Last Dance Debate: Craig Ehlo, Mark Price don’t remember Ron Harper asking to guard Michael Jordan before The Shot, ‘shocked’ by Harper’s comments
Updated Apr 30, 11:56 AM; Posted Apr 29, 2:58 PM
Michael Jordan reacts after hitting the game winning basket over Cleveland's Craig Ehlo in Game 5 of the NBA playoffs May 7, 1989.The Plain Dealer
By Chris Fedor, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Craig Ehlo is back in the spotlight.
It happened a little earlier than usual this year. Typically, Ehlo’s phone buzzes with direct messages, phone calls, texts and e-mails around May 7 -- the anniversary of The Shot -- as various news outlets want him to recall that heartbreaking moment in Cavaliers history, one that Ehlo says changed the course of both franchises forever.
At one point, shortly after Cleveland’s playoff loss to the Chicago Bulls in 1989, it was hard on him. His father offered advice, telling him to cherish the opportunity instead of focusing solely on the result.
Ehlo replayed that possession in his mind, thinking about what he could’ve -- or should’ve -- done differently, now able to admit a few fundamental mistakes.
One thing Ehlo doesn’t remember: Ron Harper’s version, which he relayed in Episode 3 of “The Last Dance” -- a hit ESPN documentary that chronicles the Chicago Bulls’ quest for a sixth NBA championship in 1998.
“I never said I was a Jordan stopper like Gerald Wilkins or anything,” Ehlo said during an extensive call with cleveland.com this week. “But back then Harp and me were on the court at the same time and he was our big offensive threat. So, when I came in it was a no-brainer that I would guard Jordan so Harp could rest on defense and play on offense.
“Harp had never really talked about defense or guarding people. He wasn’t a bad defender, I will give him that much, but I think those years with the Bulls where he got those championships, he was definitely third or fourth fiddle, so all of a sudden he becomes this lockdown defender, apparently. I don’t really remember him during our time wanting to play defense that much. He kind of shocked me with those comments, saying he wanted to guard Michael.”
On Sunday night, Harper openly questioned coach Lenny Wilkens’ polarizing decision to use Ehlo as the primary defender on the final play -- a clip that has since gone viral.
Harper’s son even sent out a tweet while the rest of the basketball world discussed whether Harper would have had a better chance against Jordan, possibly rewriting history.
“We’re up by one and I said, ‘Coach I got MJ,’" Harper explained. “Coach tells me, ‘I’m going to put Ehlo on MJ.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, OK, whatever. F--- this bulls---.’”
While Ehlo didn’t hear from Harper after that blast or any of his other teammates, he did think about what their reaction would have been.
“Hot Rod (Williams) might have said something to Harp because Hot Rod didn’t hold anything back. If he heard it up in heaven he might be saying something to him,” Ehlo said. “I can hear Larry (Nance) saying, ‘That’s Harp.’ Brad kind of shrugging it off. And Mark was always the quiet assassin, so everybody all saw it and heard it and I think they were all shocked, kind of like my reaction was.”
“We definitely knew who wanted to take the last shot”
It’s been 30 years since that agonizing night inside Richfield Coliseum and players can still recall every intricate detail. Ehlo can diagram the play from beginning to end.
“Everybody was on the baseline. (Scottie) Pippen was in the nearest corner. (Bill) Cartwright was on the other side. (Craig) Hodges was in the very far corner. And (Brad) Sellers was throwing it in -- he wasn’t going to be a threat,” Ehlo said with a chuckle. “Nothing was really said in the first timeout except who was going to get the ball. And we definitely knew who wanted to take the last shot.
“When we decided to double team, I’m kind of standing up, not so much in a defensive stance. I got just a little lax knowing someone was going to be in front of him,” Ehlo said. “When he lost Larry with the juke to mid court and caught the ball on the wing, I was not in a defensive slide, which fundamentally you’re taught from Day 1. By the time I caught up to him, he was already going back to the free-throw line. I was running, in catch-up mode. And then when he stops, he stops on a dime and goes straight up, and I’m like ET on his bike flying by the moon.
“I jumped. But my momentum was going east-west and he was going north-south, straight up, and all he did was hang in the air there, which is what he’s known for, and let me go by. I got my hand up and that’s what everybody talks about, how good the defense was, but if I would have been sliding, if I could have stopped and gone straight up with him, he would have still out-jumped me there but I probably wouldn’t have flown by and could have distracted him more.”
Ehlo, who used the pain of that failure as fuel going into the following summer, even spent time pondering a different outcome had head coach Lenny Wilkens stuck with old-school principles and kept Nance in front of inbounder Sellers while Ehlo and Harper sandwiched Jordan. That would’ve made the entry pass more difficult, especially because the Bulls didn’t have any timeouts.
