"He just came down and hit the next 5 shots in a row" - Magic Johnson on the trash talk moment that pushed Jordan to go all out in famous Dream Team practice

Yahoo

2 days ago

"He just came down and hit the next 5 shots in a row" - Magic Johnson on the trash talk moment that pushed Jordan to go all out in famous Dream Team practice originally appeared on Basketball Network.
Various stories have been told of that legendary scrimmage in Monte Carlo, the kind of mythic run that sits somewhere between lore and history in the collective memory of basketball fans. It wasn't televised, and there were no fans, just the best players on Earth pushing each other past the edge of greatness inside a gym overseas in the summer of 1992.
Advertisement
And yet, despite the absence of cameras, that practice became one of the most documented off-record games the sport has ever known.
Jordan's fire
From the lens of Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, simple trash talk ignited something and made the scrimmage highly competitive.
"One thing I did that got Michael Jordan going is we were up about 10 points, and I went over and said, 'Michael, if you don't turn into Air Jordan, we gonna blow you out,'" Johnson said. "What did I say that for?… He just came down and hit the next five shots in a row, and it was amazing."
The gravity of that moment didn't exist in isolation. It was a byproduct of a genius move from head coach Chuck Daly, who sensed something missing from the Dream Team's early tune-ups. The players were already dominating their Olympic warm-up opponents.
Advertisement
The solution was to create internal competition. Daly drew a line: East vs. West. And the atmosphere in the Monte Carlo gym shifted. The teams were stacked with Hall of Famers: Johnson and the superstars from the West, and Michael Jordan and the superstars from the East.
There were no fans in the stands, but it might as well have been Game 7 of the Finals in there. This was about supremacy — within the squad, within the league, within the era. Jordan had a personal edge walking into the scrimmage, and it wasn't just Johnson.
It hadn't been long since the 1992 NBA Finals, where the Chicago Bulls faced Clyde Drexler and the Portland Trail Blazers. Much had been made of Drexler as Jordan's equal; even Johnson had publicly praised the matchup beforehand. Jordan responded with a 35-point first half in Game 1, including six 3-pointers, then a record. That wasn't forgotten.
So there was residue when Drexler lined up opposite Jordan in the Dream Team's intrasquad game. This was just one of the number of personal rivalries on show in that scrimmage.
Taking over
Before the Olympics and even before the scrimmage tipped, Jordan had approached Johnson alongside Larry Bird — the twin pillars of the NBA throughout the 1980s — and told them that there was a new sheriff in town and wanted to walk the talk.
Advertisement
"I got a chance to really see Air Jordan," Johnson said. Because once that trash talk hit him, Jordan erupted.
He came with precision executions, rising against the hand, backed by a will that had decided not to be mocked. By the end of the run, Jordan had turned a 10-point deficit into a lead. He had orchestrated stops, called out coverages, and even demanded who he would guard.
The gym fell silent in those stretches, not from awe but from sheer focus. Players like Charles Barkley would later say it was the best basketball they'd ever been part of. The East vs West divide had faded. It was now Jordan vs everyone, and he was winning.
Coach Daly let it all happen without interruption. He didn't blow the whistle. He didn't stop the run. Because even he knew something rare was unfolding. That 1992 practice became a time capsule of the game's transition and the future dominance of the Dream Team.
Advertisement
Related: Magic Johnson says Dream Team started his friendship with Michael Jordan: "I could throw it anywhere, he was going to go get it and dunk it"
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 8, 2025, where it first appeared.