Michael Jordan’s playoff-record 63 points against the Boston Celtics in the 1986 NBA Playoffs are the stuff of legend. In the second episode of “The Last Dance” documentary series, we heard some extra backstory behind what fired up Jordan that night.
Jordan, who played just 18 games that regular season due to a foot injury, scored 49 points in a blowout loss in Game 1. In between Game 1 and Game 2, Jordan went golfing with Celtics guard Danny Ainge, Mark Vancil, who later wrote Jordan’s biography “Rare Air,” and Celtics beat writer Mike Carey.
“I took a few bucks off Michael that day, and we’re talking trash to each other,” Ainge said. “That might have been a mistake.”
Ainge may not have known it in 1986, but talking trash and beating Jordan in something other than basketball does not bode well for future meetings on the court. When Jordan was asked about the story, he responded with a look and a one word response: “Mmhmm.”
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As Vancil told it, they dropped Ainge off first after the golf game, and Jordan had some parting words.
"Hey, tell your boy DJ I got something for him tomorrow," Vancil recalls Jordan saying of Celtics guard Dennis Johnson.
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So, naturally, Jordan goes off for 63 points, a playoff record that still stands today, in Game 2.
“I played practically every minute in the second game,” Jordan said. "I just never stopped.”
Larry Bird had the final say about it and didn’t disappoint.
“We ended up winning the series, but it was an incredible, incredible playoff performance,” Bird said. “I’ve never seen it before, and I hadn’t seen it after. That wasn’t Michael Jordan. That was God disguised as Michael Jordan.”
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