Instead, Wilkens took Nance off the ball, asking him to front Jordan.
“The breakdown came from when he faked me to half court and if I could have just let him go and get the ball there, we probably would have been fine,” Nance admitted years later, during a sit-down alongside Ehlo, Wilkens, Mark Price and Brad Daugherty. “But that’s not what happened. He made a big, big shot. (Ehlo) took the blame for it every year.”
“That’s what I love about my teammates. Larry is such a great person and great teammate. It doesn’t surprise me that Larry would say something like that,” Price told cleveland.com Tuesday morning. “It was always about team with us. It wasn’t about the individual. We all look back on what we could have done different. You always do that, no matter what game you play or what game you lose, but that’s what I love about my teammates and those guys. We were real, we cared about each other, we weren’t going to leave somebody on an island, we were all in it together. You win together and you lose together. It’s not one person’s fault if you lose a game, it’s all of our fault.”
Price has been watching the documentary as well. Sometimes he watches live. Other times he tapes and goes back later. He joked about the worst episode being in the past now, able to enjoy the rest of the series. His reaction to Harper’s comments?
“That was pretty interesting,” Price said. “That caught me a little off guard. I didn’t know Ron had such strong feelings about that because I didn’t really remember all that. Maybe it’s because we were in the midst of everything or maybe that was something where Ron had talked to Lenny on the side or before. I didn’t ever really recall that situation being a big deal at the time when the game was going on. I just remember Lenny kind of telling us what we were going to do and then going out and trying to do it. Obviously it’s something that had bothered Ron.
“Whoever (Lenny) picked, it wasn’t really a major factor as far as I was concerned. I thought overall it was a contested shot, it was good effort.”
Cavaliers guard Craig Ehlo (3) drives past Michael Jordan of the Bulls during 99-85 win by Cleveland to even the 1992 Eastern Conference Championship series at 2-2.AP
Disappointment remains, but not anger
With the benefit of time and hindsight, everyone has had a chance to re-evaluate that play. Price pinpointed one mistake: Going too fast, scrambling around and over-committing to deny the entry pass, which allowed Jordan to get a step or two and eventually get to his spot.
"Possibly the only thing we could have done better was to force him to catch it more toward half court and then kind of tried to double team him or whatever and maybe he wouldn’t have had enough time to get into his range,” Price said. “But that’s looking back on what could you have done differently. In the moment, considering everything, I thought after he caught it, we did as good of a job as we possibly could. The guy just made an unbelievable shot.”
The Bulls called the initial timeout to advance the ball. But the Cavs were always planning to use one of their own after Chicago showed its set.
When asked if he expected to get the defensive assignment from Wilkens before stepping back out onto the floor, Ehlo didn’t hesitate.
“No question,” he said. “I had been guarding him the whole quarter. I just don’t remember anything in the timeout where Harp said, ‘I will take MJ.’ He could have said it with Coach Wilkens face to face, but I had been guarding Michael previously and I think we all kind of just listened to what coach said and did.
"Harp could have said it, but I couldn’t tell you. I know him and MJ became very good friends when he was with the Bulls and what they both said was in this time frame, not back then, and I’m not part of that club, so I don’t know if they talked about it. It kind of shocked me.”
Jordan’s iconic moment catapulted him into a different stratosphere. The video has played on loop ever since, especially when discussing the many Cleveland almosts. It was the start of Jordan’s lengthy clutch catalog, his first playoff series win.
“I’ve seen it so much that I’m kind of numb to it, I guess,” Price said. “It’s been, shoot, you’re talking 30 years since all that happened. It’s all been dealt with and you know all of it. It doesn’t bring up bad memories or things like that to me. You know, there’s disappointment and you always wonder what could have been. But it’s not like a big thing where I couldn’t stand to watch it. I’ve seen it a million times.”
Ehlo has a similar perspective. But he has 5,000 reasons for it. When Nike and Gatorade both used footage of The Shot in an ad a number of years back, Ehlo received a one-time check for $5,000.
“That’s when I started thinking, ‘Well, I can ride this horse too,’” he said while laughing.
Not even Jordan calling Wilkens’ decision a “mistake” troubled Ehlo the other night.
“I didn’t take what Michael said as disrespect to me or directed at me,” Ehlo said. “I thought he was saying the mistake that was made was by the staff. I didn’t take anything personal at all. In all honesty Michael has never said anything bad about me."
History has been written. But replays of The Shot will continue for years. The photo of Jordan leaping and pumping his fist while Ehlo collapses to the ground isn’t going away. Neither are the memories -- both good and bad.
