"We're the two best in the game, but I'm not getting into a war of words with Mike."
So said future Hall of Famer Clyde "The Glide" Drexler ahead of the 1992 NBA Finals between his Portland Trail Blazers and the Chicago Bulls. And in this clip from The Last Dance, debuting exclusively on ET, Michael Jordan reveals exactly how much it bothered him.
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"Clyde was a threat. You know, I'm not saying he wasn't a threat," Jordan admits. "But me being compared to him, I took offense to that."
Jordan and Drexler had been compared to each other and pitted as rivals the entire season. "The night before game one, we're at Michael's house playing cards, and he says, 'You know what's going to happen tomorrow. I'mma give it to this dude,'" recalls Magic Johnson, then an NBC Sports commentator.
And give it to the dude he did: Jordan scored six 3-pointers before halftime, breaking the record for most points in the first half of a playoff game and sealing it with a now-iconic shrug. The Bulls went on to win that game and the series, with Jordan named MVP for the second year in a row.
"Michael didn't want anybody to have nothing over him," Johnson says. Watch the clip above.
Ironically, Jordan and Drexler would be teammates later that summer on the '92 Olympics Dream Team, but that's a story for another episode of The Last Dance. Tune in Sunday on ESPN at 10 p.m. ET.
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Thu, 04/30/2020 - 07:00