Michael Jordan’s personal trainer, Tim Grover, once revealed the truth behind the iconic ‘Flu Game.’
The story takes place on the night before Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz.
In the actual game, MJ finished the night with 38 points, but he looked sluggish and visibly ill. Initially, most thought Jordan had the flu. However, in a 2013 interview, Tim Grover revealed the menacing truth.
Tim Grover once claimed Michael Jordan was ‘poisoned’
Grover, who played a huge role in making Jordan a dominant NBA superstar, sat down for an interview with TrueHoop TV.
During the interview, Grover shared his side of the story regarding MJ’s iconic ‘Flu Game.’
“Yes, 100 percent poisoned for [‘The Flu Game’]. Everyone called it a ‘Flu Game,’ but we sat there and we were in the room, we were in Park City, Utah, up in a hotel.
“Room service stopped at like 9 o’clock. And he got hungry, and we really couldn’t find any other place to eat so we ordered … I said, ‘Hey, the only thing I could find is a pizza place,'” Grover said.
Grover added: “He said, ‘All right, order pizza.’ We had been there for a while, so everybody knows what hotel … I mean Park City [didn’t have] many hotels back then. Everybody kind of knew where we were staying.”
What happened next convinced Grover that the Bulls superstar was indeed poisoned.
Tim Grover found Michael Jordan in a ‘fetal position’
Grover further continued as he recalled the story about Jordan and co. ordering a pizza before Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals.
“So we order a pizza, they come to deliver it, five guys come to deliver this pizza. And I’m just … I take the pizza, and I tell them, I said, ‘I got a bad feeling about this.’ I said, ‘I just got a bad feeling about this.’ Out of everybody in the room, he was the only one that ate,” he continued.
“Nobody else … then 2 o’clock in the morning, I get a call to my room. “I come to the room, he’s curled up, he’s curled up in the fetal position. We’re looking at him. We’re finding the team physician at that time. And immediately I said, ‘It’s food poisoning.’ Guaranteed. Not the flu,” Grover concluded.
Despite being sick, Jordan didn’t run away from his duty of carrying the Bulls and dropped a famous 38-point performance in Game 5.
The Bulls would later go on to clinch the NBA Championship as Jordan won the fifth ring of his career.
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