Michael Jordan’s ‘The Shot’ victim snubs the 6x Finals MVP from his ‘toughest players to guard’

Craig Ehlo might have been at the end of several Michael Jordan career highlights but he believes Larry Bird and a Portland legend were toughest to guard.

If you missed 90s basketball and relived it through YouTube and documentaries you must have come across a man who went by the name Craig Ehlo.

Former Hakeem Olajuwon teammate came into the league a year before the famous draft class of 1984 that brought in The Dream, Michael Jordan, and a few other legends of the game.

One of most coaches’ favourite defenders in the league, Craig, played in the NBA for five different franchises, but you might know him from The Last Dance.

He is the Cavaliers’ defender who was at the receiving end of ‘The Shot’ of Michael’s career. He is in numerous MJ highlights over the years, but the former shooting guard had more difficulty in guarding two other guys than even His Airness.

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Ehlo snubbed Michael Jordan for his “toughest players to guard”

In an old interview that we came across, Craig talks about all the players he thought were tough to guard, he did say Mike alongside Reggie Miller, and others but when asked who were the toughest he exempted the 6x NBA champ and instead said Larry Bird and Clyde Drexler.

Now, Bird was undoubtedly one of the most unstoppable players of all time. Feeling like a tree in front of him was not a rare scenario if you played in the league between 1979 and 1992.

But choosing a man who Jordan himself made his point to make a mockery out of when he pleased might be an overdo. But maybe, Ehlo is honest and literally feels that he did better against Jordan than he did against Drexler.

But there are many other instances which tell us otherwise. Like when the 5x MVP went off for a mammoth 69 points and 18 rebounds in a  1989-90 regular season hame, which would statistically be the most prolific game of MJ’s career, Craig was guarding him throughout the game.

He was also the starting guard when the 6x Finals MVP hit another series-ending buzzer-beater against the Cavaliers in the 1993 Playoffs. That would be Ehlo’s final game with the Cavaliers, which was his longest-tenured franchise.

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Drexler is one of the greatest players of the game, no disrespect for him, but when one has been at the receiving end of so many GOAT moments you just cannot consider the Trailblazers legend harder to guard than the Bulls one.

About the author

Akash Murty

An Electrical and Electronics Engineer by degree, Akash Murty is an NBA Editor at The SportsRush. Previously a Software Engineer, Murty couldn’t keep himself away from sports, and his knack for writing and putting his opinion forward brought him to the TSR. A big Soccer enthusiast, his interest in basketball developed late, as he got access to a hoop for the first time at 17. Following this, he started watching basketball at the 2012 Olympics, which transitioned to NBA, and he became a fan of the game as he watched LeBron James dominate the league. Him being an avid learner of the game and ritually following the league for around a decade, he now writes articles ranging from throwbacks, and live game reports, to gossip. LA Lakers are his favourite basketball team, while Chelsea has his heart in football. He also likes travelling, reading fiction, and sometimes cooking.

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