How Ewing shut down MJ trash-talking him in first meeting

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Before Patrick Ewing and Michael Jordan were rivals, they nearly landed on the same North Carolina team in the early 1980s.

In fact, Ewing first met Jordan on a recruiting visit to Chapel Hill, he told NBC Sports Bay Area’s Chris Mullin in an interview for the latest episode of the Dubs Talk Podcast.

“He (Jordan) had already committed, but his sister was there, she wanted to see the school. I think they worked it out so that he would be back there when I’m on my visit,” Ewing told Mullin.

But, in rather typical fashion, Jordan was in no mood to butter Ewing up, prodding the star big man to the point that Ewing had to humble him on the court.

“Everyone who knows Michael knows he is the biggest trash talker,” Ewing told Mullin. “So this is my first time meeting him, and he’s talking so much trash to me. You know, like, ‘You can’t dunk on me, or blah, blah, blah.’

“I’m in street clothes, he’s in his gym clothes. I’m like, OK. So I get the ball and I go up and I dunked on him. I said now you can shut the blank up.”

If true, it’s just about the only time in Ewing’s career he bested Jordan. In each’s freshman college season, Jordan’s Tar Heels beat Ewing’s Georgetown Hoyas in the 1982 NCAA National Championship on the strength of a last-second Jordan jumper. Years later, the Jordan-led Bulls topped Ewing’s Knicks squads in four different postseason runs en route to their six-title dynasty in the 1990s.

“I thought it was gonna be easy to win one ring,” Ewing said to Mullin, alluding to being mentored by Bill Russell, an 11-time NBA champion and Celtics teammate of Ewing’s Georgetown coach John Thompson, during his college years. “I’m like, ‘Yeah I’m gonna go be like Bill Russell and win me 11 rings.’ And I couldn’t even get one!”

“Well, there was a good reason for that,” Mullin responded.

“Michael Jordan,” Ewing said with a laugh.

Still, Ewing and Jordan forged a deep friendship, competing together in both the 1984 and 1992 Olympics, the latter as two fixtures of the Dream Team.

“The practices were 100 percent much better than the games,” Ewing recalled of the 1992 squad. “We kicked butts and took names, but in practice it was heated -- Michael, Magic (Johnson), Larry (Bird), you (Mullin), me, Karl (Malone), David (Robinson). It was a great experience.”

Decades later, those memories appear to still be fond.

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