OK, HOLLYWOOD, THAT'S a wrap. The Michael Jordan Story is finished, or should be, and what a finish it was. A player for the ages, an ending for the ages. Roy Hobbs didn't do it any better. If we hadn't witnessed it, we wouldn't have believed it.
Michael found his Moment in the final minute of Game 6 in the NBA Finals - the moment when time slows for him, the moment he said he lives for, the moment he calls "cute," the moment he says will decide happiness for some and sadness for others - and won another world championship. Happiness in Chicago, sadness in Salt Lake City.The record books will show
that the Chicago Bulls defeated the Utah Jazz 87-86 to win the 1998 NBA championship, but that isn't quite right, is it? Michael Jordan beat the Jazz. He picked up the Bulls, hoisted them onto his shoulders and carried them to victory all by himself. In a wrap: Down by three points, 41 seconds left, a rebound, a layup, a steal, a jump shot, a trophy, a hug.
The Delta Center was the scene of one of the greatest performances in sports history, and if Jordan has any more flair for the dramatic, he will ride off into the sunset now. If this wasn't an exit line, none was ever written. For grand finishes, it was unprecedented. Willie Mays went out dropping fly balls. Mickey Mantle limped to the dugout. Joe Namath dozed on the Rams bench. But Jordan - he had 45 points, more than half of his team's total, in a world championship game. He scored his team's last nine points. He sank the game-winner. He hugged his mother.
"I think you have to say that Michael is a guy that comes through," said Chicago coach Phil Jackson in understatement. "How many times does he have to show us that he's a real-life hero."
Was there ever any doubt it would come to this? That Michael would have the last word? Go ahead and dominate the regular season. Go ahead and claim an MVP award or four spots on the All-Star team. Win sixty-something games. Claim the homecourt advantage. It doesn't matter. In the end, you must go through Michael to claim the ultimate prize - the title - and then he'll find a way to beat you. He has six world championships in his last six full years with the Bulls. Not even the bad pizza could stop him last year.
Fate was cruel to the Jazz. They chose a bad time to finally assemble a championship team. They could have won a title in most eras. As luck would have it, the 1998 Finals was a great coming together of events. It was the Last Dance versus the Last Chance. It was the aging Jazz running out of time, and the aging Bulls saying goodbye.
The Jazz could stop the Bulls, but not Michael. They couldn't beat the living legend. The man who invented Air. The man who made bald cool. The man who made baggy shorts and golf hip to a new generation. The man with his own statue. People keep talking about finding The Next Jordan. Well, The Real thing was in the building on Sunday evening.
For five games, Jordan did a pretty good imitation of a mortal. He shot poorly. He failed to save the Bulls at the end of Game 1. He failed to save home-court advantage in Game 5. But all along he seemed to know something the rest of us didn't.
During a timeout near the end of Game 2, when the outcome was hanging in the balance and the tension was so thick you could smell it, Jordan was walking back to the bench when he turned to the TV cameras - and smiled. Just smiled. It was the defining moment of the series. The confidence of Jordan. The boldness. But mostly the joy. He had vowed he would enjoy what might be his last playoff run. He joked with teammates after defeats. He played the piano. He practiced that "Zen stuff," as he called it, and stayed "positive."
Finally, when the situation demanded it, when he decided enough was enough, Jordan went to the well one more time. Scottie Pippen was on ice in the locker room with back spasms, Dennis Rodman was in foul trouble, Malone was killing them, the Bulls were trailing. It was up to Jordan.
He had missed six of his previous seven shots when he took charge. His free throws cut the Jazz lead to two points with two minutes left. Then John Stockton's three-point shot caromed off the rim. Michael hadn't had a single rebound all night. He had told his coach, "I'm going to have to play a lot of minutes tonight. I'll have to conserve my energy. Then Stockton missed and Jordan showed up for his only rebound of the game.
After Jordan's free throws tied the game at 83, Stockton answered with a three-point shot to give Utah the lead with 41.9 seconds left, and everyone in the whole building knew what was coming. The Moment had arrived.
"The crowd gets quiet," Michael would explain later. "The moment starts to become the moment for me. Once you get in the moment, you know you're there. Things start to move slowly, you start to see the court very well. You start reading what the defense is trying to do. And I saw that, I saw that moment."
He saw Bryon Russell, in slow motion, reach for the ball, just as he had when Jordan beat him for a winning basket in last year's Finals. In the split second Russell was exposed, Jordan dashed by him for a layup, cutting the Jazz lead to 86-85 with 37 seconds left.
He saw Jeff Hornacek try to rub him off on a Karl Malone screen, then doubled back to sneak up on Malone from behind. He reached around Malone, slapped the ball loose from his hands, picked it up with 18 seconds left.
He saw, as he dribbled up the court, no defensive help for Russell. Stockton, he guessed, would never leave Steve Kerr, who had won Game 6 last year with a three-point bomb. Jordan faked a drive, Russell staggered backward. Jordan rose up, and up, and fired a shot from 17 feet. Swish. Nothing but net. Five seconds left. For a few moments, Jordan stood there, his hand frozen in a goodbye wave, soaking it in, enjoying it, watching the ball slide through the net and fall to the floor.
Even Jazz fans, broken-hearted and cut adrift after a wild eight-week ride, couldn't resist admiring the guts, grace and beauty of Michael. Even Jerry Sloan, foiled again by his old Bulls, walked to center court afterward and told Jordan he hoped he would return.
"I've always felt he was the greatest player that's ever played this game," said Sloan, a man not given to hyperbole.
So the story would seem to be complete. A sixth world championship. A sixth Finals MVP trophy. A third all-star MVP trophy. A fifth regular-season MVP award. A record 10th scoring title.
Jordan won't say if he will return next season, but for weeks he has sounded like a man savoring the end of a great run.
"If and when that time comes where I've got to walk away, I hope that because I walked away no one will look at me any less," he said Sunday. "Hopefully, I've put enough memories out there for everybody to at least have some thoughts about what Michael Jordan did in his 13 or 14 years or whatever it takes, and put some comparisons up there for kids to follow and compare themselves and reach. And that's part of the challenge. I have another life, and I know I have to get to it at some point."
There will never be a better time than now.