[Highlights] 35 year old Jordan locks up reggie miller in game 7 of the ECF, holds him to 0 points in the 4th quarter and just 1 FGA
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One thing that may get lost in translation to people that didn’t get to see Reggie at his peak is how his play style revolved around CONSTANT motion and movement. That skinny motherfucker had the endurance of a marathon runner and would run around screens the same way we saw Rip Hamilton and eventually Steph Curry get open.
The fact a 35 year old cigar smoking demon was not only keeping up with him but flat out preventing him from shooting was unreal.
(Also the random shit at LeBron flopping is actually hilarious even if it’s childish lmao)
Indeed. There’s a reason Steph Curry moves the way he does. He idolizes Reggie and was his favorite player growing up.
Rip Hamilton played the same way, constantly running from corner to corner and peppering in trips to the top of the key.
Yes that’s why I said his name lol
Ope, my bad! I stopped reading after Reggie I guess!
Holy fucking glazing, Reggie Miller was 33. Is a 2 year difference between players something that has ever been impressive in any other context in NBA history?
I don’t take anyone seriously when they refer to simple praise as glazing
Reggie Miller’s endurance was one of his greatest strengths
Clearly it wasn’t just about the age difference. They mentioned marathon level endurance vs cigar smoking which seem like important factors
Oldheads constantly feel the need to mytholgize and almost remove Jordan from the context in which he played. Mfs will call this moment some shit like “the day Black Jesus defied youth” cause he was in his mid thirties beating dudes in their early thirties. Then you go watch 41 year old Bron win a playoff series as the first option and nobody says shit
Then you go watch 41 year old Bron win a playoff series as the first option and nobody says shit
nobody says shit? wtf are you talking about lmao.
And guess LeBron’s age when he last won a championship. 35. Everyone thought it was impressive when he was playing at a high level at 35 too.
Anyways I didn’t even post this to point out how good he was at 35 or anything, I just thought it was impressive to watch a 35 year old defend that aggressively since you almost never see it happen even today.
Talk about Michael Jordan without bringing up LeBron Challenge level: IMPOSSIBLE
”…and nobody says shit.”
Dude, it’s been talked about heavily this summer.
Title says 35, video says 34
Who lying?
yeah the dude who made the video got it wrong
The dude who posted it too
A simply google search would tell you that MJ was 35 lol
In today’s NBA he had about 10 open shots.
Sure but context matters. In 98, players couldn’t take four gather steps and stiff arm their defender.
I’ve always wondered how long it would take me to look back on prime MJ tape and say “wow that competition level is visibly lower than today’s NBA”.
Here it is and it’s against what I remember being one of the best Pacers teams of my lifetime. MattDamonAging.gif
It looks like they were trying to get Smits the ball to exploit a mismatch with Kukoc on a lot of these possessions?
Anyways 22 pts for Reggie on 74.5% TS%, for the game, a 130 offrtg with him on the floor which is pretty incredible for an 88-83 game. Not bad for a road game 7 against the goat.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/199805310CHI.html
Holding him to 1 shot attempt and no points when he went off the first 3 quarters is pretty impressive tbh. If they really gameplanned to go for Smits in the 4th they deserve that L.
How many games in his playoff career did MJ score 22 points or less?
“Not bad” is a good descriptor for Reggie Miller. He wasn’t the killer that the game of telephone has turned him into.
I mean Jordan shot 44% TS in this game compared on 25 shots to 13 attempts for Reggie. Reggie needed to be more aggressive.
He wasn’t that kind of player. If you’d’ve watched him play, you’d get it.
Yeah, it may have benefited the team for him to have more shots, but the offense did not revolve around him like most modern offenses do their star players, and he wasn’t a creator or playmaker where he could do it himself.
I agree that his rep as a “killer” that took over games is overstated. What’s underappreciated now and back when he played was his combo of good scoring volume with incredible scoring efficiency (for his career in the playoffs he had 22.9 pts per 75 possesssions on a TS+ of 114).
It’s how the Pacers had top-10 offenses every year during his 11-season peak from 1990 through 2000. It’s how he dragged good but not great supporting casts to a finals and 4 conf finals during that run including nearly knocking off the goat in 1998
“How many games in his playoff career did MJ score 22 points or less?”
I literally said MJ was the goat I’m not comparing Reggie to him lol. FWIW the answer is “not often”, MJ is t
he all-time leader in points per possession in the playoffs.
He didn’t drag not great supporting casts—his supporting casts were dragging him. It’s a team sport, and he wasn’t a superstar on the level where he could carry a team. Any suggestion is pure fiction and completely revisionist.
I still remember this game as the most intense and yet, better suited to explain why the Bulls from the second three peat would do whatever possible to win.
Games 7 are usually ugly… and this was indeed one of them.. a bunch of contested shots and the key was who would hold the rebound battle.
