Evidence that Hakeem and Akeem whipped Jordan's Bulls

Sorry, cant have it both ways. If the Rockets were the better team in 95, and they were, then it would show in a 7 game series. And if they would win in 95, and they would have (see below as to why) then Bulls could not have won 8 in a row.

Let's looks at it a little deeper...

Fact: Jordan was playing in 95 playoffs. His game wasn’t rusty as the media and others will have you believe. His numbers were right there.

What Jordan was missing was Horace Grant. Horace Grant was playing for Magic and helped take out Jordan and Pippen.

Scenario One (94 Finals): Had Jordan not retired, he would have had the 90-93 Bulls roster playing with him. Which means their best front-line player would have been....you guessed it, Horace Grant. Now, I like Horace Grant, but he was not someone you could use to defend Hakeem. For example, when Shaq sat down for couple of minutes during the 95 finals, Horace would switch on Hakeem. That never worked. Hakeem was too strong and quick and it was either a basket or and1. So the Bulls would have been left with scrubs at center to guard Hakeem. They had absolutely no one who could play Hakeem one on one. Rockets offense was geared such that if you could not stop Hakeem one on one, you were at a disadvantage defensively.

So what it really came down to was this....

Could Rockets stop Jordan and/or could Bulls stop Hakeem? To me it was neither. Based on history, if anything, Rockets had Maxwell who could, although not stop Jordan, could make things a little hard for him.

What the series outcome would hinge on would have been "others"

-How well could the Rocket guards handle full court press led by Jordan/Pippen/Grant?
-How well could Bulls hold the Rockets frontline advantage of Hakeem/Thorpe/Horry/Harerra?
-Which team would get better 3 point shooting from the role players?

The one area where Bulls always held a decisive advantage (someone on the team who was unguardable) was neutralized against the Rockets because Rockets had such a player of their own. Rockets would have been the best team as well as the frontline the Bulls would have faced until 95.

Scenario 2 (95 playoffs): No Horace Grant on the Bulls. Even weaker front line. Sorry, no chance. Which is why the Magic took them out.

Bulls didnt start winning again until they got someone better than Horace Grant to fill that position. The years before that, when the Rockets won their championships, he was playing for the Spurs.

 

Why do we have to put up with this garbage every year especially from so-called Rockets fans?!

Jordan was great and all but he didn't play Hakeem in the finals. I can't believe Rockets fans are so willing to sell out Dream to hang onto Jordan's jock.

 

Oh to be young and un-educated. :grin:

 

...and those 95 Rockets swept the team that took out the Bulls...

 

i honestly think the sonics wouldn't beat us in '94 or '95. they shouldn't have beat us in '93, either. we lost homecourt for that series on a controversial call (robinson tipped it in after the buzzer rang) and got screwed over late in game 7. a little home cooking, perhaps? there were two terrible, momentum-swininging call in overtime and one horrific call late in the 4th quarter.

in '94, we were a better team than in '93 thanks to horry improving and willing to launch three point bombs to stretch the defense and cassell was drafted to provide a serviceable back up to kenny. the sonics were better in '94 as well (at least in the regular season) but they choked against denver after being up 2-0. and why did they lose? because of mutombo's terrorizing presence in the paint, altering and blocking shots. he shut kemp down. who's to say hakeem couldn't do the same. he actually did shut kemp down in the '93 series. held him to 42% shooting with kemp being unable to get anything going in the painted area. we were also a more experience and level-headed team with a lot more depth compared to the '93 version.

in '95 playoffs, we defied all odds against us and won every series without home court. we were a totally different team in the playoffs (in a positive way) while the sonics totally fell apart in the big moments. i'm not going to act like it's a surefire thing but we'd have a great chance considering the quality of teams we beat and the manner in which we beat them. plus, we were totally healthy come playoff time save for missing carl herrerra.

i'm aware we got swept in '96 but how much of that has to do with us being unhealthy and all the games were pretty close save for game 1 where the whole team played like trash. i remember game 4 where horry brought us back with a barrage of 3s and cassell tied it to send it to OT off the hakeem feed. we really displayed the heart of a champion in that one.

as for jordan, we were the best team after the Riley-led knicks in terms of having the personnel to stop him. a great perimeter defender in mad max who was willing to get into jordan's head, play physical, shove him around and play fierce defense. good length and he had great lateral quickness and good post-defense. if mj blew by him, he had the best defender in the league waiting at the rim to alter/block his shot. that's one of the biggest reasons mj hardly went off against us.

