Scottie Pippen might not have been the sole reason for Chicago Bulls winning 6 titles as he believes but they for sure wouldn’t have won the 1993 one without him.
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No one takes too much time in jumping on Scottie Pippen’s take, whenever he advocates his importance in the Chicago Bulls dynasty which he says wouldn’t be one if it wasn’t for him.
He’s actually right, not when he’s saying he was better than Michael Jordan or anywhere close to him. But when he says he was as important to that Bulls squad as Jordan was to win all those 7 championships.
There’s also a lot of talk about Jordan never needing a super team while LeBron James never won without one when the reality is MJ never needed one. He had the second most complete player in the league on his team playing by his side.
One would say calling Scottie better than Patrick Ewing or Hakeem Olajuwon is insane. And I will tell 8/10 NBA coaches will pick the 8x NBA All-Defensive First team guy over anybody besides Jordan for a Playoffs series.
The man was the best defender as well as the best anchor in the game who could do just everything on the court but played second fiddle to Mike because it was the right thing to do to win the Championships. This game against the New York Knicks in the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals was just an example of what he could do.
Scottie Pippen saved Michael Jordan and Chicago Bulls’ 3rd Championship hope
After two close losses at home in Game 1 and 2, the Bulls visited Maddison Square Garden for Game 3, all the pressure was on the reigning-defending 2x Champions and their 2x Finals MVP, Michael Jordan, to get a game back or go 0-3 down.
They would have gone for the latter and probably Patrick Ewing would have had his shot on one and only NBA ring because no team has come back from a 3-0 deficit in Playoffs history.
And if “His Airness” was to decide this game as well for the Bulls, they would have gone 0-3 because the future 5x MVP went 3/18 from the field in that game for his 22 points but the 7x All-Star rose to the occasion and shot 10/12 for his 29-points.
Scottie Pippen came up huge vs the Knicks in the 1993 playoffs.
G3: 29 points on 10-12, saved Chicago from going down 3-0
G5: 28 points and 11 rebounds, the key blocks on Charles Smith
G6: 24 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists, including a game/series clinching three pic.twitter.com/pOLQkl0c1o
— thb. (@TradeVucevic) October 11, 2020
The game ended 83-103 in Chicago’s favor which was enough for Mike to get his confidence back and win the next 3 games like he and the Bulls never struggled to win a single game in the series.
The bulls will go on to win the Finals as well to complete their 3-peat, and Jordan would announce his retirement at the end of that season.
Tonight, we remember game 5 of the 1989 Conference Finals, where the Pistons held Michael Jordan to just 4 baskets in 46 minutes, while forcing 24 turnovers. Featuring vintage performances from Vinnie Johnson and Mark Aguirre: pic.twitter.com/VF76b3fO5S
— Keith Black Trudeau (@Charlottean28) June 1, 2022
When Scottie Pippen got the chance, to prove himself the best
Jordan’s efficiency in that last season or his mental struggle because of his dad’s murder might have been a reason for his retirement. But he came back in a year and a half to win 3-more titles with Scottie Pippen and Co. and went down in history as probably the best in the game.
While he was gone, Pippen got the chance to prove himself that he was as good as Mike and could lead the team to the ultimate glory. But he lost to the very same Knicks team that year failing to even put up 25-points per game. Jordan had come back for the next year’s Playoffs. And since then, Scottie has always been shut down whenever he put his case forward to be one of the best players of all time.
Let’s give it a thought. The man just got 1 chance to show he’s “the man” without a second star who was as good or anywhere close to himself, while Jordan had him for all his titles and still took 3-years to make it to his and Bulls’ first Finals appearance.
Scottie got 5 more shots at the Playoffs to prove himself after Jordan retired. One with Bulls and four with the Portland Trail Blazers, but he couldn’t do it.
There were two reasons for it, he didn’t have one teammate even close to his own caliber being one and the other is that he might have been the second most complete player in the league and the Bulls, but he did not have the capability of being the best player of a championship-contending team.
