Preface
Jordan took the Bulls to become the top of the NBA in the 90s, two triple championships are extremely dazzling, in an era of shining stars, Jordan's star overshadowed most of the stars, after he reached the end of his career, the league also looked for a new "face star", and therefore there are many "Jordan successors", and Jordan said in an interview that he has a candidate in mind, that is, "Penny" Hardaway.
In the course of his career, Jordan and "Penny" Hardaway have played against each other a total of 21 times, what kind of performance have they had, and what are the statistics? Let's take a look!
The first meeting made Jordan suffer defeat
In the second season of the NBA, "Penny" Hardaway was selected for the NBA All-Star team for a while, and was selected as an All-Star, ranking first among all guards in terms of votes.
In the 1994-95 season, as a sophomore player in the NBA, Hardaway averaged 20.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, 7.2 assists and 1.7 steals per game, helping the Magic become one of the most gorgeous offensive teams in the league, and also averaged the league's most 110.9 points per game, and his offensive efficiency of 115.1 also led the league.
And it was in the 1994-95 season that Hardaway had the opportunity to compete with Jordan, but in the face of this senior, Hardaway was not afraid of the stage, and in the latter part of the regular season, in a game between the Magic and the Bulls, Jordan and the young man who was called "Jordan's successor" by fans had a head-to-head conversation.
Hardaway got 22 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists and 1 block, 7 of 15 shots, and helped the team limit Jordan to 7 of 23 shots, however, Jordan still used his strong breakthrough ability to fight a lot of free throw opportunities, and finally scored 21 points in the game, grabbed 4 rebounds and sent 8 assists, and scored 5 steals and 2 blocks, but it became an empty cut, and Hardaway sent him a loss against Jordan for the first time in his career.
And then there is the main event, Jordan's comeback can lead the team to win the championship, because the magic of Hardaway in the backcourt is in vain.
It allowed Jordan to suffer the only round of playoff losses since his first comeback
In the 1995 playoffs, the Magic went out as the leader of the East in the regular season, and the Celtics did not spend much effort in the first round.
On the Bulls' side, Jordan averaged 32.3 points per game to lead the Bulls over the Hornets led by Mourning and Larry Johnson, and solved the opponent in 4 games, and will compete with the Magic in the second round, which is a round of head-to-head confrontation between veteran stars and rising stars.
In the series with the Magic, Jordan put on other people's sneakers for the first time after owning his signature shoes, wearing the Air Flight one of which Hardaway was the main spokesperson, which can also be said to express his optimism about Hardaway, Hardaway may have thought, "That's Jordan, he plays in my endorsement shoes!" but in the game, he didn't have any energy.
In the first game of the series, Hardaway scored 16 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists, 5 steals and 1 block, and at the same time helped the Magic prevent Jordan from scoring only 19 points in the game, and there were 8 turnovers, and the Magic won 94-91 against the Bulls to win the opener. After that, Jordan quickly rebounded and played an unstoppable momentum in the game, with 38 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals and 4 blocks in G2 and G3 and 40 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists respectively.
However, after the first three games of the series, the Bulls still fell behind with a total score of 1-2, Hardaway's tandem made the Magic's offense often play smoothly, Jordan's excellent G2 and G3, Hardaway also had 20 points, 2 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 steal and 1 block, 19 points, 6 rebounds and 8 assists respectively.
G4, Jordan got 26 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 steals for the Bulls to tie the series to a 2-2 draw, G5 will be the "Battle of King Mountain", Jordan's individual scoring performance is still eye-catching, Hardaway used assists to revitalize the team, Jordan scored the highest 39 points of the two teams, Hardaway scored 19 points and sent 11 assists, Magic scored 4 double-doubles, and finally defeated the Bulls 103-95 to win G5.
G6 went to Chicago, the Magic was not soft, ended the series at the Bulls' home court, Hardaway got 21 points, 2 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals and 1 block to fill the data column, Jordan blasted 24 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, 4 steals and 4 blocks The data failed to stop the momentum of the Magic, the Bulls lost and were eliminated by the Magic with a total score of 2-4, and the loss of this series also became the only round of the series that Jordan lost after his comeback in 1995.
This young man can play back and forth with Jordan
After helping the Magic defeat the Bulls led by Jordan in 1995, Hardaway's Magic went all the way forward and reached the Finals, which was the first and only Finals experience in the history of the Magic, and then in the 1995-96 season, Hardaway's average data per game came to 21.7 points, 4.3 rebounds, 7.1 assists and 2 steals, helping the Magic to play the best regular season record in team history 60-22.
In the 1995-96 regular season, he represented the Magic for the first time in the game against the Bulls led by Jordan, Hardaway slashed 36 points, 5 rebounds, 4 steals and 2 blocks to help the Magic defeat the Bulls 94-88, Jordan 23 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals still lost. Hardaway and Jordan played back and forth on behalf of the Magic and the Bulls in the game, but unfortunately, after 1996, Hardaway was entangled in injuries, and his competitiveness was greatly affected by injuries.
In the 1997-98 regular season, Hardaway only played 19 games due to injury, and only once faced Jordan in the game, which was also the highlight of his last career against Jordan, with 20 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 steal.
After that, Jordan left the NBA for three years and returned to the Wizards, at this time Hardaway has gone to the Suns, almost no longer at the peak, although much younger than Jordan, but can no longer play a comparable performance in the game, one of which was also bombarded by Jordan 41 points, Hardaway scored 10 points, and the Suns lost to the Wizards 102-112, which is really embarrassing.
In 21 career encounters, Hardaway led the team to win Jordan's team 7 times, averaging 20.7 points, 3.5 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.6 steals per game, while Jordan averaged 28.4 points, 6.4 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 2.3 steals and 1 block per game.