0.2 percent... was the likelihood the 1995 Rockets won the championship. The chances of missing 27 3s was... .001percent https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/5/13/21256513/nba-playoff-underperform-lebron-james-stephen-curry the ’90s was the Rockets, which won despite incredibly unfavorable odds. The 1994-95 winner is well-known as the most unlikely champion in history—the only team seeded lower than fourth in a conference to win. That season, Houston had a Pythagorean record of 47-35 and beat the Jazz (61-21), Suns (51-31), Spurs (57-25), and Magic (59-23) all in a row. Utah, Orlando, and San Antonio ranked first, third, and fourth, respectively, in regular-season performance. Houston’s odds of navigating that entire stretch—the most difficult for any champion in the 16-team playoff era—unscathed, without home-court advantage in any round, was a mere 0.2 percent.
It was a great article to read. Just think of how the 94/95 team had to start the playoffs on the road in every round, played elimination games in every round leading up to the Finals, getting blessed by the basketball Gods for Anderson's FT misses, to end up sweeping and pretty much ending a dynasty before it even started......what a great story.
As someone who's approaching 40 and got to witness/remember both championship runs (PPV games and all), I'll gladly live through 0-27 a few more times The younger fellas on here might disagree though.
I too, am glad to have witnessed the the two runs but man..... I still can't help but think though, if we went at least 10 ****ing percent in that stretch, are we raising a 3rd banner?
Oh no doubt in my mind we would have beaten Cleveland in the Finals. Sometimes the Basketball Gods giveth and sometimes they taketh lol
Yeah, I second this as well. I think that's the hardest thing to accept. We matched up so well against Cleveland. I think we would have beat them in 5 maybe 6 max.
The team that started the season wasn't the same team that ended it, so shouldn't you throw out the data? Since we're talking slim margins... what was the % chance on that Clippers game 6 comeback led by Josh Smith?
Without cp3? IDK about that one. I don't think we could effectively guard Lebron. For one thing he could rest on defense because none of our forwards were threats. Man do you realize how pumped Lebron would have been to make it back the finals after Kyrie forced his way out and the heavy roster turnover they had and NOT have to face that stacked ass warriors team ?! If beating a 73-9 team down 3-1 wasn't enough to put him in the GOAT debate this surely would have if he somehow ended up getting a ring after all that. If you can't guard Lebron and make him work on the other end good luck beating him. Also all the pressure would be on harden since he is ringless. Lebrons legacy would be intact either way.
I hate to be one of those fans that blames the refs, but I'm sorry they were responsible for the 0-27. They took made threes away and kept GS with momentum with absolutely terrible officiating. Ultimately cp3 injury is what did us in but refs certainly fukked us and I'll probably never get over that.
It was just my opinion that the best team in the NBA that year, the team that won the most games in the regular season, and the team that was one quarter away from beating a Durant-led Warriors team WITHOUT CP3 would have easily beaten LeBron and his 26th ranked defense Cavaliers. I mean if you want to argue with narratives then that's your right to do so. Mind you, that LeBron team got thoroughly swept in the Finals by the Warriors.
I'm still not sure how we won game 1 in Orlando. Probably the only few times I'll acknowledge og Kenny Smith and not The Sellout Jet
...and yet, most pundits point to this time as the most likely from the 90s that had the best shot of beating the Bulls.
Refs definitely controlled Game 7. Rockets tried to adjust from shooting threes to driving more. Refs shut that down quickly by swallowing their whistles on fouls. That forced the team to retreat back behind the arc where they were shooting terribly. And, no, it should not have been 0-27. Anyone that's honest knows that Harden had multiple threes denied to him in that stretch by the refs' calls. The team was still shooting like crap, but it wasn't an unassisted statistical anomaly. Still, I'm conflicted about the whole thing. Yes, the refs absolutely screwed the Rockets in Game 7. Was that the difference between winning and losing? That's a hard thing to extrapolate. It's not like one call removed exactly the number of points to cause a loss with no time to recover. Ultimately, I think the complete reliance on threes and Harden with no backup plans broke down when you should expect things to break down: exactly when you need them to work. No, a team shouldn't HAVE to compensate for the zebras, but it's stupid not to have plans for that, anyway. And for injuries. The team died in the one dimension it lived in. As for Paul's hammy, I think we've really got to stop using that as an excuse. It happened, and there is no way to know how Paul's presence would have affected the final two games. I wish Paul was such a point guard genius that he would have taken over Game 7 and figured out how to penetrate the 8-on-5 defense. But he wasn't like that for us. I really was hoping for it when we got him: the big brain tactician to complement Harden's unstoppable assassin qualities. But we never saw that sort of play from him, and much of that was because Harden also played point half the time. It makes the fans looks like petty, almost like children, to say "Well, we ACTUALLY won. Just a Chris Paul injury kept that from being reflecting in the scores and records, but we REALLY did win in the universe where that doesn't happen." I said it right after we lost, but years later, I don't anymore. It's crappy that we have to resort to hypotheticals around here instead of just being able to point to a trophy. But the strongest argument is the refs in Game 7, and we're still never going to convince anyone that's not already a Rockets fan. The fact that the Warriors still smoked us the next year after Durant went down really undercuts our hammy excuse as well. Hopefully all the unexpected rest and time to plan for the new era of small ball will get the team where it needs to be.
