Before the 1995-96 season, the incredible 69-13 win-loss mark of the Los Angeles Lakers during the 1971-72 regular season, seems pretty
safe in its lofty place as the best all-time NBA winning record in a single
season. Until the Chicago Bulls did the unthinkable. The Bulls, led by the
G.O.A.T. himself, Michael Jordan and his co-hall-of-famer and favorite sidekick
Scottie Pippen, put on an amazing show in the 1995-96 season as the Windy City
outfit posted a 72-10 record. The Bulls pulled off the trick with incredible
winning streaks of five (November 3-11/95), five (November 15-24/95), thirteen
(November 27-December 23/95), eighteen (December 29/95-February 2/96), seven
(February 7-22/96), six (February 25-March 7/96), six (March 13-21/96), six (March
28-April 7/96) and five (April 11-18/96). They finally nailed down win number
72 with a 103-93 win over the Washington Bullets (now Wizards) on April 21,
1996. Coach Phil Jackson’s charges lost only one back-to-back games throughout
that season and that was on February 4 and 6, 1996, when the Bulls went down
against the Denver Nuggets (99-105) and Phoenix Suns (96-106), respectively.
The Bulls went on to win their fourth NBA championship that year, whipping the
Seattle Supersonics (now Oklahoma City Thunder) in six games. Jordan
says mental toughness was the key as they have to endure the pressure to win night
in and night out during that magical season, as quoted in the book, “Raging
Bulls, NBA Champs (Commemorative Edition).”
“You don’t know about the pressure we have to deal with
every night to play the game of basketball. As much as you might say we have
too many expansion teams and the league is diluted, you can say there’s a lot
of distractions around now. The way we look at it is that we went out and put
forth the effort and got 70 wins.”
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