Michael Jordan completed the Chicago Bulls' first three-peat on June 20, 1993, and took the Finals MVP award for the third year running. The title was sealed on the road, not at home. It capped roughly 20 months of near-constant basketball.
Sealed in Phoenix, not in Chicago
Game 6 was played in Phoenix's America West Arena. The Bulls led the series 3-2 and wanted to close it out rather than risk a seventh game. They carried an 87-79 edge into the final quarter, then went scoreless for the first 6:09.
Phoenix pulled ahead 98-94 with 2:23 left. Jordan grabbed a rebound, went coast-to-coast, and scored all nine of Chicago's points in the quarter, cutting the gap to two. With 3.9 seconds remaining, John Paxson buried the Bulls' Finals-record 10th three-pointer for a 99-98 lead, and Horace Grant blocked Kevin Johnson at the buzzer.
Three straight titles, a Finals average that still stands
Jordan was a unanimous choice for his third Finals MVP. He scored 40 or more points in four straight games, including 55 in Game 4, and averaged 41 points across the series — the highest in Finals history. He joined Jerry West and Rick Barry as one of only three players to score 30 or more in every game of a Finals.
No team had won three in a row since the Boston Celtics' dynasty ended in 1966, 27 years earlier. Only the Minneapolis Lakers had done it before that. Years later Jordan would complete a second three-peat and finish 6-0 in the Finals with six Finals MVP awards.
"This is the hardest thing that I've done in basketball," Jordan told reporters afterwards.
The first three-peat set the shape of everything that followed. The second was still to come.
