Fred Hoiberg remembers first time guarding Michael Jordan

In honor of the docuseries "The Last Dance" taking over the sports world every Sunday night on ESPN, Nebraska men's basketball coach recalled his favorite Michael Jordan story while he was in the NBA. 

In honor of the docuseries “The Last Dance” taking over the sports world every Sunday night on ESPN, Nebraska men’s basketball coach recalled his favorite Michael Jordan story while he was in the NBA.

Hoiberg remembers the time he was with the Indiana Pacers and he guarded MJ for the first time. And he remembers it quite vividly.

“You know, we’re playing in the United Center, you know it’s just a crazy atmosphere,” Hoiberg said during a teleconference earlier in April. “You know I go in there and it’s my first experience. I walk to the scorers table the exact same time as Michael Jordan. And Mark Jackson, our point guard, says to me, ‘You want me to guard MJ.’ I say, ‘(Expletive) yeah I want you to guard MJ.’ So I guarded Steve Kerr, which was good for me. We’re about the same speed.

“So I had a good first half. I actually had a couple dunks. Had a good half. Didn’t know I was going to play again. Very good third quarter, Jordan and Reggie Miller were talking smack to each other. I got put back in, beginning of the fourth. We were up by eight with about three minutes left and Phil Jackson put his starters back in the game. I look over at our bench thinking Larry Brown might do it, but all our starters had ice on their knees. So now I get to guard Jordan.

“So it was a crazy finish. We call timeout, Larry Brown draws up a great play. Antonio Davis misses a point-blank layup with about 18 seconds left. Michael Jordan goes up and rebounds the ball with one hand. He dribbles past half court and gets everybody out of the way. And I’m guarding him. And obviously, I’d seen him a billion times make that game winning shot. Once he did that, he cleared everybody out. We ran a double team at him, he split the double team and shot it at the elbow. I went up as high as I possibly could, which wasn’t very high. I tried to contest his shot and his ball went in and out. I went up and got the rebound and threw a full court pass and Eddie Johnson actually caught the ball and got fouled at the buzzer. He ended up making two of his three free throws and we ended up beating the Bulls.

“That was my first opportunity really guarding the ‘Greatest ever,’ and I guess I shut him down on a game-winning shot. ”