The Chicago Bulls have the spotlight, 23 years after winning their sixth NBA Championship in eight years. ESPN’s ‘The Last Dance’ documented their success, focusing on the 1997-98 season, Michael Jordan’s final campaign with the Bulls and the end of their dynasty.
The 1995-1996 Bulls are undoubtedly a one-of-a-kind team. The collection of talent and aura around that Bulls is legendary and unforgettable. Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Ron Harper, Toni Kukoc and company went 72-10 in the regular season and backed it up in the playoffs by winning it all.
The Bulls were good all-around that year but their success couldn’t have been possible without Michael Jordan leading the way with his play and mentality. Jordan’s competitive nature and demanding leadership style were in display in ‘The Last Dance’ and it clearly wasn’t easy to keep up with his passion as a teammate.
Randy Brown, a reserve point guard for the Bulls from 1995 to 2000, appeared on SiriusXM NBA Radio recently and described MJ’s reaction to the only home loss of the Bulls in their iconic 1996 season,
“At some point, we were probably 50-5, everybody was upset we just lost a game. A lot of people don’t understand, we actually lost a home game. We were 40-1 at home. We actually should’ve been 73-9 and I remember losing that game and Michael [Jordan] was pissed, there were chairs thrown… Crazy situation, the locker room is quiet, and that’s when I knew this team was gonna win a championship. We were locked in as one. It was a lot of luck on our side. We didn’t have a bunch of injuries. We had the right amount of talent on our team, right amount of role players.”
Brown shared how invested and passionate MJ was about every game that season by describing how it felt to be in the locker room in the game in which Rex Chapman exploded for 39 points and led the Heat to upset the Bulls. The Heat had a losing record at the time, so it pissed off MJ for sure. Michael Jordan hated to lose, especially when he did his part and scored 31 points with nine rebounds and five assists. Randy Brown retired from the league in 2003 and spent several seasons in the Bulls front office and coaching staff before resigning in 2018.
