Watch: New ‘Last Dance' preview teases story of Michael Jordan's ‘Shrug' game

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In the first four episodes of “The Last Dance,” we watched Michael Jordan evolve from a young kid from Wilmington, North Carolina, to stand out scorer “Mike” Jordan at the University of North Carolina, to the Bulls’ savior — a dazzling performer turned NBA champion.

Now, it appears the “destroyer of worlds” phase is coming.

That much can be gleaned from the latest ESPN teaser trailer release for Episodes 5 and 6 of “The Last Dance,” which will air May 3. This anecdote hones in on the 1992 NBA Finals between the Bulls and Portland Trail Blazers. Both teams entered the series with premier wing scorers in Jordan and Clyde “The Glide” Drexler, who were often directly compared to each other.

Jordan didn’t take kindly to that.

“Clyde was a threat. I’m not saying he wasn’t a threat,” Jordan said in the trailer. “But me being compared to him, I took offense to that.”

Magic Johnson, then working for NBC and covering the ’92 Finals, offered a peek behind the curtain into just how vehement that offense was.

“The night before Game 1, we’re at Michael’s house playing cards, and he said, ‘You know what’s gonna happen tomorrow? I’m gonna give it to this dude,’” Johnson recounts in the trailer.

Give it to him, he did. Jordan scored 39 points in a 122-89 Bulls rout in Game 1 of the Finals, 35 of which came in the first half. Embedded in that first-half line were a then-Finals record (for a half) six 3-pointers. 

Jordan punctuated the last of those with a shrug that has since become an enduring, iconic image from his career. The backstory should be riveting.

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