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History of the NBA Finals

Chicago Bulls vs. Seattle SuperSonics - 1996

Michael Jordan collapsed on the court and cried. In leading the Chicago Bulls to their fourth league championship in six years, his return to the NBA mountaintop was complete. He had regained his status as the sport's premier player.

But Chicago's six-game elimination of Seattle in the NBA Finals was more than a validation of Jordan's remarkable determination and skill. It was the fitting ending to an historic season. The Bulls went 72-10 during the regular season and blew past Miami, New York, Orlando and Seattle in the playoffs, losing just three games. Chicago's combined record of 87-13 cemented its claim as one of the best teams ever to take an NBA court. "The historians will decide our place among the greatest teams," Jordan said. "But we certainly accomplished everything we set out to do."

The Bulls' fourth title came 15 months after Jordan put aside his flirtation with baseball and returned to basketball. After the Bulls were eliminated in the second round of the '95 playoffs by Orlando, Jordan dedicated himself to lifting his team back to championship status.

That goal -- and the memories of his deceased father, James -- dominated his thoughts after the Bulls won Game 6 to clinch the 1996 title against a SuperSonics team that came back from a 3-0 deficit to make it an interesting series.

"This is probably the hardest time for me to play the game of basketball," said Jordan, who averaged 27.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.2 assists in the series and was named NBA Finals MYP for a record fourth time. "I had a lot of things on my heart, on my mind. I had a lot to think about.

"I'm just happy the team kind of pulled me through it."

The Sonics and coach George Karl also knew what it was like to have a lot weighing on the mind. Seattle had been dismissed as a talented-yet-fragile bunch after being upset in the first round of the playoffs for two consecutive years. Another playoff flop would bring the threat of sweeping change.

The Sonics responded by beating Sacramento, defending champion Houston and Utah in the postseason. Karl compared winning an NBA championship to climbing Mt. Everest and called his team's trip to The Finals the equivalent of being at the base camp.

That climb became even tougher after Game 1. The SuperSonics challenged Chicago for most of the evening, but as the game wore on, the Bulls' defense wore the Sonics out. That effort, along with an unexpected offensive burst from Toni Kukoc, allowed the Bulls to leave the United Center with a 107-90 victory.

Seattle trailed by just two points entering the final period, but the Sonics went 5-of-18 from the field in the fourth quarter (27.7 percent) and turned the ball over six times. The Bulls' relentless defense turned a two-point lead into a 15-point bulge by ripping the Sonics with a 22-9 run to open the period.

"The fourth quarter is about desire and puffing on the defense," Jordan said. "They succumbed to the pressure tonight."

Kukoc didn't. The NBA's best sixth man of 1995-96 entered the series averaging 9.3 points in the playoffs and was a dismal 3-of-36 from 3-point range. But in the fourth quarter, Kukoc took over. He scored nine consecutive points early in the quarter to give the Bulls a nine-point lead. He drilled back-to-back 3-pointers in the first three minutes of the period-he was fouled by Seattle's Shawn Kemp on the second and converted a rare four-point play-and finished with 18 points.

"We can play with this team," Seattle guard Gary Payton said. "We can beat this team. We just made stupid mistakes in the clutch."

Some of those same mistakes resurfaced in Game 2. The Bulls' Phil Jackson, who spouts Native American mysticism and incorporates Zen philosophy into his coaching methods, tells his players if they apply pressure for 48 minutes, at some point the opponent will crack like an egg. Seattle cracked at the end of the third quarter.

That break -- along with a strong rebounding game by Dennis Rodman --allowed the Bulls to survive a poor fourth quarter and escape the United Center with a 92-88 victory.

The decisive stretch came in the final 2:28 of the third period. Payton, who was much more aggressive offensively than he was in Game 1, hit a baseline jumper to cut the Bulls' lead to 66-64.

Enter Kukoc. The Bulls' forward answered Payton's jumper with consecutive 3-pointers, the second coming as he fell out of bounds. Scottie Pippen followed with a steal, then thundered in for a dunk. When Kukoc completed the surge with a dunk on a fast break, Chicago had finished the quarter with a 10-1 flourish to take a 76-65 lead into the final period.

"I thought we played a passive game in the third, especially Toni," said Jordan, who finished with 29 points, six rebounds and eight assists. "I pulled him over to the side and told him if he was scared, to go sit down. If not, shoot the ball. Don't come out here and pass it. You've got to go out and be aggressive. He was."

So was Rodman. The Bulls' power forward finished the evening with 20 rebounds (he tied an NBA Finals record with 11 offensive boards), including the most crucial rebound of the game in the closing seconds. Karl called him Chicago's most valuable player of the evening.

The Sonics, down 2-0 in the series, vowed the Finals would take on a different tone once they left Chicago for their Pacific Northwest home. The Seattle players talked about their character and confidence. Kemp talked about how he expected the Sonics to knock down the open shots they had been missing in the first two games and feed off the emotion of the crowd.

