Transcription
What's up basketball brain fans and members. Today I want to talk about the ability to control your emotions. We're going to watch a clip of a game between the Bulls and the Knicks. You've probably seen this if you watched any Jordan highlights, and there's a few things I want to point out. That's just awesome. Doesn't that fire you up to be that into the game?
Now, right there, do you see it? He'll play again, but he goes in, he gets hacked. He's been hacked the whole game. Makes him fired up, furious. You don't see that, guys, today. Maybe Kobe a few years ago, you know, but that sort of, that sort of intensity and energy. But what I'm going to point out here is he gets out of that and gets back in the zone pretty quickly. So that'll come back up again later, and I'll show it to you.
But I want you guys to watch just how, how much more physical this game is compared to what you see today in the NBA. Just how much you could hand check, how much you could body people, and how you had to keep your mental composure even though guys were all over you. You know, I see guys today that completely lose their mind when they're getting touched, when they're getting pulled on, they just can't handle it. But if you watch this footage, you just kind of, you kind of had to get used to it and play that way and not let it take you out of your game. Guys today aren't used to getting touched at all in any way, shape, or form.
So, you know, you can even see Paxon with the on Mark Jackson there. And look, they don't even call a foul on that first one. It was the second kind of pull that they called the foul on Jordan. So you could use your hands a lot to move the defenders around, and you could kind of, you know, get away with a lot more in the NBA. It wasn't as brutal as some guys say it is. It wasn't like people were bleeding and breaking things, but it was a lot more physical. When you're going up for a layup or a jump shot, a little bit of extra contact can make a big difference as to whether you make it.
I mean, watch this. Boom. Just to. I mean, he's just. You guys, if there's one thing I don't ever want to like influence your opinion about players at all, but nobody's touching Jordan in my opinion. And I think most people who are honest agree. LeBron's great, but there's a big gulf between him and Jordan. And being a fan of the mental game like I am, I just, how can I put anybody above MJ? He also, as I talked yesterday, I'm going to do another video just on Jordan's body movement and how beautiful he is as a person. In the comment section, they asked that. I did think it's a great idea. But just his jump shot was amazing and just awesome to watch. It was a thing of beauty. I, I mentioned the ballet yesterday and just how intense he is, how into the game he is when he plays. I mean, it's just he's so focused, he's so in tune. Game in, game out, never took a game off, never pouted, never did anything that you see some of these guys do today. And that's no disrespect to them, but I've never seen a player.
Watch this. Okay, I'm talking about how great he is, and he misses his dunk. I think he missed like two dunks in his career, and there's one of them. But he was so, you know, that's one of the few times his emotions may have gotten the better of him. Uh, it happened a few times. But I mean, he tried to kill the rim there. I mean, he tried to kill it, and, uh, he missed. But you'll see in a second, he, he gets some revenge. Uh, not just on the one where he jumps over the guys and is screaming, but he, he throws down a really hard dunk. But watch some of these shots, left hand, right hand, how he elevates. It's beautiful. It's just a beautiful thing to watch.
If you really want to see the fouls in this series, just YouTube 1992 Bulls vs. Knicks and watch the whole series. There's like an hour-long highlight, and you'll see all the contact. That's just beautiful. You know, there's very few guys in the NBA that can do that today. I mean, look at that. He almost made it. He should have made that because he's Jordan. You know, just amazing, amazing athlete. Somebody also asked, how can I be more fluid when I play? Watch Jordan if you want to be fluid. Watch Jordan, how he moved. That's the dunk I'm talking about. He tried to rip down the rim again. That was kind of a makeup for the miss. Look at how he just hammers this. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. I know I'm not getting a whole lot of content here. I'm just such a fan. But again, watch the. Look at that shot. Amazing. I mean, it's just amazing to watch.
And sometimes, you know, this is what I do. When I was playing, and even now, if I go to play, before I go play, I'll watch some of this Jordan stuff. You know, if I'm going to play in a league game or somebody calls me up to play pickup, I do this just to kind of get that rhythm back because I don't play that much anymore. It fires me up. When I was younger, and the Bulls would come on, you know, I couldn't make it through the game. I had my VHS recording, and I had to watch it later because I'd get about, you know, halfway through the first quarter, my sneakers are on, I was going to the basketball court, I had to play. I couldn't watch a game. I mean, just I had to get a lot older. Oh, now, okay. And before I could watch a full game. That pumps me up.
But watch this. This is the point I wanted to make earlier in the video. See how he's touching his lip now? Watch his face. Back in the zone. Out of the anger. Tiger Woods did that on the golf course too. You get furious, but then you see how he dials it back down. He just, he's there. He's furious. Look at, look at his face. Explosion of anger. Alpha male. Gunslinger. Right? Just like. Who does that nowadays? Who does that nowadays? Who has that mentality? But then you saw. That's a hard foul too. You got kind of jackhammered there. Now, I know this seems a little bit minor, but again, I want to. I watch how he regulates. He's still a little po'd. Po'd. And watch this. Snap. His face is. He's out of it. He, he's regulating his own emotion. And you guys have to do that. You're going to get. Look, basketball is an emotional game. You're not going to go out there and be a robot. Things are going to happen. You're going to get worked up, but you have to be able to regulate it. He gets the anger, and he dials it back down. He's at a level 10. He goes back down to like 7.5. Or if you want to think of a thermometer, Kobe always talked about this. You had to control the temperature. Like 65, 70, like a comfortable temperature. He went up to 90, 95 right there. Regulated himself back down to a cool temp. Look at his face. He's back in the zone. So he can make his free throw. Tempo slowed down. So he's regulating his emotion. He's still in the game. He went from anger back into a zone state. A zone state of mind.
The mastery of Michael Jordan was the ability to control his emotions very, very well. I mean, he wasn't always perfect with it, of course, but he was nearly perfect with it. Again, these highlights don't really do it justice because this game, this series wasn't very physical. If you want to see a difference between these two, the NBA now and the NBA then, go watch again. Google 1992 Bulls Knicks series. It's much more physical. But I just wanted to show you this. I, I like doing the video yesterday where I was just kind of talking over highlights. I hope you guys enjoy this one too. And you can see, you know, why Michael Jordan's great and there's that big gulf between him and everybody else. Forget the skills. I mean, you could just do it based on the psychology of the game. That killer instinct. Having that killer instinct without being completely selfish, which is hard to do. Kobe had that problem. Having the killer instinct without falling out, you know, not getting into trouble like Draymond Green. I think has a killer instinct in a lot of ways. Doesn't have the skill, obviously. But you see how hard it is to maintain your composure when you're ratcheted up like that mentally. Jordan was able to do that.
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