Let’s Celebrate Two Big Michael Jordan Anniversaries Because There Are No Other Sports Right Now

Listen, none of us are doing particularly well with this whole “sports stopped a few weeks ago” thing, either. It’s a small sacrifice as we all work towards a much larger goal — controlling the spread of a pandemic as it impacts all of society while scientists look for a vaccine — but every sacrifice usually requires an adjustment period of some sort.

One thing that sports fans can lean on in times like this is nostalgia. It lets them scratch the no sports itch while simultaneously giving them total control of which moments they want to remember. There’s no need to sit through painful games, you can just skip right to the good ones. There is a Mets or a Bills joke in here that I will not make because we are going to start talking about Michael Jordan in the next paragraph.

March 28 is a big day for Jordan fans. This year, it marks the 25- and 30-year anniversaries of two of the most well-known games in the Jordan canon: His 55-point, “double nickel” outing against the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden in 1995, and his career-high 69-point evening against the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1990. Fortunately for all of us, the internet exists, so we have ways to watch these. For the game against the Knicks, the Bulls tweeted out a video on Saturday of Jordan lighting the Garden ablaze.

And for his outing against the Cavs, YouTube’s got our back.

The games where Jordan was at his most locked in were unlike anything we’ve ever seen. GOAT debate aside, Jordan was capable of reaching a level of ruthlessness that has never been matched, as he was capable of slowly but surely imposing his will on opponents as he rapidly destroyed theirs. It is the exact kind of nostalgia we could all use right now, because there is never a bad time to watch clips of Michael Jordan doing Michael Jordan stuff. Unless, of course, you’re a fan of the Knicks or the Cavs, but let’s face it: It’s been long enough that we can all appreciate these. Anyway, I’m gonna go spend a few minutes watching both of these, and I highly recommend you do the same.