It didn't happen in Game 3. The Bulls drilled the Sonics, 108-86, at Key Arena to take a 3-0 series lead.

"Emotionally and psychologically, there are some barriers in front of us," Karl said afterward, fully aware that no NBA team had ever recovered from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series. "There are a lot of good things in sports. Right now, we're learning about some of the bad things.

"We all took a whipping. We deserve whatever you (the media) are going to do to us."

This one was over early. Jordan, relatively sedate in the first two games of the series, broke loose for 36 points. He was at his surrealistic best in the final four minutes of the second quarter, scorching the Sonics for 15 points to stake the Bulls to a 62-38 halftime lead.

"When he gets like that, I find myself running up and down the court with a smile on my face," Bulls center Luc Longley said. "You have to be careful. You want to watch him like a fan."

Longley scored a career playoff high 19 points. Kukoc, who started in place of Ron Harper (sore knee), had 14 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Pippen had 12 points and eight rebounds.

The list goes on. Jackson called it a spectacular game, one of the best his team had played.

"The odds are against us," Karl said. "Everything is against us."

In the three days before games 3 and 4, the Bulls were showered with praise as one of the greatest teams in NBA history. And who could argue? Their record at the time was 86-11, unheard of in NBA annals.

The Sonics, still breathing, responded with a 107-86 victory in Game 4. "We faced an uphill battle," Jackson said. "All anyone talked about was how dramatically we had dominated this team. We kept reminding our players during the two days off that the Sonics were no slouch, that they had gotten here by playing hard. "Physically, we just didn't meet the intensity they brought to the court."

Seattle lost the first three games by an average of 14.3 points, but none of that mattered in Game 4. Kemp (25 points, 11 rebounds) finally got some help from his teammates. The performance came less than 48 hours after Kemp had questioned their desire and drive.

"I don't know if you want to say this is vindication," said Seattle guard Hersey Hawkins, who scored 18 points, "but we played with a lot of heart, with a lot of desire. I think you finally saw the way the Sonics are capable of playing basketball."

Desperate times call for desperate measures. In Game 4, that took the form of Frank Brickowski and Nate McMillan. Brickowski, who played a total of 21 minutes in the first three games, replaced an ineffective Ervin Johnson as the Sonics' starting center. McMillan, who hadn't played since the first half of Game 1 because of nerve damage in his lower back, returned and proved he was one of the most consistent and cohesive forces of Seattle's rotation.

"I guess we're entitled to one bad game," Jordan said. "To dominate this team for four straight games was really stretching it."

Seattle stretched the series even longer with an 89-78 victory in Game 5. The Sonics fed off an aggressive defense, the brilliance of Kemp and Payton and the emotion of a maniacal sellout crowd at Key Arena to earn a surprising trip back to Chicago.

"We feel great," said Payton, who had 23 points, nine rebounds and six assists in addition to another solid defensive effort on Jordan. "We knew we could play with this team. It just took too long.

"We should have come with this a little earlier. If we had, it might have been a different series."

After losing just one game all season by double-digits, the Bulls lost consecutive games in Seattle by 21 and 11 points. The Bulls shot just 37.7 percent from the field in Game 5 and were a paralyzing 3-of-26 from 3-point range. Jordan scored just nine of his 26 points in the second half-Seattle was more aggressive in double-teaming him-and none of his teammates picked up the offensive slack.

A Chicago team that appeared invincible six days earlier suddenly appeared rattled. "Well, we've got a series now," Jackson said. "We're ready to go back to Chicago and take them on."

Once the series returned to Chicago, no one was more ready to take on the Sonics than Rodman. Jordan was MYP for the series, but he wasn't MYP in the final game. That distinction belonged to the Bulls' forward. Rodman was at his obnoxious best in Game 6, finishing with 19 rebounds (11 on the offensive end), nine points and five assists. Rodman drew several offensive fouls on Kemp and incited a crowd of 24,544 at United Center to its most deafening moments of the evening.

The final: Chicago 87, Seattle 75.

"As you evaluate the series, Dennis Rodman won two basketball games," Karl said. "We controlled Dennis Rodman for four games. But Game 2 and tonight, he was the reason they were successful."

Rodman was the central figure in the burst that gave the Bulls control of the game. The Sonics trailed, 52-45, with less than nine minutes left in the third quarter. Chicago went on a 12-2 run over the next two minutes to take a 64-47 lead with 6:41 remaining in the period. Rodman had five points in the run, capping the surge with a perfect backdoor pass to Jordan for a layup.

"It makes the game of basketball worthwhile for me," Rodman said of his impact on the series. "The last four years have pretty much been hell for me. It's been a transition. People have said I'm disruptive, I'm this, I'm that. I came back and proved everyone wrong."

The Bulls, meanwhile, proved they were one of the best teams of all time. "It's a new standard for NBA teams," Jackson said. "This team established a new level of play, and it's something all teams will have to chase."