Chicago Bulls from ’98 said Indiana Pacers were hardest battle

One Chicago Bulls player from the 1998 team said that the Indiana Pacers gave the Bulls the toughest battle in that title-winning season

The Indiana Pacers have no NBA titles to show for their history in the league. The only championship banners they own come from their time in the ABA.

Though they don’t have the ultimate accomplishment to show for it, their success in the late 90s and early 2000s was impressive. Off the back of stellar Reggie Miller-led teams, the Pacers were competitive deep in the playoffs, going to the Eastern Conference Finals or deeper in three straight seasons from 1998 to 2000.

The 1998 Eastern Conference Finals will soon come to relevance again by way of the ESPN docuseries The Last Dance which documents Michael Jordan‘s final season with the Chicago Bulls in which the Bulls had to first make it past the Pacers to win the title.

That Pacers team, led by Miller, had Mark Jackson, Fred Hoiberg, Chris Mullin, Rik Smits, Jalen Rose, and Dale Davis. They were a great team, going 58-24 in the regular season. They lost just one game in the opening round and one game in the second round.

Speaking to Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, Mark Jackson gave plenty of detail on the Pacers perspective of the Eastern Conference Finals in 1998.

Jackson said that one of his college teammates from the Bulls even admitted the Pacers were the toughest battle for the Bulls in that year, where they were the eventual NBA champions.

"“We were versatile, we were loaded, we were deep. We had great confidence, we had great leadership and we had a coach that believed in us and allowed us to stay true to who we were. I had a college teammate, Bill Wennington, playing for that Bulls team, and later on he told me that was the hardest battle they had during their run. Think about it. It’s a seven-game series and we’re up three on the road with just over six minutes to go.”"

It should be no surprise. The Pacers took the Bulls to 7 games in the Eastern Conference Finals that year, something Jordan’s Bulls would only face in a playoff series one other time (against the Detroit Pistons in the ECF in 1990).

Notably, opening rounds were best of five in these years, so Jordan had faced more win-or-go-home situations outside of these two instances.

Still, the Pacers were one of the only teams to take the Bulls to their wit’s end, pushing them into must-win situations deep in the playoffs.

Candidly, Jackson revealed that the Pacers straight up didn’t fear the Bulls, and legitimately believed they were going to knock off Jordan and his team in what figured to be his final year with the team.

"“We respected Chicago, but we did not fear them,” Jackson said. “That’s because we had success against them. Even in their 72-win season, when the Bulls only lost 10 games, we beat them twice. We had tremendous confidence and belief that we could beat them.”"

Indiana fell early in the series, losing the first two games, but would rattle off two straight wins of their own thereafter. The series wrapped in Chicago, Indiana losing by five points.

Jackson will be breaking down that game on Detail for ESPN+ on Sunday.