When Penny Hardaway made his debut in the league in 1993, Michael Jordan had already retired. After the first three-peat, the 1992-93 season, it was the end of an era. But once MJ returned, he had some epic battles with the Orlando franchise. The Magic icon would go on to face the 6x NBA Champion 21 times and suffered defeat in the majority of the contests. He recently recalled one such loss and that had so much drama, it deserved a movie of its own.

“The Bulls had a lead on us lading the game in game one and MJ brought the ball up like casually. And Nick just kind of stayed in the play, back-tipped it to me. I stole it, went down, gave it the hards, we dunked it, and then won the game on that play.”

Appearing on the Knuckleheads podcast, Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway recalled the 95 Eastern Conference Semifinals Game 1 against the Bulls. “P-ssed MJ off, because I think Nick (Anderson) said something in the media about MJ and 45 or whatever. And then the next time he came out, it was like some I don’t even know what to call this.”

In the second game, Bulls won and Michael Jordan scored double the points in the first game. “That man went to work on us bro. I’m talking about easy work. And we went to the locker room after the game like all right we got to regroup and we did in Chicago, but that was some movies. They should have made a movie out that d-mn game ’cause that boy popped out that 23 and didn’t have 45 on no more and went to work.”

When MJ returned, he had to wear 45, since his #23 was retired. In the first game, he scored only 19 points as the Magic would beat the Windy City team 94-91. As Penny Hardaway stated, the steal from Anderson helped them win the game. That ignited a fire inside His Airness and in the second game scored 38 points, to help the Bulls secure the game 2 104-94. But this was not it.

Apart from the on-court loss, Michael Jordan also suffered financial loss

The 6x NBA Finals MVP improved his shooting from 36% in Game 1 to 56% in Game 2. Throughout the series, Hardaway scored less than MJ, despite the latter coming back from retirement. Yet the Magic would go on to win the series, which once again angered the Bulls icon.

After the Game 1 debacle, Michael Jordan changed his fortune by wearing #23 again, even though the number was retired. The league commissioner at the time, David Stern, imposed a $25,000 fine for Game 2.

Since MJ continued wearing his old number, the league had no other choice apart from imposing a $100,000 fine. During the series, he also had to pay a $5000 fine for not following the Bulls’ colorway policy with his kicks.

So, the playoffs in his return season did not end as well as MJ would have thought. But it did provide him with enough fuel to win another three-peat.