'God Disguised as Michael Jordan': When Everything Changed for His Airness

He was a scoring machine, even if he was considered to be a selfish one.Then April 20, 1986, happened.Jordan scored 63 points, still the highest-scoring playoff game ever, against the 1986 Boston Celtics, one of the NBA's greatest teams of all time. No one knew what he would eventually do, but this performance against this team piqued the NBA world's imagination."Young fans who want to understand who Jordan was prior to the championships and how he created the global brand that he created, they should watch the 63-point game, some of his games from '86, '87, '88, '89 and watch how his body moves," Jack Silverstein, Bulls newsletter writer and author of the upcoming book 6 Rings: The Bulls, The City, and the Dynasty that Changed the Game, told B/R.To fully appreciate the greatness of this performance, it's important to understand how good the 1985-86 Celtics were. He would come back to play the final 15 games under a minutes restriction—against suggestions from the team and team doctor.So after missing nearly his entire second season, on a Bulls team that limps into the playoffs, Jordan scores 49 points in a Game 1 loss. But Smith recalled a different tenor coming from the Celtics' locker room."I remember Jordan had scored 49 points in the first game of that series, and the Celtics players were saying, 'He hasn't played all season, he's got fresh legs,' and that's why he was able to do that against them. He earned Bird's praise.As the points stacked up—23 at halftime, 36 after three quarters—the more it became apparent this game would go down as an all-time great.Without Scottie Pippen on the team (he arrived in 1987), Jordan was playing more de facto point guard than ever. Albeck figured it was better to put the ball in Jordan's hands and let him go to work from the get-go, so the Bulls were running more pick-and-rolls than was commonplace in this era.Jordan's famous shot on Bird where he dribbled between his legs three times and elevated for a jumper is the perfect example—a team full of defensive geniuses didn't have a chance.This game was full of drama.