'SNL' Crafts Perfect Copy of Michael Jordan Quarters Game in Extended 'The Last Dance' Look

Saturday Night Live took aim at The Last Dance in its latest episode. Hosted by actor and comedian [...]

By Brian Jones

Saturday Night Live took aim at The Last Dance in its latest episode. Hosted by actor and comedian Keegan-Michael Key, SNL featured a sketch in which Peele played Michael Jordan in what presented as a deleted series in The Last Dance, which aired on ESPN last year. The sketch shows an extended version of the famous scene from the docuseries in which Jordan loses a game of quarters to a United Center security guard, who celebrates the win with Jordan's infamous shrug.

But Jordan was not going to let it go that easily. The sketch version shows John Michael Wozniak, played by SNL's Heidi Gardner, winning a $5 round game but then losing $9,000. Charles Barkley, played by Keenan Thompson shows up and Wozniak continues to lose. When it was all said and done, Wozniak ended up with next to nothing.

While Jordan didn't take his competitive spirit that far, he was one of the most competitive athletes in NBA history, which is one of the reasons why he had a lot of success. In The Last Dance, Jordan explained how his intensity came at an expense of not being as nice as expected.

"Look, winning has a price," Jordan said per NBC Sports Chicago. "And leadership has a price. So I pulled people along when they didn't want to be pulled. I challenged people when they didn't want to be challenged. And I earned that right because my teammates who came after me didn't endure all the things that I endured. Once you joined the team, you lived at a certain standard that I played the game. And I wasn't going to take any less. Now if that means I had to go in there and get in your ass a little bit, then I did that."

Jordan was intense while playing the game, but that intensity and competitive spirit were one of the big reasons the Chicago Bulls were able to win six NBA titles in eight years during the 1990s. And not only the Bulls were one of the best teams during the time, but Jordan was also the best player in the NBA, winning five MVP awards in a 10-year span (1988-1998). He was also named NBA Finals MVP six times and was selected to play in the All-Star game 14 times.

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