The 1992 Portland Trail Blazers were some of the best NBA teams that never won a championship, but the toughest opponents of Michael Jordan do not get as much respect.
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“Michael Jordan doesn’t play Game 7” is one savage line alongside “I took it personally” since the documentary The Last Dance came out. The docuseries showed MJ’s last season with the Chicago Bulls in-depth with flashbacks of all his previous championships.
That series reminded the world who the real basketball GOAT is when most people were forgetting it due to LeBron James’ greatness and longevity. It also in great light showed the rivalries Bulls and its 5x MVP had developed over 14 years.
Losing his various battles in the East where Celtics and Pistons ruled throughout the 80s, Jordan won his first championship in the 1990-91 season against the Lakers. They reached 5 more Finals in the next 7 years winning all 5 of them. The Last Dance spent quite their time in describing Chicago’s all but one Finals opponent.
They didn’t give much attention to their 2nd Finals opposition, the Portland Trail Blazers. And neither does the world these days.
Clyde Drexler almost forced the first Finals Game-7 out of Michael Jordan and the Bulls
While coming out of the West, the 1992 Blazers led by Clyde Drexler, defeated a tremendous Phoenix Suns team and ran on to the Utah Jazz in the Western Conference Finals. But without much difficulty, they defeated Karl Malone and John Stockton led the team 4-2 to reach the NBA Finals. Clyde led them averaging over 25 points, 6.5 rebounds, 6.5 assists, close to 2 steals, and a block.
That series went back fourth, with the Blazers coming roaring back to tie the series every time the Bulls won a game. They forced Jordan to take more shots from distance in that series than he ever did in the regular season. And he will never attempt that many shots from downtown in the future as well.
He did it because the Bulls didn’t win a single game against the Blazers in the regular season with everyone in the Blazers jersey successfully contributing to defending ‘His Airness’ inside the perimeter.
The series that started with the famous Jordan shrug came down to the wire. But the Bulls prevailed in Game 6 with a 97-94 victory and successfully avoided a Game 7 to win their back-to-back championships. They would never play a Game 7 in the next 4 Finals victories either.
Although the Jordan-Drexler rivalry was a thing in the media at the time and Jordan silenced that successfully, those Blazers not getting talked about enough like all other opponents of the Bulls is just insane. That must be because the Blazers didn’t have a media favorite player.
