Back in the day, there was one cardinal rule nobody dared to break in the NBA: don’t talk smack to Michael Jordan. The six-time NBA champion was known for his ruthless competitiveness and would often use any slight or trash talk to fuel his fire to dominate on the court.

Former NBA player Rex Chapman knew this during his playing days and revealed that he never engaged in trash talk with Jordan, not even during his memorable 39-point explosion against His Airness and the Chicago Bulls in a regular season game on February 24, 1996.

Nothing to say

In footage of the game, there was an instance where it appeared as if Chapman was talking trash to MJ after a break in the action due to a foul call. However, in an interview on “The Dan Patrick Show,” Chapman cleared the air, saying there was no back-and-forth other than to say he couldn’t let Jordan dunk the ball.

“There was no anything really said worth anything. I think I said something like, ‘You know I can’t just let you dunk it.’ But it looked like we’re (jawing at each other.) Yeah, so everybody’s like, ‘You were talking so much noise to Jordan,'” Chapman said.

“I was like, ‘Nah, I was not doing that.'”

Undermanned Miami Heat

Chapman explained that the Heat went into the game without a full roster of players after Pat Riley made deals at the trade deadline, acquiring Tony Smith, Tim Hardaway, Walt Williams, Tyrone Corbin, and Chris Gatling. Only Smith made it in time for the game against the Bulls, forcing Chapman to carry more of the offensive load.

Chapman added that the Bulls—who were in the midst of their incredible 1996 campaign—probably didn’t think much of the Heat at the time.

“I think Michael and Scottie and Dennis and those guys came down to South Beach the

night before over and were like ‘this is a night off!’ But as Jimmy Lynam always used to say to

us, ‘If you let a guy get going in this league, you got a problem.’ And I got it going one night and we got lucky.”