1991-92 NBA Finals

Result

Games

Finals MVP

Michael Jordan. Jordan was named Finals MVP for the second consecutive year after averaging 35.8 points across the series, highlighted by his record-setting 35-point first half in Game 1.

Series context

The 1991-92 Finals brought together the defending champion Chicago Bulls and a Portland Trail Blazers team returning to the championship stage two years after their 1990 loss to Detroit. Chicago had followed up its breakthrough title with an even more dominant 67-15 regular season, and Michael Jordan won his second consecutive league MVP award while averaging 30.1 points per game. Portland, led by Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey, and Buck Williams, swept the Lakers in the first round on its way back to the Finals, setting up a series the media eagerly promoted as a showdown between Jordan and Drexler, a rivalry framed in some corners as a successor to the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird matchups of the previous decade. Jordan answered any debate emphatically in Game 1, scoring a Finals-record 35 points in the first half alone, including six three-pointers, and capping the outburst with a memorable shrug toward the broadcast table; Chicago won going away, 122-89. Portland responded in Game 2, escaping with a 115-104 overtime win to even the series. Chicago reasserted control in Game 3, holding Portland to a franchise-playoff-low point total in a 94-84 win. The series continued to swing over the next two games as Portland fought to stay alive, but Chicago maintained the edge overall. The title was decided in Game 6 in Chicago, in a game that turned into one of the most memorable comebacks in Finals history: Portland built a large fourth-quarter lead, seemingly on the verge of forcing a Game 7, before the Bulls' bench, led by Bobby Hansen, Stacey King, and B.J. Armstrong, sparked a furious rally that erased the deficit and delivered a 97-93 victory and Chicago's second consecutive championship. Jordan's back-to-back Finals MVP awards affirmed Chicago's status as the league's new dominant power, while Portland's loss, its second Finals defeat in three years, left the Trail Blazers' championship window closed for good, as the franchise would not return to the Finals again in that era. Chicago's 67-15 regular season, still among the best in league history at the time, carried into a playoff run in which the Bulls swept Miami in the first round, needed seven games to beat a determined Knicks team in the second round, and beat Cleveland 4-2 in the Eastern Conference finals. Portland, after sweeping the Lakers, beat Phoenix in five games in the second round and Utah in six in the Western Conference finals to reach its second Finals in three seasons. Game 2 in Chicago was notable in its own right: Portland's 115-104 overtime win, sealed after Clyde Drexler fouled out late in regulation, stood as the Bulls' worst home defeat in Finals history to that point. NBC, in just its second year broadcasting the Finals after taking over from CBS, carried the series with Marv Albert, Mike Fratello, and Magic Johnson on the call.

Sources

• Wikipedia - 1992 NBA Finals
• Basketball-Reference - 1992 NBA Finals