SALT LAKE CITY — Sunday night could be a rough one for Utah Jazz fans. Not “Flu Game” rough. But close.
And get this: Ever a visionary, Deseret News columnist Lee Benson predicted a scenario in which the sports world would watch a documentary like “The Last Dance” — one that highlighted Michael Jordan’s career — in a column about Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals almost 23 years ago.
“One of these decades when they roll the definitive Michael Jordan highlight film, the evening of Wednesday, June 11th, 1997, in Salt Lake City will command a nice segment,” Benson wrote in the next day’s Deseret News. “The night Jordan played 44 minutes, got 38 points, seven rebounds, five assists, three steals, one block and the game-winning shot just when it appeared the Utah Jazz, winners of two straight, were a team of downright destiny, like the original Mighty Ducks.”
Even if the truth and nothing but the truth does not come out in the final two episodes of the popular, 10-part Jordan documentary, the “Flu Game” is an epic event that has become symbolic of his competitiveness, talent and relentless drive to overcome all odds to win.
“The greatest player I’ve ever seen play” is how then-Jazz coach Jerry Sloan described Jordan on the night of June 11, 1997, after watching the painful scenario play out.
Decades later, it’s the Jazz and their fans who still feel sick about their role in his saga.
The story came close to playing out a more favorable way for Utah.
After losing Game 7 to Seattle in 1996 in the Western Conference Finals, John Stockton had the moment of a lifetime the following spring when he hit his version of “The Shot” against the Houston Rockets to send the Jazz to their first NBA Finals in the spring of ’97.
Utah even had an excellent opportunity to go up 1-0 in Chicago, but with the game tied at 82 with 9.2 seconds left Karl Malone missed the two most infamous free throws of his career — the ones he took after Scottie Pippen reminded him, “The Mailman doesn’t deliver on Sunday.”
Jordan then began the ’97 Finals the same way he ended the ’98 Finals — with a late game-winning jumper, this one at the buzzer.
The Jazz struggled in a Game 2 loss at the United Center but evened the series at two games apiece in the ear-splitting Delta Center thanks to Malone’s monster effort of 37 points and 10 rebounds in Game 3 and Stockton’s clutch full-court touchdown throw to the Mailman late in a Game 4 thriller.
That set the stage for the pivotal Game 5 in Salt Lake City. The infamous “Flu Game.” A very winnable game for the Jazz. The one in which MJ battled his immune system and two of Utah’s Hall of Famers to will the Bulls to a 90-88 win despite spending most of game day on his sickbed at his Park City hotel and then playing with some type of stomach ailment. So much for Utah’s 10-0 playoff home record up to that point.
Whether you think Jordan really did have the flu in his legendary “Flu Game” or you’re one who thinks he was under the weather because of A) food poisoning, as his trainer claimed; B) a hangover, as hinted at by some, including Jalen Rose, who told ESPN “a lot of people heard he was out late the night before”; C) elevation sickness, as Steve Kerr suggested to Bill Simmons; or D) all of the above, Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals will be a main topic as “The Last Dance” concludes this weekend.
“There was so much mystery about this game,” former sideline reporter Hannah Storm recalled in an ESPN video.
There certainly was no shortage of conspiracy theories.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter how he got sick. Jordan came through. The Jazz didn’t.
“Whatever Michael Jordan had, the Utah Jazz should get,” D-News sports writer Richard Evans quipped in his game story lede.
Unfortunately for the Jazz, they only got the Jordan treatment. But once again, Utah gave a competitive effort in a series-deciding Game 6 loss, 90-86, and seemingly won the respect of Jordan even while losing the championship bout.
“They came here with a lot of heart, a lot of desire,” Jordan said at the time. “They gave us a run for our money.”
So at least the Jazz had that compliment to hang their runner-up hats on.
Nevertheless, it’s easy to look back and wonder how things would have turned out had the Jazz been able to capitalize on whatever was bothering MJ in Game 5. Instead, it was Utah that played like it should be home resting in bed with chicken noodle soup.
For Utah, it was a “Fluke Game.” The Big Three — Malone (only 19 points), Stockton (just five assists) and Jeff Hornacek (2-for-11 shooting) — all struggled in the momentum-changing contest. The team only scored 16 points after hitting just 4 of 17 shots while losing an eight-point lead in the fourth quarter as Jordan did his thing.
“You guys keep on saying he was sick,” Jazz small forward Bryon Russell said that night. “But he sure didn’t look sick.”
Jordan’s trainer, Tim Grover, begs to differ. He’s sticking to a story he has repeatedly said about how he ordered out for pizza late the night before Game 5 because there wasn’t any room service at the Bulls’ Park City hotel. Though several others were in the room, MJ was supposedly the only one who ate a couple of slices.
Fast forward to the middle of the night — around 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. — and the trainer and the Bulls’ medical staff were allegedly summoned to Jordan’s room. The superstar was in agony. Jordan was curled up in the fetal position when Grover saw him, he told Barstools Sports’ “Pardon My Take” podcast.
“I’ve not known any flu that can hit you that fast, but I know how quick food poisoning can hit you,” Grover said. “One-hundred percent it was food poisoning, 100%. But obviously it just sounds better to be the ‘Flu Game’ than the ‘Food Poisoning Game.’ That doesn’t even roll off the tongue correctly.”
The Bulls didn’t know if Jordan would even be able to suit up as the day progressed. He had an IV. He rested. He struggled to keep food down. But eventually, he dragged himself onto the team bus for the late-afternoon drive down Parley’s Canyon to the arena. As Benson wrote, “When he climbed on board it was the first time his teammates saw him, and they weren’t sure if he had 38 minutes in him, let alone 38 points. ‘His suit looked great,’ said teammate Brian Williams. ‘But he didn’t.’”
