Finals against the small, quick Phoenix Suns, proving he would be just as great in the modern NBA as he was in the 1990s.
When Michael Jordan played basketball, each moment of every game happened on his terms. Every end-of-game shot, as he notably told Ahmad Rashad in Episode 5 of The Last Dance, was his. A minutes restriction in 1986 became a Jordan tantrum, then a legendary story of toughness. The Triangle created a winning environment, but was something to be disposed of by Jordan when it was no longer working for him. The 1993 NBA Finals stand alone all these years later because they seemingly forced Jordan to change. That the Phoenix Suns enforced a quicker pace and more spread-out game, and that the series still became maybe Jordan’s best Finals, shows how his game would adapt in a different era.
The fun and the challenge of debating the best players across NBA history is that it is nearly impossible to compare eras. The way George Mikan played is nothing like what Larry Bird did after the creation of the 3-point line, which is in turn incomparable to Jordan’s greatness. And don’t even try to bring in Stephen Curry.
Yet just as the physicality of the 2015 and 2016 NBA Finals showed how Curry might’ve adapted during the more physical 1990s, the 1993 Finals between the Suns and Chicago Bulls required a different version of Jordan. His response was 41 points per game on 51 percent shooting. With Charles Barkley down low, the Suns could play super small (at the time), putting Barkley at center, often joined by three guards and a floor-spacing forward. The lowest score in any one game was 92 points, an offensive explosion by the standards of the 1997-98 Finals, a slog that will be documented in The Last Dance.
The Bulls shot 11.5 3-pointers per game as a team in the 1993 Finals, by far the most during their first three-peat. Jordan himself took more than four per night. For the sake of comparison, the Bulls took 21 3s total in the 1991 Finals and Jordan took just 13 in the six-game 1998 Finals. Against a Suns team armed with shooters like Dan Majerle and Danny Ainge, the Bulls clearly knew they’d need to bring more firepower. It was harder to rely on a deliberate, half-court approach.
Jordan had to be decisive in particular. The Suns threw everyone from Majerle to Kevin Johnson to Richard Dumas at him defensively, and Jordan had a different approach against each. Dumas stood no chance, and Jordan knew he could blow by Majerle any time. We learn in The Last Dance that his aggressiveness in that matchup resulted from him finding out that Bulls general manager Jerry Krause liked Majerle in the draft. The Suns had the most success when Johnson guarded Jordan, but that was a size mismatch that Jordan could ultimately exploit in the post.
Still, His Airness adjusted because the Suns’ scoring machine was so powerful. He wound up shooting from deep and had a much quicker trigger from back there than at almost any point in his career, save perhaps Game 1 of the 1992 Finals, better known as “The Shrug” game. Jordan let 3s fly in a manner that might make you think it was 2020, if not for the grainy footage.
Because the Suns and head coach Paul Westphal mixed up coverages so dramatically against Jordan, he slowly got smarter over the course of the series about using his gravity — a word that wouldn’t enter the NBA lexicon until about 2015 thanks to Curry — to his advantage. The Suns’ defensive scheme was geared so far toward stopping Jordan that everything else fell by the wayside. Westphal is seen in The Last Dance screaming at his players to not ever lose focus on Jordan. Instead, B.J. Armstrong and John Paxson each shot better than 50 percent from deep as Jordan notched about six assists per game, in addition to scoring 40. Everything opened up because Jordan sensed the attention he was getting.
Aside from a beatdown of the Lakers in 1991, this series against the Suns was the Jordan Bulls’ best offensive performance in any Finals. The team’s 113.0 offensive rating was its second-best of the six championship seasons.
Credit to the Suns for bringing this out of Chicago. It is antithetical to how Jordan or Bulls coach Phil Jackson wanted to play. The Triangle encourages long, methodical possessions, not wild blitzes. The Portland Trail Blazers made everyone play fast (including the Bad Boys Detroit Pistons in 1990), but the ’93 Finals were by far the Bulls’ second-highest paced championship series ever. The trigger-happy Suns brought out a different (yet still terrifying) side of the Bulls.
It’s easy to say a great NBA player from last century would be better because their development would be more analytically inclined. These days, of course, nearly every player in the NBA shoots 3s. We can also safely assume that brilliant, dedicated, skilled athletes will adapt no matter the circumstances. But we know that’s not entirely true. It’s pretty clear that Curry (always a great example) would not be a unanimous MVP if he played when his father did. There always remains a modicum of doubt about whether players could adapt to different circumstances and styles in a different era.
Jordan finished too early for anyone to see how he would’ve played in the modern Morey-ball era, but the 1993 Finals were as close as he got. He responded by shooting more from deep, playing faster and picking apart mismatches more aggressively. He wasn’t playing his usual game, but he ultimately looked even better. The Last Dance is already re-energizing the belief that Jordan is the greatest basketball player ever, but the ’93 Finals provide ammo that Jordan would thrive now just as he did in his time.