Madison Square Garden has a habit of bringing out the best in the greatest basketball players on earth. One such guy who relished the chance to play at the home of the New York Knicks was Michael Jordan, and as we learned in episode five of The Last Dance, he decided to bust out a pair of special footwear for his final game at “my favorite place to play.”
Jordan rocked a pair of Jordan 1s for the occasion in the classic red-white-black colorway that are some of the most iconic and highly sought after kicks of all time.
“I went back and grabbed an old pair of Jordan 1s,” Jordan said. “The first shoe I wore at the Garden, so this was gonna be the last shoe, being that this was gonna be the last time I play in the Garden.”
There was only one problem: Jordan did not grab a pair of shoes that were the right size. These were a bit too small, and as a result, Jordan’s feet were killing him. In fact, when he went back into the locker room at halftime and looked at his feet, he saw they were bleeding.
This is Michael Jordan we’re talking about here, though, and he was in the midst of a good game. As such, he just wore the wrong-sized, old shoes the entire time, and when he got back into the locker room at the conclusion of the game, he rushed to take his kicks off for good.
MJ put on a show in his final game as a Bull at MSG … and his feet paid for it. #TheLastDance pic.twitter.com/NZ5thDHZ0s
— ESPN (@espn) May 4, 2020
“I couldn’t take those shoes off fast enough,” Jordan said. “When I took the shoes off, my sock was soaked in blood.”
Jordan finished the game with 42 points, eight rebounds, six assists, and three steals in a 102-89 Bulls win. He would, of course return to MSG as a member of the Washington Wizards, but his final game in the Garden as a Bull was one he’ll never forget, even if those memories probably lead to him really wanting to stick his feet in an ice bath.
