Listen, here are the facts. In his final two years with the Bulls, Michael Jordan’s field goal percentage in the third quarter of the playoffs was drastically lower than any other quarter. But in both years, somehow, some way, he miraculous recovered in the 4th quarter of the playoffs to turn in his very best quarter. Look at the graphs below. Even if you re-split his quarter field goal percentage results by regular season (black) and playoffs (red), MJ was no finer than in the quarter that mattered the most in BOTH years:
In case you’re wondering, this is as far back as play-by-play data goes in the NBA so I haven’t been able to run this on any of Jordan’s prior years.
I’m not going to say the theory that MJ hustled his opponents in the 3rd before ending them in the 4th is the only explanation for this data, but let’s not forget who we’re talking about here. If there’s anything to be gleaned from the Last Dance documentary, it’s that Michael Jordan was as petty and diabolical as he was talented. And he also LOVED to gamble. Any decent degenerate gambler is at least familiar with the idea of hustling to come out on top in the end. The idea that this his 3rd quarter “struggles” were premeditated has to at least be on the table.
You might wonder why field goal percentage is the metric of choice here instead of points scored. If there’s such a thing as an NBA player having the “hot hand” – which it appears indeed there is – field goal percentage is where you’d see the effect. The problem with point totals is that points are relative to how often you play in a given quarter. Not often was Jordan even needed in the 4th quarter of the regular season and, typically, any time he was off the court during a game was pre-scheduled and repeated throughout the season.
Alternative Explanation
OK, you might say the data merely suggests Jordan got in the zone as each half of the game progressed and that in both years it was just by chance that the 3rd quarter of the playoffs was his worst quarter out of the eight splits and the 4th quarter playoffs was his best. Sure. Yeah, I guess that’s possible… Maybe the only defender who could slow MJ down in the playoffs was half-time. I might have bought this theory prior to watching The Last Dance reveal just how conniving this dude was, but now I think I’m 50-50 on the hustling theory.
But wait, isn’t getting in the zone when it matters most to be expected from any NBA great? Let’s have some fun and compare Jordan’s results to the only other possible candidate for GOAT: LeBron James. To make things apples to apples, I ran the same analysis on LeBron with his last two championship seasons as well. Here are his results with the Cavaliers (2016) and Heat (2013) respectively. You are all witnesses:
2016 with Cavaliers
2013 with Heat
Well the Bronnies out there really hate to see it. Talk about a withering flower. Come playoff time, LeBron packed his bags and called it a quits after the third quarter as he laid his worst split in the 4th quarter in both of his last two championship years. The polar opposite of the true GOAT.
All in all, I think the data is pretty clearly showing us that all the anecdotes we’ve been hearing in The Last Dance about Jordan feeling slighted for almost anything really did fuel his engines. And maybe those eerily low 3rd quarter figures were just a product of him not having anything to be pissed off about in that half yet. Maybe he didn’t misalign his scope ever so slightly in the 3rd only to prepare an ambush in the 4th. Maybe. But I don’t ever expect to find out the truth.
A true hustler, and the true GOAT, would never tell.
-El Jefe