There will be another documentary that forces him to relive it. More phone calls are coming. Ehlo will cherish it all, forever part of his story. And he has that one royalty check to prove it
Updated Apr 30, 11:56 AM; Posted Apr 29, 2:58 PM
Michael Jordan reacts after hitting the game winning basket over Cleveland's Craig Ehlo in Game 5 of the NBA playoffs May 7, 1989.The Plain Dealer
By Chris Fedor, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Craig Ehlo is back in the spotlight.
It happened a little earlier than usual this year. Typically, Ehlo’s phone buzzes with direct messages, phone calls, texts and e-mails around May 7 -- the anniversary of The Shot -- as various news outlets want him to recall that heartbreaking moment in Cavaliers history, one that Ehlo says changed the course of both franchises forever.
At one point, shortly after Cleveland’s playoff loss to the Chicago Bulls in 1989, it was hard on him. His father offered advice, telling him to cherish the opportunity instead of focusing solely on the result.
Ehlo replayed that possession in his mind, thinking about what he could’ve -- or should’ve -- done differently, now able to admit a few fundamental mistakes.
One thing Ehlo doesn’t remember: Ron Harper’s version, which he relayed in Episode 3 of “The Last Dance” -- a hit ESPN documentary that chronicles the Chicago Bulls’ quest for a sixth NBA championship in 1998.
“I never said I was a Jordan stopper like Gerald Wilkins or anything,” Ehlo said during an extensive call with cleveland.com this week. “But back then Harp and me were on the court at the same time and he was our big offensive threat. So, when I came in it was a no-brainer that I would guard Jordan so Harp could rest on defense and play on offense.
“Harp had never really talked about defense or guarding people. He wasn’t a bad defender, I will give him that much, but I think those years with the Bulls where he got those championships, he was definitely third or fourth fiddle, so all of a sudden he becomes this lockdown defender, apparently. I don’t really remember him during our time wanting to play defense that much. He kind of shocked me with those comments, saying he wanted to guard Michael.”
On Sunday night, Harper openly questioned coach Lenny Wilkens’ polarizing decision to use Ehlo as the primary defender on the final play -- a clip that has since gone viral.
Harper’s son even sent out a tweet while the rest of the basketball world discussed whether Harper would have had a better chance against Jordan, possibly rewriting history.
“We’re up by one and I said, ‘Coach I got MJ,’" Harper explained. “Coach tells me, ‘I’m going to put Ehlo on MJ.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, OK, whatever. F--- this bulls---.’”
While Ehlo didn’t hear from Harper after that blast or any of his other teammates, he did think about what their reaction would have been.
“Hot Rod (Williams) might have said something to Harp because Hot Rod didn’t hold anything back. If he heard it up in heaven he might be saying something to him,” Ehlo said. “I can hear Larry (Nance) saying, ‘That’s Harp.’ Brad kind of shrugging it off. And Mark was always the quiet assassin, so everybody all saw it and heard it and I think they were all shocked, kind of like my reaction was.”
“We definitely knew who wanted to take the last shot”
It’s been 30 years since that agonizing night inside Richfield Coliseum and players can still recall every intricate detail. Ehlo can diagram the play from beginning to end.
“Everybody was on the baseline. (Scottie) Pippen was in the nearest corner. (Bill) Cartwright was on the other side. (Craig) Hodges was in the very far corner. And (Brad) Sellers was throwing it in -- he wasn’t going to be a threat,” Ehlo said with a chuckle. “Nothing was really said in the first timeout except who was going to get the ball. And we definitely knew who wanted to take the last shot.
“When we decided to double team, I’m kind of standing up, not so much in a defensive stance. I got just a little lax knowing someone was going to be in front of him,” Ehlo said. “When he lost Larry with the juke to mid court and caught the ball on the wing, I was not in a defensive slide, which fundamentally you’re taught from Day 1. By the time I caught up to him, he was already going back to the free-throw line. I was running, in catch-up mode. And then when he stops, he stops on a dime and goes straight up, and I’m like ET on his bike flying by the moon.
“I jumped. But my momentum was going east-west and he was going north-south, straight up, and all he did was hang in the air there, which is what he’s known for, and let me go by. I got my hand up and that’s what everybody talks about, how good the defense was, but if I would have been sliding, if I could have stopped and gone straight up with him, he would have still out-jumped me there but I probably wouldn’t have flown by and could have distracted him more.”
Ehlo, who used the pain of that failure as fuel going into the following summer, even spent time pondering a different outcome had head coach Lenny Wilkens stuck with old-school principles and kept Nance in front of inbounder Sellers while Ehlo and Harper sandwiched Jordan. That would’ve made the entry pass more difficult, especially because the Bulls didn’t have any timeouts.
