According to Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan gave a speech to his teammates in the locker room after the Chicago Bulls lost Game 7 of the 1990 NBA Eastern Conference Finals to the Detroit Pistons.
“You need to be in the weight room and work on your games every single day,” Jordan said. “We can’t do this without you.”
The Pistons defeated the Bulls in the second round of the 1988 playoffs and the 1989 and 1990 conference finals.
Detroit created “The Jordan Rules,” a four-step plan to prevent Jordan from scoring and the tactics worked in 1988, 1989 and 1990.
Former Pistons coach Brendan Malone explained what “The Jordan Rules” were in “The Last Dance” documentary, which came out in 2020.
Detroit didn’t want Jordan to go baseline and wanted him to go left instead of right. The Pistons were also going to trap Jordan every time he got the ball in the post and knock him to the ground when he got into the paint.
“The Jordan Rules” pushed Jordan to hit the weights and get stronger. The NBA legend put on about 15 pounds of muscle in the summer of 1990 with the help of his famous trainer Tim Grover and was ready to dish out pain to the Pistons instead of receiving it.
The Bulls and Pistons squared off in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals. After working with Grover, Jordan became mentally and physically stronger and finally beat his arch-nemesis.
Chicago swept Detroit in the 1991 conference finals behind Jordan, who averaged 29.8 points, 5.3 rebounds, 7.0 assists, 2.3 steals and 1.8 blocks.
The Bulls never reacted to the Pistons’ dirty fouls and remained focused on playing basketball.
In the fourth quarter of Game 4 when Dennis Rodman pushed Pippen to the ground and tried to hurt him on a drive to the hoop, Pippen didn’t retaliate and Jordan loved it.
“When Pippen didn’t respond to that abuse, there was nothing they could do to beat us then,” Jordan said in “The Last Dance” documentary.
The Bulls swept the Pistons to advance to their first NBA Finals. That should have been the main storyline of the series.
However, it wasn’t.
Before Game 4 ended, the Pistons walked off the court and didn’t shake hands with the Bulls. It was a poor display of sportsmanship, especially since Jordan and his Bulls teammates shook hands with the Pistons in 1988, 1989 and 1990.
After winning his fifth NBA championship in 1997, Jordan told SLAM Magazine that the Pistons’ decision to walk off the court was a typical move by them.
“Typical. We figured the Bad Boys, their whole image,” Jordan said. “You know, we just felt …well, they didn’t have to shake my hand to know we just whipped they ass. Oh, it didn’t bother me because it didn’t surprise us at all, because of the camaraderie and the rivalry that we had against each other. I shook [Detroit’s] hands when they beat us. I hated to do it, but out of sportsmanship, you have to pay your respects. And if someone beats us, I’ll do the same.”
Jordan finished his career with six championships and six Finals MVPs. He also won five regular-season MVPs, 10 scoring titles, three steals titles and one Defensive Player of the Year Award.
A Hall of Famer, Jordan averaged 30.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.3 steals and 0.8 blocks in 1,072 games with the Bulls and Washington Wizards. He made 14 All-Star teams, 11 All-NBA teams and nine All-Defensive teams.
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