Michael Jordan’s 10 Best Games From His Shortened 1995 Season

History is written by the victors. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Michael Jordan‘s shortened 1995 campaign with Chicago. Returning from baseball in March to play the final 17 games of the regular season, Jordan was sometimes his famed dominating self, other times old, brittle and washed-up. He averaged only 26.9 points during the regular season, a number his baseball-strengthened arms and the eerie confines of the United Center took the fault for.

Once the Bulls bowed out in the Eastern Conference Playoffs in the second round against Orlando, the script had a plot. When Jordan maniacally worked himself through the ground during the following summer (in-between takes of Space Jam), and then returned the next season to orchestrate one of the most dominating seasons in NBA history, the script had a conclusion.

Get James Cameron behind it and we’re talking an Academy Award. It was the perfect drama: star player returns to his old stomping grounds, struggles at first to regain his way and then works himself to exhaustion before reaching heights no one thought possible. That sounds great, and yes, Chicago did lose early in the 1995 Playoffs. But that WAS NOT because Michael Jordan was any less of a player. Here are his numbers during that playoff run: 42 minutes a night, 31.5 points a game on over 48 percent shooting, as well as 6.5 boards, 4.5 dimes, 2.3 steals and 1.4 blocks.

Nick Anderson opened his mouth and the rest of America followed suit. But f— history. It can lie. And because of that, I’m dropping some love on Jordan’s 10 best games during his abbreviated 1995 season.

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10. 33 POINTS VS. MILWAUKEE
April 23, 1995
If one of my readers can find the video for this game, I’d be much obliged. The Bulls lost this one, their last regular season game of the year. But it wasn’t Jordan’s fault. The team had already wrapped up the No. 5 seed and were set to play Charlotte in the first round of the playoffs. MJ was the only starter other than Scottie Pippen to play more than 35 minutes, and he capitalized on it, dusting longtime defensive ace Johnny Newman for 33 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists.

9. 32 POINTS VS. CHARLOTTE
Eastern Conference First Round, Game 2
April 30, 1995
As Muggsy Bogues told me recently, those mid-’90s Charlotte teams had the worst timing. Right as they were coming up, the Bulls were in the midst of a decade-long domination of the East. The Hornets were a strong defensive team, but had no one to check MJ, and their best players had little postseason experience. In this first-round matchup, Chicago stole Game 1 and then nearly won Game 2 before folding in a 19-point second-half drubbing. Jordan did his part, going for 32/7/7 while making nearly half (13 of 32) of the team’s field goals, and scoring nine of his team’s 15 fourth-quarter points. There was, however, just too much Larry Johnson (25 points) and Alonzo Mourning (20 rebounds), further exposing the Bulls’ weakest points.

I wasn’t able to find any specific video from this game, so you’ll have to be content with this highlight reel.

8. 29 POINTS VS. DETROIT
April 12, 1995
Again, there’s no available video… which sucks because this was the first meeting between Jordan and the 22-year-old rookie Grant Hill. By this point, Hill was already being talked about as the heir apparent. He had NBA Entertainment videos out, and his highlights littered SportsCenter every morning. Detroit wasn’t very good, but Hill was on his way to averaging 19.9 points, 6.4 rebounds and 5.0 assists. Over the next few seasons, Grant Hill would get the better of MJ on a few occasions. Not so much in this one. Even as Allan Houston lit him up for 31 points, Jordan outplayed Hill in every aspect of the game. The Bulls controlled this one from the opening tip and won easily.

7. 32 POINTS VS. ATLANTA
March 25, 1995
Just three nights before he’d hang Gotham out to dry with one of his greatest performances ever, MJ gave us our first taste of the old 23 in Atlanta. With the Omni sold out for the first time all season, Jordan went the length of the floor in the last 5.9 seconds and then canned a 16-foot pull-up in Steve Smith‘s grill. Jordan was still struggling to keep his wind for a full game — in this one, 18 of his points came in the third quarter — but his presence alone changed the dynamics in Chicago.

“Before Michael came back we were a second-round team,” center Bill Wennington told Sports Illustrated. “Now our chances of winning it all are as good as any other team’s.”

6. 39 POINTS VS. ORLANDO
Eastern Conference Semifinals, Game 5
May 16, 1995
In the four games immediately after Jordan switched from 45 to 23, he scored at least 38 three times. But with the series tied 2-2, it wasn’t the big guns that determined this one, although Jordan scored 39 points (you might want to check his move at the 25-second mark…) and Shaquille O’Neal had 23 points and 22 rebounds. It was the stars’ supporting casts. While Pippen and Toni Kukoc combined for a forgettable 15-point night, Dennis Scott had 22 points and five triples, and Horace Grant bludgeoned Chicago for 24 points and 11 boards.

