Good to the Last Shot

CHICAGO — There should be a list of Michael Jordan’s last-second shots chiseled in marble on Mount Olympus, but if there is, no one gave Jordan a copy.

He just shoots and, having shot, moves on to his next victim. Monday, a day after one of his most dramatic shots, the 19-footer at the buzzer that won Game 1 of the NBA finals, he was asked to name his three favorites. He drew a blank after two.

“That’s going to be tough,” said Jordan, frowning. “I guess my most memorable shot was in 1982 [for North Carolina, beating Georgetown in the NCAA tournament final], easy. Cleveland [the 1989 series-winner] is certainly easy. . . .

“That’s the only two I can remember. I’m getting senile, I guess.”

Nor is the Nike commercial, in which Jordan rattles off numbers of failures--”Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the winning shot and missed”--any help, since no one seems to know where the numbers come from.

“It’s only an ad,” Jordan said, laughing. “I certainly--I didn’t do the research. I say what they tell me to say.

“It sounded good, though, didn’t it?”

Sounded great. A spokeswoman for Weiden & Kennedy, the Portland (Ore.) ad agency that made the spot, referred a caller to Nike, the client.

A Nike spokeswoman said she thought the number must have come from Jordan but would check with Weiden & Kennedy. She noted, “Pretty timely, huh?”

That, too.

The actual number of games that Jordan has won or tied with last-second shots, as researched by The Times’ Houston Mitchell, who checked accounts of every close game in Jordan’s career, is 23.

This may be a record, although, in an act of compassion by Times management, Mitchell was not ordered to check on the careers of Jerry West and other possible contenders.

OK, since it’s a new field, we can do our own ranking of Jordan’s greatest moments:

1. MARCH 29, 1982: North Carolina 63, Georgetown, 62

Jordan, a 19-year-old freshman, hits the big time with a 16-foot jump shot with 15 seconds left, giving Coach Dean Smith his first NCAA title.

Unlike the others, this play isn’t run for the young Jordan, fate just brings him the ball.

“Coach Smith was fully aware they were going to be collapsing on the middle, where I liked to get the ball and Sam Perkins liked to get the ball,” says James Worthy, then the Carolina center and leading scorer. “So he told Michael, he said, ‘Look, if you get a good look at it, knock the shot down.’

“In fact, he kinda smiled, as if, you’ll probably get the shot. . . .

“Just as we thought, they collapsed on our motion offense on the inside. We took some time off the clock, Jimmy Black drove to the basket, made the defense collapse a little bit, kicked it to Michael and it wasn’t any hesitation at all, like he wanted the shot, like he knew he was going to take the shot.

“And I had seen some of his instincts and some of his confident ways early on in the year but that shot to me was a breakthrough for him. He always wanted to take over in game situations but I was really the guy at the time. He really was very aggressive and he wanted the shot. I could tell he wanted it because he didn’t hesitate, he didn’t think about it.

“When you shoot a ball like that, you’re just waiting for it to rotate and that’s exactly what happened.”

2. MAY 7, 1989: Bulls 101, Cavaliers 100

Jordan scores 44 points, including the game-ending, hesitation, 17-footer that wins Game 5 and the series, 3-2, crumpling defender Craig Ehlo, who falls on the floor in agony as Jordan pumps his fist over and over and screams “Go home!” at Cavalier fans.

Jordan, already known as the most gifted of players, is beginning to learn what being a leader requires.

In three previous seasons, before that one, his team has won one playoff series and was the underdog again, No. 7 facing No. 2, which had won 10 more games.

Jordan had missed key free throws in a Game 4 loss at home, plus two chances to win it from the field, then guaranteed a victory in Cleveland. Cavalier fans bring signs--”Airogance Jordan” is one of them--and yell at him to practice his free throws.

The game is a thriller, with nine lead changes in the last three minutes before the Bulls, in-bounding the ball with three seconds left, get it to Jordan and watch the magic unfold.

“I just can’t believe he made that shot,” says Cleveland center and former North Carolina teammate Brad Daugherty in the Cavaliers’ funereal locker room. “We did everything right. I just can’t believe it. . . .

“I don’t see how he stayed in the air that long. It’s the most outstanding shot I’ve ever seen.”

