Every year you pull this complete nonsense about Pippen out of your ass. Give it up. It's a waste of everyone's time. Please stop.
Your measure of a great player is who you want taking the last shot. Folks who actually understand basketball know that there is a lot more to basketball than that. You need guys who can take the last shot but you also need guys who can rebound, play fantastic defense, run the offense and do everything else it takes to actually win the basketball game during the other 47 minutes and 30 seconds. Chuck Daley said that Pippen and Jordan were the only Dream Team players he needed on the court. Larry Bird said his favorite memory of the Dream Team was watching Jordan and Pippen play defense. Pippen's stats the season after Jordan retired for the first time and he was healthy: 22 pts (career high), 8.7 rbs (career high), 5.6 assists and 3 steals (that's more than NU's team in a lot of games) a game on .515 shooting.
As to "knocking him on his ass", here is an intelligent discussion of the play from the participants in a column in ESPN from NU alum J.A. Adande:
"It was amazing how quickly Scottie got there," Davis notes, having seen
a replay of the ending a few years ago. "He's in the middle of the lane when I caught the ball."
Pippen got back a split-second too late, Davis released the ball and then Pippen made contact with Davis' arms on the follow-through. The shot bounced off the right side of the rim, and for the briefest of moments it appeared the Bulls were going to win the game. But Hollins had blown his whistle, a late whistle, just as the shot was approaching the rim.
"When I heard the whistle, it was like 'What happened? Who fouled?'" Pippen recalls. "I didn't think I had made a foul."
Technically a player is defined as being in the act of shooting from the time he goes up for the shot until after he has landed back on the ground. Except, as even Davis admits, "
That's a call you normally don't get."
Today, with concern about defenders sliding under shooters and causing injuries, it gets called more often. That wasn't the case back then, and certainly not with a playoff outcome riding on it. Steve Kerr had been hit the same way several times that year, his first with the Bulls, and never was sent to the free-throw line.
"I went to the ref every time and they said, 'It doesn't matter, the shot was released," Kerr says. "Back then it was not called. And every time I asked the ref, I got the exact same explanation: Once you release the shot it doesn't matter."