Jordan and Pippen went for every single ball like maniacs, even when they were smaller than what Indiana had with those two Davis wall bricks alongside Rik Smits to make life miserable. Funny enough, Rodman wasn’t playing in that series that much since he was an offensive liability and Kukoc was the starter for most of those playoffs.
Everyone remembers the flu-game from MJ… I do have tattooed in my mind how tired MJ and Pip were after this game 7 and the relief of overcoming their biggest and more menacing foe in those 3 years.
A lot of people tend to forget how great of a defender Mike was too!
Ight I cackled when LeBron popped up
What strikes me the most about this clip is how different the modern game is from this and how difficult it is to compare based on clips without context. OP, this it not meant as a criticism of you for sharing this clip, in any way. I’m more making a comment on what the tape can tell us in general.
I just don’t see Jordan having to do a lot in this clip. Yes, he does a good job on some of the possessions denying Reggie the ball or following him off the ball through screens, but how is this different from what every above average defender covering Curry has to do all game every game?
The most notable thing to me is Reggie’s lack of aggression. Jordan gives him a lot of space on the catch - I guess because at the time that was the assignment. So my modern eyes see him playing Reggie for the drive, but since Reggie never drives in this clip, we don’t see Jordan having to work. A modern player who’s the best shooter in the NBA, as Reggie was, would be shooting with that much space, so they would at least challenge Jordan and punish the strategy of sagging off. Since that doesn’t happen here: it’s more like, well, Jordan could have shut Reggie down if Reggie were to challenge him, but since he doesnt, Jordan doesn’t have to do anything, so what does this tape really tell us? Seeing somebody not do something is not evidence that they could have done it.
I have a feeling the farther away we get from knowing the context at the time, the harder it will be to appreciate the greatness in past footage.
it’s just not that great of a clip, not sure why it’s being posted 30 years later.
reggie miller’s game was similar to rip hamilton. and steph curry – but curry is just the better version with much better accuracy and ball handling. but they share the trait of screen plays and especially movement to get open. it’s like route running WR vs DB. they are trying to get open through multiple screens. it was a fitness test for the defender especially over the course of the game. you don’t see it in today’s game much. the route running can be effective but it can also stall out your offense. drive attempt => score or kick it out for 3 or someone else try is just more efficient. guys like curry still do it cause he’s so accurate – and he has the stepback 3.
it was a fitness test for the defender especially over the course of the game. you don’t see it in today’s game much.
Curry and Klay were the GOATs of this strategy and it’s still widely used across the league. There’s a reason why players are putting up considerably more mileage today than they did even a decade ago (which was well into the small ball era), and there was a ton more off ball movement a decade ago than there was in the late 90s.
How is it different? When have you seen any number #1 on one team also take the opponents #1 out of the game on defense? Show me one player that plays both ways the whole game nowadays.
It’s different from the ways he just described. I think the Pacers game plan was mostly looking for Smits in the post. Jordan did a great job but Reggie didn’t shoot, dribble or look aggressive at all and Jordan was giving him some space. As far as today’s game it’s really switch heavy so you rarely guard the same guy the whole possession but I mean guys like Cade Ant Tatum Kawhi to name a few often guard their best player.
Was Reggie even the best shooter in the NBA?
You’re the one speaking of context. I don’t think you can contextualize this relative to the modern game. Reggie was not a Curry-like threat off ball, and certainly not with the ball in his hands.
They didn’t have screens back then?
The thought of Jordan being in a game 7 and possibly losing had middle school me having nightmares back then.
The GOAT had all the skills and gave it his all. That’s why no one can match him.
“LeGoat” switched off from KD in the clutch btw
raptors flair speaking on bron
I thought LeBron James was the owner of the Raptors?
What do you mean by LeGoat?
Are we gonna ignore how Lebron owned Derrick Rose, or how MJ needed to switch off of Magic because he was getting cooked?
NBA social media is being poisoned with MJ propaganda
Reggie Miller was 33?
Wrong. He was 31 his entire career.
I wonder why NBA social media is 90% Jordan.
Because people like Jordan
Because he’s the GOAT.
Do we need 90% of NBA social media to constantly remind us?
Yes, yes we do.
Looks like Jordan worship is a religion. Creepy.
It’s kinda weird, right? Dude hasn’t played for 20 years, and it’s been almost 30 since he was at the top of the game. Jordans career was closer to when Wilt played than to today.
No other sport has fans that shit on current players and put one specific generation on a pedestal like the NBA does. The NBA easily has the worst discourse of any major sport, particularly on the Internet. You didn’t have NFL fans spamming clips of Montana and shit talking Brady and Manning or MLB fans/commentators bringing up negative comparisons to Nolan Ryan or Randy Johnson every time some talented pitcher gets discussed.