Jordan managed to get himself feeling well enough to suit up. He told Bulls coach Phil Jackson he’d see how he felt while playing to determine how long he could last. The answer if you’re on the Jazz’s side: at least one minute too long.
An exhausted MJ performed at some other level and gave all that he possibly could. The performance was immortalized through images of a drained shell of Jordan being held up and helped off the court during a timeout by Pippen after hitting his game-winner in a scene that’s been played a million times over.
“Who could ever forget that — holding onto Scottie walking off,” 10-time All-Star Paul Pierce said during an ESPN segment about the game. “That picture right there will last forever.”
Looking back, Benson still isn’t quite sure what ailment Jordan had, but he remembers watching MJ like a hawk that night. It was impossible not to.
“The thing about that flu game is that it all happened so fast. The Bulls were in Park City for some reason and, of course, it was the day of the game when word started to filter out that Jordan was sick,” Benson said. “I was writing a column so I remember watching Jordan closely when the game started and, as photos attest, he did not look well. If it was an act, or a con — this was a recent Sam Smith quote in The Undefeated: ‘He would do whatever he could to win the game, and if it took conning you, he would con you. Sometimes, I, myself, always questioned how sick he was.’
“So, yeah, I’m not buying that it was fake. I think he was sick, but what he was sick from is the question,” Benson continued. “Two days later, when the Bulls won in Chicago and Jordan had 39 points and 11 rebounds, he seemed to be healed. That sounds more like food poisoning than the flu to me. Whatever it was, the Jazz had only themselves to blame. They had sizable leads in both halves, in the Delta Center, with a chance to go up three games to two in the series, and didn’t.”
Not surprisingly, Deseret News sports columnist Brad Rock also waxed eloquently about Jordan’s extraordinary effort in his column from that night.
“As for the flu, I remember before the game started different NBA writers on press row were talking about it. Someone said he had a 102-degree temperature. They said there was doubt he would play,” Rock recently recalled. “As the game went on, and he was back to being Michael, I remember thinking, ‘Hm. I guess he’s better.’ I didn’t realize how bad he was until he collapsed into Pippen’s arms.
“I don’t remember any details like the 10-0 run, but I do remember the crowd for those games was deafening — as loud as it can get in an arena. But when he beat the Jazz, with the flu, in Salt Lake, and the series going back to Chicago, it was over. Dagger to the heart. It surprised me they held it together as well as they did in Game 6, actually leading going into the fourth quarter.”
Rock added, “No, I’m not convinced it was the flu. I’ve heard the ‘hungover’ stories, the ‘partied-all-night stories,’ the ‘poison pizza’ stories. All I know is there was no such thing as social distancing, or Pippen wouldn’t have had his arms around him at the game’s end. If it was the flu, why would Pippen take a chance on getting sick for Game 6?”
As monumental as it all was for Jordan, it’s an equally painful memory for Utah.
“They should be lucky getting out of here with a win like that because we gave it up,” Jazz backup center Greg Foster lamented to the Deseret News after the loss. “That was our game.”
As all of his opponents found out, it was always MJ’s game during that part of his career.
“Of course, if ever there was a made-for-Michael moment, this was it,” Rock wrote the following day. “The man can do Superman on cue. He’s a walking, talking rent-a-hero. If he’d been around, there would never have been a Hindenburg. He would have put out the Great Chicago Fire. Got a problem? Dial 1-800-Perfect. Operators are standing by. ... Your ordinary get-up-off-the-hospital-gurney kind of performance.”
NBC play-by-play announcer Marv Albert informed viewers that Jordan was “suffering from flu-like symptoms” leading into Game 5, and the broadcast crew didn’t stop mentioning it all night. MJ played like it at first, too, as the Jazz raced out to a 16-point lead in the first quarter.
“It was all about desire,” Jordan said in the postgame press conference. “Somehow I found the energy to stay strong.”
Jordan made all of Utah feel queasy the rest of the way, beginning with a 17-point second quarter outburst that trimmed the Jazz lead to 53-49 at halftime. He came alive again in the fourth quarter with another 15-point explosion, including a go-ahead 3-pointer with 25 seconds remaining. That bucket came after he snagged an offensive rebound off his own missed free throw — the ball had been tipped by Toni Kukoc — and then sank an open 3 after Russell errantly double-teamed Pippen to help Hornacek and left Jordan wide open.
“C’mon, Jazz! How does the most fundamental team in NBA history in the Utah Jazz give up a free-throw rebound with that amount of time left?” said a flummoxed Richard Jefferson, who briefly played for the Jazz, while watching the play on an ESPN special. “You know Jerry Sloan was saying all sorts of things that can’t be repeated.”
So was the rest of the state.
A Greg Ostertag dunk brought the Jazz within one at 88-87, but Luc Longley answered with his own slam to put the Bulls up 90-87. Utah had the ball with 6.2 seconds left, but a Hornacek 3-pointer was off in the waning moments.
Flu-like symptoms. Game. Series. All basically handled that night.
Jackson told the media afterward that because of the circumstances — from it being a critical game in the finals to the nausea and dizziness Jordan was experiencing — it was “the greatest game” he’d ever seen MJ play. The Hall of Fame coach even said it was as big of a playoff win as the Bulls had earned to that point.
“This was a heroic effort,” Jackson said. “One to add to the collection of efforts that make up his legend.”
ESPN’s Mike Greenberg’s take about a game dominated by an ailing man who was cooled off with ice on the back of his neck and wore a towel over his head during the rare moments he spent on the bench: “That’s one of the genuinely iconic performances in his history and in basketball history.”
Tell Jazz fans about it.
On second thought, don’t.