Each NBA team’s most clutch player of all-time
Most clutch player in Chicago Bulls history: Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan’s aura of excellence is unchallenged, one of the very few capable of laying claim to greatest of all time. At his peak, he may have been the league’s best offensive player and its best perimeter defender. He won five MVPs and six titles as he dominated the 1990s.
When the clock ticked towards zero and the Chicago Bulls needed a bucket, Jordan seemed to always come through. While that wasn’t actually true — Jordan missed some clutch shots, too — the brilliance of his clutch play has burned away the chaff of common memory. While not technically true, when Jordan had the ball at the end of the game with a chance to win — the Bulls won.
Jordan more than any other player has a deep reservoir of clutch plays, many coming in the postseason or even the NBA Finals. While defensively he turned up the heat late in games as well, it was the memorable shots that are replayed in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Jordan’s final shot with the Chicago Bulls was a game-winning jumper with 5 seconds left to clinch the NBA title in the 1998 Finals…and it’s only the second-best clutch shot of his career.
Key Moment: In 1989 Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls were still defining themselves as a team, adding the pieces around Jordan and Pippen that would propel this team to its dynastic greatness in the 1990s. In the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, they faced the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the series went to the deciding Game 5.
With three seconds on the clock, the Bulls are down one, ready to inbound. The Cavaliers attempt to deny Jordan the ball but he makes a series of cuts, receiving the ball beyond the arc and driving to the top of the key. He rises up to shoot, but Cavaliers defender Craig Ehlo is right in his face.
Jordan somehow hangs in the air, allowing Ehlo’s momentum to carry him past, before drilling the jumper. The Bulls win, 101-100, and advance to the second round. It was a watershed moment for Jordan, who was on the precipice of his dominant run through the 1990s.