Tim Duncan, who was well-known for his carefree attitude, was capable of dishing out blows on both sides of the court. Timmy’s rookie season in 1997 coincided with Michael Jordan‘s sixth championship campaign at the time of his draft selection. This brought up an interesting query: How would the Bulls under Michael Jordan have performed against Duncan and his 1999 championship squad?
Mark Jackson brought up Avery Johnson’s remarks regarding the 1999 Spurs team dominating the Bulls in a seven-game series in his official Come and Talk 2 With Me program. The 1999 winner persisted in his declaration even though he couldn’t remember when he made it.
Avery Johnson gives his reason why Michael Jordan would have struggled against Tim Duncan
He acknowledged that the combination of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen was too much to handle, but he still trusted his Spurs to win.
Johnson disclosed their curiosity in the specific iteration of the Bulls team they would face, given their victories spanning from 1991–1993 to 1996–1998. The former guard for the Spurs admitted that it was almost hard to guard Jordan. Still, he was convinced that Duncan would always mount a strong defense against the Spurs, no matter which Bulls championship team faced them. He said,
“At the end of the day, Michael is Michael, Scottie is Scottie but then we start to get to the other end. We start to get to the rest of it and then is it the first Bulls or the second Bulls team? Really and truely, they would have had no answer for Timmy D, who was gonna guard T? We can’t guard Michael, nobody in the centuries of basketball could of basketball can guard Michael…”
Johnson acknowledged that he enjoyed daydreaming about the 1999 Spurs defeating the Jordan-led Bulls, though he didn’t go into great detail.
