25. The huge swat on Patrick Ewing
One of the things that somehow gets overlooked when younger people talk about Michael Jordan’s game is how tenacious of a defender he was. He was a monster on the defensive end of the court.
In this game against the New York Knicks, Jordan made a huge statement on the defensive end — one of his most famous defensive plays of all time.
The Knicks swung the ball around and got it to Patrick Ewing on the block where he could do one of his classic iso moves and score the rock. Jordan (like everyone else) sniffed this out from a mile away and refused to sit back and watch Ewing go to work.
As Ewing spins away from where he thinks the help defense is going to be and rises up for a fadeaway jumper, Jordan comes seemingly out of nowhere to send the ball into the stands. He swallowed up the ball so easily that it looked like he blocked it with his armpit.
It’s safe to say this play is a nice visual representation of both Jordan and Ewing’s careers throughout the ’80s and ’90s.
24. The gold medal with the Dream Team
The Dream Team, otherwise known as the greatest basketball team to ever step on a court, lives on in basketball lore. For people like me that weren’t alive to witness them play, all we have are YouTube videos and stories. But that’s more than enough.
The roster for the Dream Team was obviously stacked. Along with MJ, they had David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Larry Bird, Scottie Pippen, Clyde Drexler, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Chris Mullin, Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson and a young Christian Laettner, who made the team over a young Shaquille O’Neal (hilarious in hindsight).
Despite all that talent, though, there was no doubt that MJ was the best player on the team.
During the eight Olympic games, Jordan averaged 14.9 points, 4.8 assists and 2.4 rebounds per game en route to leading Team USA to an Olympic Gold medal.
If you’re the best player on the best team ever assembled, and you lead said team to an Olympic Gold medal, it’s definitely one of your crowning achievements.