Via NBA.com:
Don’t panic, you didn’t nod off and miss this Sunday night. It must have wound up on the cutting room floor, but it’s remembered by fans of the Timberwolves as the first time their team beat Jordan’s Bulls after an 0-16 start to the series (Jordan scorched the Wolves for 45 points at the Metrodome in Minnesota’s first-ever home game in November 1989).
But Minnesota’s 99-95 victory on Dec. 30, 1997 deserves an asterisk of epic proportions, because of the crank phone call made to the Target Center switchboard claiming Jordan’s mother Deloris had been hospitalized.
The caller, saying he was Jordan’s brother Larry, left the message in the first half. Jordan was informed at halftime and missed the first 3:14 of the third quarter before he was able to verify that his mother was fine and his brother had not called.
The hoax rattled Jordan, and he missed all five of his shots in the third. Minnesota outscored the Bulls 52-39 in the second half as Kevin Garnett, Stephon Marbury and Tom Gugliotta combined for 66 points.
“It was one of those things that you don’t want to just let it fall by the wayside. Anything can happen,” said Jordan, whose father James had been slain in 1993.
That’s one way to rattle Jordan.
He was so super close with his parents, that’s probably the only thing you can say to get him off his game.
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