increasing the play's "thrust" by bringing the ball from 3/4 back of the basket. Although Westphal's sole instruction on the play was for none of the players to double-team any of the Bulls (even Michael Jordan), Danny Ainge left John Paxson to try and either steal the ball or foul Horace Grant, who had missed all five of his shot attempts in the game and wasn't a good crunch-time free throw shooter. Grant saw Paxson alone 25 feet from the basket and fired a perfect pass, and Paxson then made a three pointer with 3.9 seconds left, giving the Bulls a 99–98 lead. Paxson's three-point field goal was the only score by any Bulls player other than Michael Jordan in the entire fourth quarter. The victory was secured by a last-second block from Grant on Kevin Johnson, thanks to Paxson's game-winning 3-point field goal. Bulls: Michael Jordan 33, Scottie Pippen 23, B. J. Armstrong 18, Horace Grant 1, Bill Cartwright 2, John Paxson 8, Scott Williams 5, Trent Tucker 9, Stacey King 0 Suns: Dan Majerle 21, Kevin Johnson 19, Charles Barkley 21, Richard Dumas 8, Mark West 4, Tom Chambers 12, Danny Ainge 9, Oliver Miller 4, Frank Johnson 0 Michael Jordan, who averaged a Finals-record 41.0 PPG during the six-game series, became the first player in NBA history to win three straight Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Awards. He joined Magic Johnson as the only other player to win the award three times. The NBA started awarding the Finals MVP in 1969. Player statistics Chicago Bulls |- | align="left" | || 6 || 6 || 41.8 || .508 || .526 || 1.000 || 1.8 || 5.0 || 0.8 || 0.2 || 13.5 |- | align="left" | || 6 || 6 || 21.3 || .400 || .000 || .500 || 3.2 || 1.7 || 0.5 || 0.2 || 4.3 |- | align="left" | || 6 || 6 || 38.8 || .528 || .000 || .579 || 10.3 || 2.3 || 1.5 || 1.5 || 11.2 |-! style="background:#FDE910;" | align="left" | || 6 || 6 || 45.7 || .508 || .400 || .694 || 8.5 || 6.3 || 1.7 || 0.7 || 41.0 |- | align="left" | || 6 || 0 || 8.2 || .273 || .000 || .875 || 1.3 || 0.5 || 0.3 || 0.2 || 2.2 |- | align="left" | || 1 || 0 ||