Instead, Wilkens took Nance off the ball, asking him to front Jordan.
“The breakdown came from when he faked me to half court and if I could have just let him go and get the ball there, we probably would have been fine,” Nance admitted years later, during a sit-down alongside Ehlo, Wilkens, Mark Price and Brad Daugherty. “But that’s not what happened. He made a big, big shot. (Ehlo) took the blame for it every year.”
“That’s what I love about my teammates. Larry is such a great person and great teammate. It doesn’t surprise me that Larry would say something like that,” Price told cleveland.com Tuesday morning. “It was always about team with us. It wasn’t about the individual. We all look back on what we could have done different. You always do that, no matter what game you play or what game you lose, but that’s what I love about my teammates and those guys. We were real, we cared about each other, we weren’t going to leave somebody on an island, we were all in it together. You win together and you lose together. It’s not one person’s fault if you lose a game, it’s all of our fault.”
Price has been watching the documentary as well. Sometimes he watches live. Other times he tapes and goes back later. He joked about the worst episode being in the past now, able to enjoy the rest of the series. His reaction to Harper’s comments?
“That was pretty interesting,” Price said. “That caught me a little off guard. I didn’t know Ron had such strong feelings about that because I didn’t really remember all that. Maybe it’s because we were in the midst of everything or maybe that was something where Ron had talked to Lenny on the side or before. I didn’t ever really recall that situation being a big deal at the time when the game was going on. I just remember Lenny kind of telling us what we were going to do and then going out and trying to do it. Obviously it’s something that had bothered Ron.
“Whoever (Lenny) picked, it wasn’t really a major factor as far as I was concerned. I thought overall it was a contested shot, it was good effort.”
Cavaliers guard Craig Ehlo (3) drives past Michael Jordan of the Bulls during 99-85 win by Cleveland to even the 1992 Eastern Conference Championship series at 2-2.AP
Disappointment remains, but not anger
With the benefit of time and hindsight, everyone has had a chance to re-evaluate that play. Price pinpointed one mistake: Going too fast, scrambling around and over-committing to deny the entry pass, which allowed Jordan to get a step or two and eventually get to his spot.
"Possibly the only thing we could have done better was to force him to catch it more toward half court and then kind of tried to double team him or whatever and maybe he wouldn’t have had enough time to get into his range,” Price said. “But that’s looking back on what could you have done differently. In the moment, considering everything, I thought after he caught it, we did as good of a job as we possibly could. The guy just made an unbelievable shot.”
The Bulls called the initial timeout to advance the ball. But the Cavs were always planning to use one of their own after Chicago showed its set.
When asked if he expected to get the defensive assignment from Wilkens before stepping back out onto the floor, Ehlo didn’t hesitate.
“No question,” he said. “I had been guarding him the whole quarter. I just don’t remember anything in the timeout where Harp said, ‘I will take MJ.’ He could have said it with Coach Wilkens face to face, but I had been guarding Michael previously and I think we all kind of just listened to what coach said and did.
"Harp could have said it, but I couldn’t tell you. I know him and MJ became very good friends when he was with the Bulls and what they both said was in this time frame, not back then, and I’m not part of that club, so I don’t know if they talked about it. It kind of shocked me.”
Jordan’s iconic moment catapulted him into a different stratosphere. The video has played on loop ever since, especially when discussing the many Cleveland almosts. It was the start of Jordan’s lengthy clutch catalog, his first playoff series win.
“I’ve seen it so much that I’m kind of numb to it, I guess,” Price said. “It’s been, shoot, you’re talking 30 years since all that happened. It’s all been dealt with and you know all of it. It doesn’t bring up bad memories or things like that to me. You know, there’s disappointment and you always wonder what could have been. But it’s not like a big thing where I couldn’t stand to watch it. I’ve seen it a million times.”
Ehlo has a similar perspective. But he has 5,000 reasons for it. When Nike and Gatorade both used footage of The Shot in an ad a number of years back, Ehlo received a one-time check for $5,000.
“That’s when I started thinking, ‘Well, I can ride this horse too,’” he said while laughing.
Not even Jordan calling Wilkens’ decision a “mistake” troubled Ehlo the other night.
“I didn’t take what Michael said as disrespect to me or directed at me,” Ehlo said. “I thought he was saying the mistake that was made was by the staff. I didn’t take anything personal at all. In all honesty Michael has never said anything bad about me."
History has been written. But replays of The Shot will continue for years. The photo of Jordan leaping and pumping his fist while Ehlo collapses to the ground isn’t going away. Neither are the memories -- both good and bad.
There will be another documentary that forces him to relive it. More phone calls are coming. Ehlo will cherish it all, forever part of his story. And he has that one royalty check to prove it
