The late-1990s Pacers are just one of a slew of great teams that have become forgotten to history because they could not overcome Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. Begin in the Eastern Conference at this time was just a bad draw, but the Pacers came awfully close to ending the Bulls’ dynasty when they Chicago to a Game 7 in 1998, the season chronicled in The Last Dance. In a new episode of Detail on ESPN+, those Pacers’ floor general and current ESPN broadcaster Mark Jackson broke the back-and-forth game down for us.
As with the Dennis Rodman episode from last week, what comes across immediately is the reverence Jackson has for Jordan. The media buzz around The Last Dance has provided incredible insight into just how many people Jordan touched, even among the elite players and coaches who competed against him. Jackson has every right to be angry that Jordan is a big reason he never won a championship, yet all Jackson can do is praise him.
Breaking down a dribble drive from Jordan from the top of the key, Jackson explains a pass fake as Jordan telling poor Travis Best to “mind his own business,” and then replays the whole thing to marvel at Jordan’s fadeaway over the arms of Derrick McKey.
Jackson also shows how Indiana actually got off to a good start thanks to Dale Davis and Rick Smits making plays from the post, but how Scottie Pippen turned the tide of the game in the first half. After Pippen forces two straight Pacers turnovers, Jackson says, “this is suicide when it comes to winning a Game 7 on the road: unforced errors.” These Bulls had a way of making basketball feel like a zero-sum game for opponents.
“Yeah, you could say it’s a lot of contact, but it’s 1998,” Jackson says. “This is a different brand of basketball.”
In the same vein, Jackson breaks down how Reggie Miller was able to overcome Pippen’s defense over the course of the game. Pippen stalks Miller all game, so Miller begins using Pippen’s aggressiveness against him, faking and using misdirection to get open. By engaging Miller in the offense, the Pacers are also able to force Pippen off of Jackson himself, making their halfcourt sets smoother without Pippen in the face of the point guard.
But look, this isn’t all just nerdy basketball jargon from Jackson. The analyst who invented “Mama, there goes that man” can’t help himself but turn up the flair dial to 11 here and there. Early in the fourth quarter, the Pacers cut the lead, but without Miller on the floor, Jordan goes into attack mode to try to end the game early.
After a classic driving dunk from His Airness, Jackson quips, “Jordan, doing what Jordan does best, turns the corner, tongue wagging out, answers the call. That’s called greatness.” Cue the commercial break and NBA on ESPN soundtrack.
With the score tied at 79 with about five minutes to go, Jackson shows how poor rebounding killed Indiana late. Then he throws out a Pat Riley truism: “No rebounds, no rings.” The disappointment of the loss starts to come through from Jackson here.
Ron Harper pressures Jackson with under two minutes to go and the Pacers unable to get within one basket.
“That’s bad basketball,” Jackson says. “That’s careless point guard play.”
Ultimately, the Pacers lost by five and wouldn’t make it to the Finals until 2000, by which point a new Phil Jackson-led dynasty was in place, and another superstar tandem was on its way to a three-peat in Los Angeles. Mark Jackson never got his ring, and though he still gets hung up on the “bad basketball” he played in crunch time in 1998, he truly could chalk up his poor title luck to bad timing.
While an unlikely choice to host Detail and break down the Bulls having of course never played with Jordan, Jackson is nevertheless enlightening. Hearing him break down what it was like to take on Jordan, Pippen and the Triangle shows how well-oiled the machine was by 1998, even for a confident veteran group like Jackson’s Pacers.
