For years, the performance has been called the “flu game,” until Bill Simmons and Jalen Rose recently wondered whether it should be called something more akin to “the hangover game,” since Jordan was known to enjoy good drinks.
Now Jordan’s trainer from that time, Tim Grover, says it was something else entirely — nefarious fans, and one bad pizza.
“He was [food] poisoned for the ‘flu game,'” Grover said on TrueHoop TV. “Everyone called it a flu game, but we sat there. We were in the room.”
Grover explained that room service had stopped, and Jordan couldn’t find a place to eat. They decided to order pizza.
“We had been there for a while,” he said. “Everybody knew what hotel. Park City was not many hotels back then. So everyone knew where we were staying.”
When the pizza arrived, five guys delivered it, Grover said. He had a “bad feeling” about the food, and no one in the room except Jordan ended up eating it.
“And then 2 o’clock in the morning I get a call to my room,” he said. “Come to the room. He’s curled up in the fetal position. We’re looking at him, finding the team physician at that time. Immediately I told him it’s food poisoning. Not the flu.”
Flu, no flu, whatever. Jordan was still epic.
