I remember being in a great deal of pain the day I was trying to watch my beloved Rox in the NBA Finals in a tiny little box in the corner of the tv screen while a very long shot of a white Bronco SUV driving down a LA freeway took up the rest of that screen.
No, it was on NBC for all the regular people. Though it's probably best you didn't watch it, tv's are much more expensive than radios!!
Stockton's 3 has to be the most excruciatingly painful. BTW: "Moving pick" understates Malone's actions by a huge margin. The only way to adequately describe that pick is to use an analogy from another sport: Stockton should have been forced to take the shot over from 10 yards farther away. That wasn't a moving pick; it was Offensive Holding!! A close 2nd has to be when Moses Malone (who until that point was having the best postseason by a center I had the privilege to witness until 1995 -- including the year he won it all with Philly) had to open his fat mouth and make his "4 guys from Petersburg" comment. I was living in Boston at the time, and I knew instantaneously the level of pain I was going to have to endure for the rest of the series. Didn't anyone EVER tell him the one about letting sleeping dogs lie???? Slow, lingering, persistent, painful torture.... concluded by having to listen to Bird's description of Moses' culinary habits at their victory parade. 3rd: Lucas/Lloyd and the cocaine. Man it was such a beautiful thing to watch a fast break that started with a Sampson outlet and ended with a Lew Lloyd dunk. Second only to dreaming about what could've been if we'd traded Ralph for Portland's pick will be forever wondering what could've been if we'd been able to keep Lucas, Lloyd, Ralph, Dream, and McCray together for a decade.
The memory of Bill Walton's tip-in shot during the dying seconds of the Game 4 (?) of the 1986 Finals still haunt me till this day. Had the series been tied, I thought the Rockets could have won the series and started a dynasty with the Twin Towers. The Rockets with Ralph and Akeem combo was just awesome, in my opinion better than those of Houton's championship years.
My most painful memory was seeing Stockton hitting that 3 pointer and Malone giving Clyde the bearhug just before that shot.
I live in SLC and have to relive that 3 pointer at least 50 times a year. If I hear "John Stockton sends the Utah Jazz to the NBA finals once more...
hakeem had to be the most painful with rudy a close second. ofcourse i wasnt born in the days of moses
This is probably only #5 or so, but no one's brought it up yet. The 1993 regular season game we lost to Atlanta, game #16, the game that snapped our 15-0 winning streak. Right after we beat the "Rockets' Ewing" Knicks, too.
Sorry for the multiple posts- no edit. This isn't so much as a painful "moment" but just an accumulation of many, many small losses. It's funny how memory works. When we look back at those glory years of 93 and 94, we tend to remember the banners, parades, champagne and Finals MVP awards. Every once in a while we think of the quitting by Vernon Maxwell, which reminds us that even those days weren't always so rosy. But here's what gets me. Back in that 94-95 championship year, and even the first one, it seemed that we lost EVERY nationally televised regular season game on NBC. It pissed me off that we would always have an away game at either Phoenix, Seattle, San Antonio, or one of the other big hitters. At one stretch we were like 0-16 on Sunday afternoon NBC games. Anyways. Before I knew that we would win the first or the second title, those losses always hit me particularly hard.
I think mine is the first game of the World Champship against Boston. The Rockets seem to have the momentum and playing well in Boston then Bird made a crazy lucky shot going to his right behind the backboard. That goes in and the tide changed on that one play. It seem Boston was destined to win after that shot. This was back when the Rockets had Moses,Reid and ect. I feel if we won game one in Boston it might have been diff.