Says Jordan, “That’s probably the biggest shot I’ve hit in the NBA, mainly because I put my credibility on the line.”

3. APRIL 20, 1986: Celtics 135, Bulls 131 (2 overtimes)

Jordan misses a potential game winner, a 15-footer at the end of the first overtime, although his two free throws at the end of regulation had sent it into the extra sessions.

What he does, however, is score a playoff record 63 points, after getting 49 in Game 1, which the Bulls also lost.

Says Larry Bird, then in his prime and not one to defer to a 23-year-old, second-year man:

“I think he’s God, disguised as Michael Jordan. He’s the most awesome player in the NBA. Today in Boston Garden, on national TV, in the playoffs, he put on one of the greatest shows of all time.”

4. JUNE 1, 1997: Bulls 84, Jazz 82

Jordan hits a 19-footer at the buzzer to win Game 1 of the finals.

Jordan, now 34, is so institutionalized as a basketball demigod as to make such heroic deeds expected, as much by Jordan as anyone else.

Now, it almost seems routine, as he describes it, although it’s the only last-second game winner he has ever made in the finals.

“Lots of it is instinct,” he says. “Being put in that situation enough times to instinctively let things happen such as, when [Bryon Russell] goes for the steal, boom, go left, stop, pull up, see [John] Stockton coming at you, you can’t get it to the basket, time is probably about two seconds maybe, so. . . . “

So you squeeze off a 19-footer that hits nothing but the bottom of the net. What else would you do?

5. MARCH 28, 1995: Bulls 113, Knicks 111

In his fifth game since returning from retirement, Jordan dazzles celebrity-packed Madison Square Garden, scoring 55 points, then passes to Bill Wennington, alone under the hoop, for the game-winning dunk in the final seconds.

Says Knick Coach Pat Riley, awed if not delighted to have his nemesis back:

“There are some players that are simply unique and transcend every aspect of the game and he’s the only one in the history of the game who has had the impact he has had, all the way around. So I’m not surprised.”

6. MARCH 25, 1995: Bulls 99, Hawks 98

In his fourth since returning from retirement, Jordan drives the length of the floor and sinks a game-winning 16-footer at the buzzer, the first sign that the old Jordan is back.

He has been shaky in his first two, losses at Indianapolis and at home to the young, powerful Orlando Magic, but goes for 27 points in his third, at Boston.

The tour is a full-fledged event, drawing sellouts where few occur, such as in Atlanta, where the Hawks get one of their four all season.

“Everybody in the arena will be cheering for Michael,” says the Hawks’ Grant Long before the game. “We might as well look like the visiting team because that’s how we’ll be perceived.”

Jordan celebrates his game-winner by pantomiming rolling dice on the floor. After the furor over his gambling two seasons before, this doesn’t go over so hot.

7. JUNE 7, 1991: Bulls 104, Lakers 96 (overtime)

Jordan makes a 14-footer at the end of regulation to send it into overtime.

It’s the key shot of the series, in which the Lakers, in Mike Dunleavy’s first season as coach, win Game 1 in Chicago--after Jordan misses a chance to win it with a 20-footer at the buzzer--then lose four in a row.

The Lakers lead the pivotal Game 3 by 13 points in the third quarter and 92-90 on Vlade Divac’s three-point play with 10.9 seconds left in regulation. The Bulls give the ball to Jordan, who brings it up the length of the court, then ties the game with a shot over Byron Scott, with Divac arriving too late to help out.

Before that, Jordan misses 16 of 24 shots.

8. MAY 17, 1993: Bulls 103, Cavaliers 101

And now . . . Son of The Shot.

If the Cavaliers are wondering if Jordan has something against them, he doesn’t. They just keep getting in his way.

This time, he sinks another game-winner, a 15-footer, and the Bulls close out the Cavaliers for the fourth time in six years. However, the score is tied when Jordan shoots, so the Bulls won’t lose if he misses, and they lead the series, 3-0, so it’s less dramatic than coincidental.

What is remarkable, though, is that Jordan has led the Bulls to road victories in Games 3 and 4 with a right wrist so sore, he has to spend the first half trying to loosen it up enough to play. In this one, he scores eight points in the first half, 23 in the second.

The ending surprises even Jordan. Getting the ball with eight seconds left, he has it tipped away by Cleveland’s Gerald Wilkins, snatches it back, then knocks in the shot.

