Jordan Scores 3000.

Jordan Scores 3000. During his third season with the Chicago Bulls, basketball player Michael Jordan drove to the basket again and again, scoring 50 or more points in eight games. By the spring of 1987, the seemingly unstoppable Jordan had surpassed the 3000-point mark. . Jordan Scores 3000 Before the 1986-1987 basketball season, Michael Jordan wasn't an unknown quantity. He had been a high-profile player in college, had won an Olympic gold medal, and had registered a tremendous first season as a professional. He even had a line of shoes named after him. But because he missed much of his second season with a foot injury, Jordan wasn't fully in the sporting public's eye. He reminded fans of his ability when he scored a playoff-record 63 points at the end of his second season, but at the start of the 1986-1987 campaign--his third season--Jordan was far from being the most recognizable player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). That spot was held jointly by Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Larry Bird, both in the prime of their fine careers. Then Jordan broke out, registering the most explosive basketball season by anyone since Wilt Chamberlain more than two decades earlier. By doing so with a seemingly endless repertoire of tongue-wagging, gravity-defying moves, Jordan became the player everyone wanted to see. Julius Erving, the acrobatic and popular player from the Philadelphia 76ers, had his farewell season in 1986-1987, further opening the door for Jordan, whose mid-air theatrics and natural charisma attracted a new legion of fans to basketball. Jordan opened the 1986-1987 season by scorching the New York Knicks for 50 points, setting a record in Madison Square Garden for points scored by an opposing player. In the next game he registered 41 against the Cleveland Cavaliers. In November and December he averaged more than 40 points in nine consecutive games. He torched the New Jersey Nets for 58 points on February 26 and the Detroit Pistons for 63 points on March 4. On April 13 Jordan scored 50 points against the Milwaukee Bucks. Three days later he poured in 61 points against the Atlanta Hawks, including a league-record 23 points in a row. Overall he registered more than 30 points in 67 of 82 games and scored 50 or more points in 8 games. Jordan was virtually unstoppable by any one player. "When people say I did a good job on Michael, or that so-and-so did the job, that's wrong," said Michael Cooper of the Los Angeles Lakers, who won the league's defensive player of the year award for 1986-1987. "There's no way I can stop him. I need the whole team. As soon as he touches the ball, he electrifies the intensity inside you. The alarm goes off because you don't know what he's going to do. He goes right, left, over you, around, and under you. He twists, he turns. And you know he's going to get the shot off. You just don't know when and how. That's the most devastating thing psychologically to a defender." "If you guarded him with one person straight up every night, he'd average 60," said Jerry Reynolds, an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings. Added Artis Gilmore of the San Antonio Spurs, "The name of the game is to force a player to do the one thing he can't do real well. But as far as I can tell, Jordan doesn't have that one thing." Jordan used his tremendous leaping ability and mid-air agility to simply drive to the bucket and create a shot. "I go up for a normal shot, but after that I don't have any plans," Jordan said. "I never practice those moves. I don't know how I do them. It's amazing." Jordan finished the 1986-1987 season with 3041 points, an average of 37.1 points per game. That was the highest NBA scoring average since Wilt Chamberlain's 44.8 points per game in 1962-1963 and the fifth best all-time scoring average. (As of 1997 Chamberlain owned the four highest scoring averages.) It was the first of seven consecutive seasons in which Jordan was the league's top scorer. That season he won the league's most valuable player (MVP) award, played in the All-Star Game, won the slam-dunk competition, and was named to the All-NBA Team. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.