10 best teams that fell short of winning NBA title
By Phil Watson
1997-98 Utah Jazz
For the second season in a row, the Utah Jazz in 1997-98 won more than 60 games and advanced to the NBA Finals. But unlike the 1997 NBA Finals against the Chicago Bulls, in 1998 the Jazz would have home-court advantage.
As it turns out, it didn’t matter — the Bulls won in six games, just as they had done the previous year. The only difference was that rather than Steve Kerr beating them with less than six seconds remaining in Game 6 at Chicago’s United Center, Michael Jordan beat them with less than six seconds to go in Game 6 at Delta Center in Salt Lake City.
It was the final shot of Jordan’s career — for a while, at least — and gave the Bulls their sixth NBA championship in eight seasons. The only team that Chicago beat twice in the Finals during that run was the hard-luck Jazz.
At 62-20, they were actually two games behind their franchise-record 64 victories in 1996-97, but in 1997-98, the Jazz tied the Bulls, but claimed the top overall seed for the playoffs on the strength of sweeping Chicago in the regular-season series. Utah took a 101-94 win on the road on Jan. 25, 1998, and then completed the sweep 10 days later with a 101-93 victory at home.
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The Jazz had to overcome some adversity to make a return to the Finals, playing without John Stockton for the season’s first 18 games after the future Hall of Famer underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee less than three weeks before the season opener.
If was the first time Stockton had missed a regular-season game since Feb. 8, 1990, and the Jazz were 11-7 with backup Howard Eisley running the show. Stockton ended up averaging 8.5 assists per game — his first time with less than double-digits since 1986-87 — and missed the All-Star Game for the first time since 1988.
Karl Malone had the Jazz covered, with 27.0 points, 10.3 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.2 steals in 37.4 minutes per game, even if he failed to repeat as NBA MVP (he finished second to Jordan).
In the playoffs, Utah started slowly, needing to come back from a 2-1 deficit to finish off the Houston Rockets in the first round before cruising back to the conference finals for the third straight year by beating the San Antonio Spurs in five games.
The Jazz opened the Western Conference Finals with a 112-77 pasting of the Los Angeles Lakers and rolled to a sweep and got an overtime win to open the Finals before the Bulls ran off three straight wins. Utah stayed alive with an 83-81 win at Chicago in Game 5 before the Jordan shot ended it in Game 6.
Are Utah fans still bitter? In January 2017 during a session with reporters, Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Matthew Durrant jokingly (maybe) “ruled” Jordan pushed off during a session with reporters.