The Chicago Bulls saw some truly dominant years out of shooting guard Michael Jordan, but some opponents got it worse than others.
Even though he truly shined during the regular season, the time where the spotlight showed brightest on the Chicago Bulls legendary shooting guard Michael Jordan. There really isn’t a more dominant player in recent memory in the NBA, if ever, than Jordan come playoff time. He just couldn’t be stopped once he turned it on.
There were points when Jordan wasn’t at his best in the playoffs. But that either came after his one year playing baseball, or at the very beginning or end of his career. The only occasion where Jordan really slipped up in the prime of his career was when the Bulls lost to the Orlando Magic in the second round of the 1995 playoffs. And that was a very talented Magic team, that still fell short to the eventual back-to-back champion Houston Rockets in the NBA Finals.
The Bulls won six NBA Championships with Jordan leading the way in the 1990’s. If not for the early breakup of the dynasty team prior to the start of the 1998-99 season, there might have been one more in store. Let alone if Jordan hadn’t ever tried his hand at playing baseball with that one year in the Chicago White Sox organization.
That stint for Jordan playing baseball had a two-year long residual effect on the Bulls in terms of missing out on more potential titles. While Scottie Pippen was still a very solid player, he couldn’t get it done on his own without Jordan.
Outside of those few years of the 1990’s where the Bulls didn’t win a title (with or without Jordan at the helm), which opponents ran into all sorts of trouble trying to unseat him.