The “Double-Nickel” Game – Michael Jordan’s Come Back at MSG

When you take 18 months off to play baseball, you can’t just assume that you have the overall shape to just come in and shoot hoops do you? Don’t tell that to Michael Jordan. With the NBA season half-way passed, the only message that mattered was “I’m Back.”  This was the message Michael Jordan relayed when he decided to drop the glove and bat and return to the hardwood.

The date was March 28, 1995, just 5 games into the mid-season of his comeback. Michael Jordan felt more at home at the Garden then he did at the new United Center. There’s no place like home away from home for the GOAT to showcase what he still had plenty left in the tank. The 32-year-old wasn’t going to let the New York Knicks and the crowd at the world’s most famous arena intimidate him. He not only showed the crowd and the opposing players his foray of drives and moves, but he often showed his new-found fade-away that was pretty much unstoppable. The Knicks pretty much threw everything at Michael Jordan (Charles Oakley, John Starks, Patrick Ewing, the late Anthony Mason, Hubert Davis, Derek Harper, the ball boy) but the kitchen sink, as the announcers would say. But he still went on to make 21 of 38 field goal attempts, 3 three-pointers, 10 out of 11 free throws, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 steal on his way to 55 points, or what we call the “double-nickel”; it was the stat line of legends.