Guessing which NBA Playoffs game JD and Turk from Scrubs almost attended.

This is a repost of a post I made in r/scrubs a few months ago.

In "My Fault" (S3E20), a flashback shows that Turk and JD nearly attended an NBA Playoffs game featuring Michael Jordan, but were ultimately unable to do so as JD had forgotten to bring the tickets. Using clues from the show, I was able to take a guess at which game they almost attended.

First, I needed a range of years to work with. To kick off the flashback, JD says "I don't know. Remember back in college, when we had tickets to see Michael Jordan in the playoffs?"

This was important as it proved that the incident took place during their college years, rather than their medical school years. Assuming the first season of show took place in the year it started (2001), college for Turk and JD would have been about eight years prior, meaning they would have attended college roughly from 1993-1997.

In that period of time, the Chicago Bulls Playoffs opponents were the Atlanta Hawks, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the New York Knicks, the Phoenix Suns, the Charlotte Hornets, the Orlando Magic, the Miami Heat, the Seattle Supersonics, the Washington Bullets, and the Utah Jazz.

Michael Jordan wasn't playing basketball during the 1994 Playoffs, but Chicago's opponents that year (Cleveland and New York) were present in other years, so I couldn't narrow down the timeline much.

Fortunately, Turk dropped a big hint during the flashback that let me narrow it down a different way: location. During his song and dance, he claims that they "went 500 miles." In "My Fishbowl" (S6E12), flashbacks to Turk and JD's college days show flags on the wall of their dorm room bearing the logo of the College of William and Mary. This was series creator Bill Lawrence's alma mater, so it is a reasonable assumption that his characters attended the same school.

The College of William and Mary is located in Williamsburg, Virginia. This was a critical piece of information as it gave me their starting point. Using Google, I checked the distances from Williamsburg to all of the possible locations of Chicago's Playoff games that would have occurred from 1993-1997.

Chicago: 842 miles

Atlanta: 559 miles

Cleveland: 515 miles

New York: 378 miles

Phoenix: 2,299 miles

Charlotte: 320 miles

Orlando: 761 miles

Miami: 966 miles

Seattle: 2905 miles

Washington, DC: 153 miles

Salt Lake City: 2190 miles

Obviously, many cities, including Chicago itself, could immediately be crossed off the list. Knowing that "500 miles" was likely an estimate rather than a true measurement, I could reasonably assume the game Turk and JD were meant to attend was against either the Cleveland Cavaliers, or, less likely, the Atlanta Hawks. In an effort to ensure my research checked out, I double checked the Cavaliers' home arenas. At the time, they actually played at the Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio, which is 502 miles away from Williamsburg. Armed with this knowledge, I felt confident in dismissing Atlanta as an outlying possibility.

Now that I had my location, I needed my dates. Chicago only played Cleveland in 1993 and 1994. Suddenly, Jordan's absence in the 1994 playoffs became relevant again! Now knowing that the game had to have been in 1993, I was forced to assume that Turk and JD nearly attended either the May 15th or May 17th game of the 1993 Eastern Conference Semifinals. If there is a clue in the show that more definitively narrows it down, I don't know what it is.

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