It’s really not that weird you just find it weird because you’re a big LeBron fan. Jordan was the one to make the sport as big as it was and was by far the biggest draw in the sport. In a sport thats changed so much it’s normal for people who watched at the time to look back on these years even though it clouds their judgement.
And it happens in a lot of other sports with boxing taking it to the extreme it’s also the same in football (soccer) and also F1. Same thing will happen with LeBron.
It’s really not that weird you just find it weird because you’re a big LeBron fan.
No, it’s weird because there are a ton of fantastic players in the NBA right now and so many people spend all of their time bitching about the current NBA and circlejerking about Jordan. FFS I had a poster of Jordan on my wall when I was young and watched every single one of his title runs in real time, and there is still a dream team windbreaker hanging in my closet, of course that era is nostalgic to me. The thing is you can be a fan of one thing without constantly using it to shit on something else, and NO other fans are as obsessed with using players from the past to put down modern players like NBA “fans” are, it’s fucking weird.
Maybe it’s because this negativity focused discourse is all many of the people on this sub have ever known (thanks Skip!), but this isn’t how it always was. In the 80’s and 90’s discourse was much more positive and celebratory, nobody was using Wilt or Russell to tear down Kareem, or West and Oscar to tear down Jordan. The advent of 24 hour sports news led to this, with them needing to fill time and get engagement, so they manufacture drama with jackasses like Skip. Bitter former players who are salty that modern players make so much more than they did don’t help either.
Jordan was the one to make the sport as big as it was and was by far the biggest draw in the sport.
Yeah I know, I was there for it.
In a sport thats changed so much it’s normal for people who watched at the time to look back on these years even though it clouds their judgement.
How old do you think the average poster on this sub is? There aren’t close to enough of us old farts to dominate the discourse like that, 99% of the people talking this shit are way too young to remember him playing and have only ever seen him play on highlight videos and the last dance.
It quite literally isn’t though. Go to the subreddits for those sports and look up the number of results from the last week about Senna or Maradona or Pele and compare it to the results in this sub for Jordan in the same timeframe (hint: there’s over 20x more results for Jordan than all of them combined).
No other sport has fans that shit on current players and put one specific generation on a pedestal like the NBA does. The NBA easily has the worst discourse of any major sport,
Lmao you clearly have no idea what Formula 1 or European Football discussions are like… it’s still full of people here claiming that
Senna was the GOAT (while he was arguably not even better than Prost as a whole package as Alain beat him by 11 points and 21 points in 1989 despite driving a worse engine)
and that Maradona clears Messi
No one under the age of 50 has Maradona over Messi
Lmao you clearly have no idea what Formula 1 or European Football discussions are like… it’s still full of people here claiming that 1) Senna was the GOAT (while he was arguably not even better than Prost as a whole package as Alain beat him by 11 points and 21 points in 1989 despite driving a worse engine) 2) and that Maradona clears Messi
While those people do exist, it’s nothing like the NBA. Look at each subreddit and compare posts from the last week.
Formula 1:
https://np.reddit.com/r/formula1/search/?q=senna&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=week&sort=relevance
One result for Senna, and its in reference to a social media comment about Gasly having some Senna in him.
Football:
https://np.reddit.com/r/football/search/?q=maradona&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=week&sort=relevance
Zero result for Maradona
None in champions league, premier league or world cup subreddits either either:
https://np.reddit.com/r/PremierLeague/search/?q=maradona&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=week&sort=relevance
https://np.reddit.com/r/championsleague/search/?q=maradona&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=week&sort=relevance
https://np.reddit.com/r/worldcup/search/?q=maradona&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=week&sort=relevance
NBA:
https://np.reddit.com/r/nba/search/?q=jordan&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=week&sort=relevance
https://np.reddit.com/r/nba/search?q=mj&restrict_sr=on&include_over_18=on&sort=relevance&t=week
22 results for Jordan and another 4 for MJ
That’s because you are only looking at reddit which is much more popular in the US than Europe (for example r/soccer is much bigger than r/football , now obviously many people in soccer subreddit are european fans but the naming of it sums up the situation) which is the subreddit version of the movies scene where the villain is conquering “the world” and by world it means… just the US
It’s Nike/Jordan Brand Social Media working 24⁄7 to keep Jordan socially relevant to sell shoes. We all understand Jordan is the GOAT but damn does 90% of NBA social media have to be about Jordan? What about the other greats?
We all have the access to make videos of other greats.
I’m inclined to follow/subscribe to those creators more than the ones that show me stuff I’ve seen before. There’s even guys that post the most obscure 10-day type players and I love it all.
One of the most pathetic highlight clips I’ve ever seen and the dropped in Lebron flop clip to follow up with a Kerr flop makes this look like a psyop to make Jordan glazers look stupid.