“I’m going to church on Sunday,” he says, “because I am very, very fortunate to be able to respond to challenges that some people may not be able to respond to.”

9. JUNE 20, 1993: Bulls 99, Suns 98

Jim Paxson sinks the game-winner that makes the Bulls the first team to win three consecutive titles in 24 years--but Jordan makes every other Chicago basket in the fourth quarter.

The game caps a hectic time for Chicago in the playoffs, accompanied by the furor over Jordan’s appearance in an Atlantic City casino during the Eastern Conference finals against the Knicks, then the publication of a book alleging Jordan lost $1 million in golf bets.

“This means so much to us,” says Jordan. “Winning this championship is harder than anything I’ve ever done before in basketball, with all the ups and downs I’ve gone through this season and the mental approach that I’ve had to take into each game.”

Three months later, he retires, unexpectedly, to take up baseball.

10. NOV. 11, 1992: Bulls 98, Pistons 96 (overtime)

Jordan makes a game-winning three-point basket at the end of overtime.

The Bulls are a power and the Pistons, whom they sweep, 4-0, in the Eastern Conference finals, are no longer the Bad Boys, despite the presence of aging Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman. There are still bitter feelings on both sides but the old rivalry is fading. The game is unremarkable except that Jordan was there.

Says Dumars, as if speaking for a legion of gaping defenders, an entire poster-ized league, “You know what’s coming, you know what he’s going to do but you can’t stop him.”

Not then, not before, not since.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NBA FINALS

Utah vs. Chicago

* Game 1: Chicago 84, Utah 82

* Wednesday--At Chicago, 6 p.m.

* Friday--At Utah, 6 p.m.

* Sunday--At Utah, 4:30 p.m.

* June 11--xAt Utah, 6 p.m.

* June 13--xAt Chicago, 6 p.m.

* June 15--xAt Chicago, 4:30 p.m.

x-if necessary

23 for No. 23

Michael Jordan hit the game-winner at the buzzer Sunday night to give the Bulls a win in Game 1 of the NBA finals. Add it to the list? Jordan has done this a lot in his 12-year career. Nobody, however, seemed to know just how many games Jordan had pulled it off, including the Bulls’ public relations office. Times researcher Houston Mitchell looked back through Jordan’s career and found out that his last shot or free throws have directly resulted in 23 Bulls’ victories. An interesting footnote: Don’t bet against Jordan on Nov. 11. He has hit the game-winner three times on that day. Below is a breakdown.

*--*

Date Score/Team Beat Description 11-11-84 118-116, Indiana 12-footer with 4 seconds left 12-7-84 95-93, New York 18-footer, 5 seconds left 3-26-85 120-119, Indiana 2 free throws, 5 seconds left 4-24-85* 109-107, Milwaukee 18-footer, 17 seconds left 10-25-85 116-115, Cleveland 2 free throws, 8 seconds left 11-11-86 112-110, Atlanta driving layup, 9 seconds left 11-21-86 101-99, New York 18-footer, 1 second left 1-30-88 97-95, New York 18-footer, 2 seconds left 2-12-88 95-93, Milwaukee 2 free throws, 2 seconds left 4-3-88 112-110, Detroit 2 free throws, 4 seconds left 4-15-88 100-99, New Jersey 15-footer, 8 seconds left 2-16-89 117-116, Milwaukee 20-footer, 1 second left 5-7-89* 101-100, Cleveland 17-footer, at buzzer 5-20-89* 113-111, New Jersey 2 free throws, 4 seconds left 5-27-89* 99-97, Detroit 10-footer, 3 seconds left 11-13-90 84-82, Utah 15-footer, at buzzer 1-22-92 115-112, Charlotte layup, free throw, 9 seconds 11-11-92 98-96 (ot), Detroit 30-footer, at buzzer 5-17-93* 103-101, Cleveland 15 footer, at buzzer 3-25-95 99-98, Atlanta 16-footer, at buzzer 2-12-97 103-100, Charlotte 22-footer, at buzzer 3-18-97 89-87 (ot), Seattle 2 free throws, 8 seconds left 6-1-97* 84-82, Utah 19-footer, at buzzer

*--*

*-denotes playoff game