Reggie Miller has gone head-to-head with a plethora of stars from two different decades. Additionally, he didn’t take on just one but two superstar duos in his career. Having faced Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in the 90s and Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant in the early 2000s, Miller explained why the Chicago Bulls duo was more daunting to watch walk up the court.
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The five-time All-Star was a recent guest on The Dan Patrick Show. The host and the 58-year-old legend discussed the deadliest duos he went up against and who he would not want to face in a game,
“I still would want to face 27-year-old Shaq and a 21-year-old Kobe, because he’s still a little green, Kobe was, right? He grew into one of the greatest of all time but he was still young when I faced him. Going against Mike and Scottie, they were already there. They were already there already at the mountaintop.”
Reggie Miller faced Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen in the 1997-98 NBA Eastern Conference Finals. It was one of the most iconic playoff battles MJ was a part of. The ECF was a back-and-forth battle but in Game 7, the Chicago Bulls finally came out on top.
Resiliently, Miller and the Pacers made their way to the top of the Eastern Conference within the next two years. Qualifying for the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history, Reggie and the rest of the squad were dealt with in six games by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1999-2000 postseason.
Despite the series going to seven games instead of six, the 6’7″ sharpshooter preferred facing the duo of Kobe and Shaq instead of MJ and Pippen. Considering his opponent’s age and the amount of time in the league, Miller expressed apprehension about facing the Bulls Legends.
At the time of his battle with the Lakers, Reggie mentioned how, even though Shaq was in his prime years, Bryant was young and was a long way from becoming the one-man scoring machine he turned himself into.
But when talking about his conference rivals, Miller stated that Jordan and Pippen were already at the top of their respective games when he locked horns with the Bulls in the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals.
The Hall of Famer was one of those legends who dedicated his entire life to working towards bringing an NBA championship to the Pacers organization. While he did come close on numerous occasions, the UCLA product just could not get over the hump by himself.
