Larry Bird and Michael Jordan have a lot of history together, and even after Bird retired from the game, he stayed involved in the NBA, even starting a coaching career after his playing days were over.
During this time, he tried to get under Jordan’s skin and even when they were on the same team, Larry attempted to pull one of his tricks. Back in 1998, he tried to make Jordan play a lot of minutes in his, by then, final All-Star Game. An excerpt from Jayson Williams’ book, “Loose Balls: Easy Money, Hard Fouls, Cheap Laughs, and True Love in the NBA,” reads (via Redditor “kris_takahashi”):
“When Larry coached in the All-Star Game, he didn’t say twenty words the whole game. He came in, he wrote on a board in a training room how many minutes you were going to play and when you were going in, and that was it. Michael Jordan – it was his last All-Star Game – he comes in and looks at the board and he says, to Larry and to everyone else, ‘Hey, man, you know, I ain’t going to be out here all day playing.’
“And Larry looks at Michael, and Larry’s not really joking around, and he says, ‘Oh, now you don’t want to be out there? When you were playing me, you wanted to be out there all the time.’
“And Mike says, ‘Well, you know, it was easy then,’ or something like that.
“And then Larry gives him a look like, ‘I’ll still bust your ass.’ It was just a look, but everyone could see what he meant. Larry’s got a lot of pride.”
It’s not a secret that these two belong to the elite not only when it comes to their play but trash-talking. Jordan has credited Bird as the player who made him the big trash-talker he ended up becoming.
Even after his career ended, Bird wouldn’t take anything from anybody and was ready to fire back, even if Michael Jordan was the person barking at him.
The Eastern Conference won that game, played at Madison Square Garden, with Jordan dropping 23 points, shooting 10/18 from the field and earning his third All-Star Game MVP.
Jordan And Bird Had Big Battles On And Off The Court
During their time together in the league, they starred in some big moments. Jordan couldn’t believe Bird won the 1988 3-Point Contest in his warm-up jacket, but Larry was also in awe of his rival. During MJ’s legendary 63-point playoff performance against Bird’s Celtics, the small forward said he watched God play disguised as Michael Jordan.
Jordan claimed that Bird was the best small forward ever, even above LeBron James. During their time on the Dream Team, they constantly went at it, with Jordan shutting down Bird and Magic Johnson, telling them the NBA was his league in 1992.
With Bird as a coach, Jordan didn’t stop teasing his former rival. The Boston Celtics legend was mad when his Indiana Pacers players were afraid of Jordan and didn’t want to play physically against him.
They have always had the utmost respect for each other, but the desire to beat one another is always there.
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