Grant, in particular, was key in this entire series. He’d left Chicago the following offseason as a bitter mess, in part because he felt his talent was being disrespected in the Windy City. That worsened in the playoffs when Phil Jackson deliberately doubled off the power forward any chance he got, basically daring Grant to beat them with jumpers. The big man did, over and over again, shooting nearly 65 percent and averaging 18 points and 11 boards against Chicago.

An extra point for the sneakerheads: MJ wore the Space Jam 11s in this one after debuting them during Game 4.

5. 37 POINTS VS. NEW JERSEY
April 5, 1995
The Bulls had little trouble dealing with the Nets, taking care of business during the second half for their fifth-straight win on a streak that started with Jordan’s game-winner in Atlanta. As great as Michael was in this one — 37 points, 11 rebounds and three steals — it masked a problem that would ultimately run their season into the ground.

Because many of the team’s perimeter players had no experience playing with Jordan (Kukoc, Kerr, Harper), and because the NBA was in a frenzy over having its biggest cash cow back on the floor, Chicago’s offense often drifted into pre-Phil Jackson territory. Michael Jordan just took too many shots, with the others deferring when they should’ve been aggressive. On this night, it was 31 (he made only 13), and in the playoffs against the Magic, it was the 61 he took in back-to-back games in the second round.

4. 40 POINTS VS. ORLANDO
Eastern Conference Semifinals, Game 3
May 12, 1995
Jordan was never better in ’95 than he was during the first half of Game 3 against Orlando. No. 23 dropped 18 in the first quarter, with a dozen of them coming in the first five minutes. He had 31 by halftime, and added in a couple of monster dunks and (in the third quarter) a sick reverse layup. MJ did it all in Penny‘s kicks, too. The G.O.A.T. wore the Concord 11s during the series’ first two games, but was fined by the NBA because of a uniform violation (the rest of the team rocked black sneakers). For this one, he went to work in a pair of Air Flight 1s.

However, in what was probably the most important quarter of the series, the Magic ran Chicago off the floor in the final period. They outscored the hosts by 13 over the final seven minutes, grabbing this critical game to take a 2-1 series lead.

3. 38 POINTS VS. ORLANDO
Eastern Conference Semifinals, Game 2
May 10, 1995
Before the playoffs even began, Orlando coach Brian Hill talked to his players about keeping their mouths shut and not doing anything to wake the beast. At that point, even after locking in the East’s No. 1 seed, many basketball pundits still didn’t believe in the Magic.

“People didn’t think we could take it,” Orlando guard Brian Shaw told Sports Illustrated after Game 4 against Chicago. “They didn’t think we could handle the road and the playoffs and Michael Jordan all put together, but we came here, won one game and almost won another one. People won’t really believe in us until we win the championship, but we believe in ourselves, and that’s more important.”

The team had a hard enough time dealing with doubters… they didn’t need starting swingman Nick Anderson running his mouth about Michael Jordan. The man who picked MJ’s pocket at the end of Game 1 (one of the most shocking late-game failures in Jordan’s career) told media in the aftermath that “Number 45 doesn’t explode like number 23 used to. Number 23, he could just blow by you. He took off like a space shuttle. Number 45, he revs up, but he doesn’t really take off.”

So how did Jordan respond? He rebelled against NBA rules, pulled out the old No. 23 and then dropped 38 points (as well as four steals and four blocks) in a convincing Chicago win.

2. 48 POINTS VS. CHARLOTTE
Eastern Conference First Round, Game 1
April 28, 1995
Not since coming back to basketball had Jordan looked more like himself. “I felt like a shark that smelled blood in the water,” was how he described it. In fact, he was such a one-man virtuoso in the first game of the playoffs that Chicago looked more like their old ’80s teams rather than the championship-winning ones from the following decade. Jordan scored 48 points on 32 shots, and had nine boards and eight dimes. He’d bail them out with 20 points in the fourth quarter and overtime. His supporting cast, led by B.J. Armstrong (10 points) and Scottie Pippen (eight), were almost nonexistent.

In the postgame, when the media asked him if he felt like his old self during Game 1, he told Sports Illustrated, “Yes, and my step isn’t as slow as some people think.” Jordan heard it all season long. This game was his payback to the critics.

1. 55 POINTS VS. NEW YORK
March 28, 1995
When they go back and talk about the greatest performances in the NBA’s marquee arena, they won’t end the conversation with Kobe‘s 61-point game. They’ll end it here, when MJ dropped a double-nickel on the home team in front of nearly 350 reporters from 12 countries. It was Jordan’s fifth game back. Fans were paying scalpers more than $1,000 for a ticket. The television ratings were through the roof.

Jordan put up 20 in the first quarter, and had 49 by the end of the third. He took 37 of his team’s 78 shots, yet ironically dished off for the game-winning bucket. It was one of the plays that seemed so uniquely Jordan that it still feels like only the greatest player ever could’ve pulled it off. A simple drop-down pass off a double-team? Only Jordan could get people so excited over a Bill Wennington dunk.

Yet the best part of this performance is that even after all these years, Hubie Brown still sounds exactly the same.