As “The Last Dance” documentary debuts Sunday night, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr will have a different perspective than most watching it: He’ll be seeing himself alongside Michael Jordan.
Kerr, who played for the Chicago Bulls for five seasons, was with the dynasty for its second three-peat.
Playing with Michael Jordan brought more pressure than Kerr had felt from anyone else.
“There was a pressure that came with it when you were his teammate I had never felt from anybody,” Kerr said in a conference call, according to USA TODAY.
“It was a great test. You had to step up and compete and perform every day.”
Kerr once felt what that was like in the most physical manners. Jordan punched him in the face during 1995 training camp.
Kerr recalled the incident to the Dan Patrick Show in 2012, which NBC wrote about:
“I needed to stand up and go back at him, I think I earned some respect. But we have a great relationship ever since… you gotta prove it and then once you prove it, you’re fine.”
That trust paid dividends of the highest order, with Kerr draining an NBA championship-clinching shot in Game 6 of the 1997 Finals.
Kerr joked about it at the parade, and the video made its rounds on Twitter the day “The Last Dance” release:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGTIq4yO-og]
This documentary, released Sunday night, is about the following season. That 1998 championship would be the final one of the dynasty, as Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Phil Jackson would all not be with the team the year after.
Kerr called this season “the most difficult of the three (championships)” because “we were running on fumes.”
The first two episodes of “The Last Dance” airs Sunday night on ESPN beginning at 6 p.m. Pacific time. A censored version will air at the same time on ESPN2.