Allen Iverson gives a different take on the iconic crossover against Jordan: "He still almost blocked the shot"
Allen Iverson was a walking highlight reel. But when it comes to the most iconic play of his career, everyone will point to the sequence where rookie AI crossed Michael Jordan at the top of the key during a game between the Philadelphia 76ers and Chicago Bulls on March 12, 1997.
While most of the stories around that play revolve around how the rookie got the better of the greatest player of all time in that sequence, Iverson gave props to Jordan for almost getting to his shot after he lost him with his killer crossover.
"You see how great he was because I got him with it really bad, and he still almost blocked the shot," said Iverson in a recent interview with Rachel Nichols. "Man, anybody else would be on the other side of the court. He still got his hands up and almost blocked it."
MJ wasn't just an offensive superstar
Many know Michael Jordan as the unstoppable offensive machine who led the NBA in scoring 10 times. But MJ was also one of the best defensive players of his time, a 9-time All-Defensive First Team selection who was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 1988.
"Very quick," said Jordan after the game. "I figured that he wanted to come back to his right hand, but he keeps the ball real low, and he's small, and he's certainly closer to the ground than I am, so I mean, his quickness is unbelievable."
Looking back at the play, the reason why Jordan almost blocked the shot was because he read AI's mind correctly and knew what he was going to do. However, as MJ said, Iverson was too small and too quick even for the hands that made Jordan the NBA's steals leader in three different seasons.
Not the perfect crossover
Iconic as that crossover was, it wasn't the perfect execution of the move. During a 2017 interview for Bleacher Report, Iverson himself defined what the perfect ankle breaker looks like.
"You just make them think you going one way, and you got to sell the move going that way, and you've got to really make them think that you're going that way and they're going the other way," Iverson said. "When it ends up ultimately being a perfect crossover is when you shake them so bad that they can't even get back into the play to play defense."
Based on that definition and given that His Airness almost blocked the shot, the iconic Allen Iverson crossover wasn't the best ankle-breaker that The Answer pulled off in the NBA. It only became his most famous move because he was able to do it against the greatest player of all time.
