Michael Jordan is left to begin the 1997-98 season without his injured sidekick Scottie Pippen, whose contract dispute with the Bulls' front office reaches a fever pitch as the team gets off to one of the worst starts of its championship runs.

As Michael Jordan's fame peaked to unparalleled levels in the early 1990s in the wake of consecutive NBA titles and a starring role on the Olympic Dream Team, his image as "Air Jordan" made him a profoundly significant cultural figure.

In May of 1998, nearly a year after Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls fought past Utah in the NBA Finals, their path to a sixth title only gets more challenging, as a brutal seven-game series against the Indiana Pacers decides the Eastern Conference.