i wish we faced the bulls in '93. we were robbed. same thing in '97 thanks to malone's bearhug of a screen. that's one thing we wouldn't have going our way; the refs. bulls were the golden team of the league thanks to mj while we had trouble buying calls at times. remember the '91 laker series where we got swept? game 1, byron scott's jumper shouldn't have counted because the buzzer went off with the ball in his hands and then they called a 5 second inbound violation on us in game 3 despite thorpe calling time. so, that's one thing we'd have to overcome but i firmly believe we could do it based on the heart and intensity our team displayed.

also, the '95 bulls wouldn't stand a chance against us even with a early 90s jordan. they simply didn't have any interior defense or rebounding to cause us any trouble. it's why they lost to the magic. shaq and grant killed them inside.

 

Stats from the Akeem's Rockets vs Jordan's Bulls

Wins-10
1987-11-28 CHI @ HOU W 34 points
1987-12-12 CHI HOU W 44
1989-02-24 CHI HOU W 33
1990-02-19 CHI HOU W 30
1992-01-25 CHI HOU W 35
1996-01-03 CHI HOU W 38
1996-01-30 CHI @ HOU W 22
1997-01-11 CHI HOU W 32
1998-01-18 CHI HOU W 45
1998-04-05 CHI @ HOU W 40

Losses-10
1987-01-15 CHI HOU L 43 points
1987-03-16 CHI @ HOU L 44
1989-02-03 CHI @ HOU L 29
1990-02-01 CHI @ HOU L 35
1991-01-03 CHI @ HOU L 32
1991-03-25 CHI HOU L 34
1992-01-30 CHI @ HOU L 22
1992-12-11 CHI HOU L 26
1993-01-28 CHI @ HOU L 26
1997-01-19 CHI @ HOU L 26

.500 winning percentage
Conclusion: Evenly matched
Evidence= Akeem's Rockets whipped Jordan's Bulls and Jordan's Bulls whipped Akeem's Rockets

 

bro, you forgot their match ups from their rookie years. they didn't match up in '86 because jordan was out for nearly the whole season due to a broken foot.

1984-12-18 HOU @ CHI. rockets win by 8
1985-3-19 CHI @ HOU. rockets win by 6

by the way, here's the headline from their first match up: "Akeem wins first battle with Jordan"

First paragraph: "It was the first time for NBA premier rookies Michael Jordan and Akeem Olajuwon to spar as professionals and the decision was Olajuwon by a knockout.

Akeem scored 13 of his 24 points in the 4th quarter. jordan was held to 18 points on 8-20 shooting.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...AAAIBAJ&pg=7105,3061598&dq=akeem+jordan&hl=en

 

also, i forgot to mention hakeem didn't play in the game at 1998-1-18 @ CHI. i'm pretty sure that's the one where jordan goes off and him and barkley have a heated exchange. barkley just abuses rodman in that one.

 

If you're arguing against the Rockets vs. the Bulls, then you most certainly ARE blinded by the light. As has been pointed out, you're completely ignoring the match-ups between the two teams, which is why the Rockets are the ONLY team to have a winning record against MJ's Bulls. I also have not seen you address the fact that MJ was playing in 1995 and he was beaten by a team that we swept. The only people claiming he was rusty are those who are 'blinded by the light' and choking on MJ Kool-Aid: he dropped 55 on the Knicks his second game back and his numbers were as ridiculous as they'd ever been in both the regular and post season. Rusty players don't do that. He was there, he was himself, and he got bounced.

No matter how good MJ was, every Houston fan knew full well that the Rockets could, would, and did beat the Bulls. The only team we worried about was Seattle, and that's it.

 

DAMN! I was only 8 at the time... wish i was old enough to follow the Rockets then!

 

Oh yeah! I know all about those guys! I have the 7-game NBA Finals series on DVD!

Cassell was just an awesome player and leader! Helped KG get out of the first round in Minnesota and made the Clippers relevant for that one year he was healthy there.

And we all know about Big Shot Bob...

 

They didn't with Clyde either, a lot of that had to do with the guy most likely to block their shot and steal the outlet pass patrolling a lane with no defensive 3s, lol

 

a lot of people recognize Maxwell for keeping Michael Jordan below his scoring averages. And actually, one time Jordan said that Maxwell and Dumars were the two best players that guarded him.

And what about Hakeem, who would guard him? in 94 they could have helped with grant, but in 95 Grant with the Orlando couldnt do much.

So Hakeem against the bigs of Chicago, not even a 1 game, they could stop him.

 

If Jordan played the whole season (95), it would have been a 4 peat.