He was awesome defensive player too.. I remember he shut out Barkley in the 2nd half of one of the key playoff games...when he was playing at SF he was the best shot blocking SF in the league ..his earlier days dunks followed by head shake were simply phenomenal only 2nd to Shawn Kemp in the league at that time. Robert Horry + Sam Cassell + Mario Elie were the championship missing pieces...if Dream had them few years earlier Rockets would've won few more championships...at least few more trips to the final guaranteed. All of them won rings after leaving Rockets...no surprise.
Not true...because 1. During Robert Horry's rookie season (92-93) when Rockets had almost no bench (Winston Garland the main guy from bench) and Rockets were unfairly denied the home court advantage by officials (San Antonio won a key regular season game on a basket after the buzzer)... Rockets lost to Seattle in 7 (in overtime) when Kenny had a chance to hit a 3 to win in the regulation, that team didn't have Sam Cassel + Mario Elie..plus Rockets would've won with home court advantage since all home games were blowout. 2. Rockets didn't face Seattle during championship run..but with addition of Cassel and Mario it can be well argued that they would beat Sonics. 3. in 95-96 season Rockets lost to Seattle 4-0 (3 of the games were close, one went to overtime)..however that team had , if I remember correctly, Sam and Mario (cheap Jalen Rose ) were returning from major injury/surgery after long absence (Elie got injured in mid Jan, 96, Cassel missed 21 games) and weren't usual self + Chucky Brown (a CBA player ) was in starting 5.
If Cassell and Horry were never traded for Barkley we wouldn't have been blessed with the Matt Maloney and Bryce Drew eras.
DateTmOppResult1996-04-15HOUSEAL 106-1121996-02-03HOUSEAL 103-104 (OT)1996-04-03HOUSEAL 103-1181995-03-21HOUSEAL 102-1041995-04-20HOUSEAL 101-1111993-12-28HOUSEAL 97-1121994-04-16HOUSEAL 97-1001992-11-06HOUSEAL 94-1111994-11-26HOUSEAL 94-981996-02-06HOUSEAL 94-991994-12-06HOUSEAL 90-1031993-03-21HOUSEAL 89-1001994-03-10HOUSEAW 87-821993-04-17HOUSEAW 86-811992-11-07HOUSEAL 85-891993-12-11HOUSEAW 82-75
And it resulted in us not beating the Jazz... and we couldn't beat the Sonic during the championship years ourselves, we had to rely on the Lakers and Nuggets to do our dirty work for us. We could have waited for Shawn Kemp to turn his vertical into his waist line and inevitably get washed Steve Francis-style.
Seattle played a zone defense that was illegal at that time. . but the league never enforced it when they played us Alot of The Rocket's failures are due to some key situational league lead issues Even the bear hug on Clyde that Barkley didn't rotate on was a REF LOSS. Rocket River
Regular season and post season are different...else Rockets would beat GS both last year and this year...else 94-95 Rockets (6th seed in conference) would never win championship against the 4 best record holding teams in the season. Here is more relevant playoff scores (before Cassell/Mario): G Date Start (ET) Opponent Tm Opp W L Streak Notes 6 Mon, May 10, 1993 Box Score @ Seattle SuperSonics L 90 99 3 3 L 1 7 Wed, May 12, 1993 Box Score @ Seattle SuperSonics L 100 111 3 4 L 2 8 Sat, May 15, 1993 Box Score Seattle SuperSonics W 97 79 4 4 W 1 9 Sun, May 16, 1993 Box Score Seattle SuperSonics W 103 92 5 4 W 2 10 Tue, May 18, 1993 Box Score @ Seattle SuperSonics L 95 120 5 5 L 1 11 Thu, May 20, 1993 Box Score Seattle SuperSonics W 103 90 6 5 W 1 12 Sat, May 22, 1993 Box Score @ Seattle SuperSonics L OT 100 103 6 6 L 1 With home court advantage (lost due to bad officiating) Rockets win the series. With decent bench (like Cassell/Mario ) it can be argued Rockets win the series. 95-96 playoffs Rockets weren't healthy as Mario/Cassell were just coming back from long absence due to injury..still 3 of the 4 games were real close.
This why Rudy T. MUST be in the Hall of Fame. He invented modern basketball because we had Chucky Brown and hot garbage at the PF. The world will not be pure until this injustice is righted.
The perfect stretch four for this team too. Hakeem dominated everything and some clutch moments. But guys like Horry, Kenny, Elie hit most of our clutch shots. That's a TEAM.
I disagree, Seattle had our number. Eliminated us in 93 and 96. Good chance we win 0 championships if they didn't historically get upset in 94 and 95. Barkley did what he was supposed to do, beat Seattle. It's almost like medicine, you take a pill to fix one problem but the side effects create a new one. Our side effect was we longer matched up as favorably with Utah. That said, even our championship years we barely beat Utah and Phoenix. Maybe it was just Utah's time to take one. The point is even with Cassell and Horry we were swept out of the 2nd round as defending champions. It was time to gamble and the next season we improved to 10 playoff wins from 4, while Dream and Drexler were one more year removed from their prime. Aside from rebuilding, it was the right move.
I'm talking about 1994-1996, not 1993. The Sonics weren't a powerhouse until the 1994 season. The Rockets could not beat them, due in part to refs ignoring the Sonics' illegal defense of Hakeem (doubling him prior to/during entry passes). Whatever the reason the Rockets couldn't win, I dreaded facing the Sonics in the playoffs until we got Barkley.
