“We have to admit, this Michael Jordan guy is pretty good!”: Bill Walton recalls when the Bulls legend first showed a glimpse of his insane ability

Jeet Pukhrambam | 14/04/2022
"We have to admit, this Michael Jordan guy is pretty good!": Bill Walton recalls when Michael Jordan first showed a glimpse of his insane ability

Michael Jordan once missed 64 in a season. Despite that, he was ready for the playoffs and dropped a monstrous 63 against the Boston Celtics. 

Michael Jordan’s feats are legendary. In almost every aspect of the game, this guy performed unnatural things. Flashback to the time, when after a very successful rookie season, a young MJ suffered a foot fracture.

That injury sidelined him and led him to miss out on over 64 games in 1986. Despite his absence, the Chicago Bulls made the playoffs.

They had to face the Boston Celtics. The finalists from last year had a legendary team, featuring stalwarts such as Larry Bird and Bill Walton, the latter recounts an interesting story.

For the NBA 75 series, Walton looks back at the time a young Michael Jordan faced them.

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Michael Jordan dropped 49 and then shrugged against the Celtics

Bill Walton narrates a story about Michael Jordan and how the Bulls did not want him to play, after all, he was just coming back from injury.

Playing against the Celtics is very tough and in Boston, they had heard about Jordan, the Olympic gold medallist, the player with a successful career in North Carolina. They didn’t care much.

The Celtics were stacked. In the first game they rolled the Bulls, and yet Jordan was there, he dropped 49 points. Bill Walton recalls “MJ had 49 and he shrugged. He thought there were other games when players had 49 and they lost”.

We thought he would not score 49 again. In the next game, MJ dropped a staggering 63 points, unleashing the full range of his offensive arsenal. The Bulls win. They eventually lost the series and the Cs went on to win the title.

Yet, Bill Walton and the gang thought “Okay, we have to admit, this guy is pretty good”

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Post Edited By: Jeet Pukhrambam
Bill Walton boston celtics Chicago Bulls Michael Jordan NBA

About the author

Jeet Pukhrambam

Jeet Pukhrambam is The SportsRush's Lead Editor for Basketball. After freelancing for five years as an independent writer, Jeet created thousands of blog posts and articles. He now covers intriguing news reports and throwback stories on all things NBA. His interest in NBA started with the ascendancy of Giannis Antetokounmpo in the 2016-17 season. Since then, Jeet has managed to coalesce his knowledge of the game and his writing to create pieces that are reflective of the current state of the league. Now, he ensures that The SportsRush produces the highest quality of writing. In his free time, he enjoys playing football, cooking, traveling, and dancing to techno. Jeet takes pride in his critical thinking, music playlists, and his love for spaghetti.

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