‘The most profound culture clash in NBA history’

Michael Jordan had a quick response to a night in which he scored just 12 points in 26 minutes. “I was a fan tonight,” he said. Not of the Vancouver Grizzlies, but of his Chicago Bulls, the team that was on the way to setting the bar and the template for this season’s Golden State Warriors to try to top the Bulls’ record-setting 72-10 campaign.

And 20 years ago today, that’s all the Bulls needed from the greatest player of all-time. Unlike the 19 points he scored over the final six minutes earlier in the season at GM Place, M.J. instead got a chance to watch the rest of those storied Bulls: Scott Pippen, Toni Kukoc, Dennis Rodman, even the three-point shooting of now-Warriors head coach Steve Kerr.

In the end, with 30 points by Pippen, the Bulls won 104-84. Bryant ‘Big Country’ Reeves, who led Vancouver with 23 points, came together under the hoop with Rodman at one stage and after the pair embraced in a bear hug, The Province’s Lowell Ullrich called it “the most profound culture clash in NBA history.”

This was what the greatest team in NBA history, playing at home, was supposed to do to an expansion team.

The Grizzlies were 5-6 over their past 11 games and there was just one more game to play before reaching the official midway mark of their first season — and it would come against their expansion cousins. Record: 9-31

Next game: Jan. 25 at Toronto

Howard Tsumura’s six seasons as an NBA beat reporter began in 199596 as he hit the road with the expansion Vancouver Grizzlies. He chronicles each game of that season in our It Was 20 Years Ago Today series.