Thanks for posting this, as someone who was a year old when this happened amazes me how much the game has changed. Hakeem required so much defensive attention.
The poor guy was never the same after that game. Talk about something that scars you for life. In retrospect, I feel bad for him. Nick Anderson should have sought some type of counselling if those ft misses affected him that badly.
Shaq was prime. People like to say Young Shaq and separate his prime as being Lakers-only, but some of his best stats were in Orlando. He was breaking rims/backboards in Orlando. Shaq is a rare player who was from Day 1, if not, then his 2nd season.
Hakeem was the offensive equivalent of Harden operating in the low post with extreme premium Kawhi defence. He nullified his man and erased teammates' mistakes time after time.
lol look at the 30:48 handchecking foul called... @ Harden-couldnt -be- good - back-in-the -day-when -handcehcking-was-allowed bs crowd
Please show us where anyone said that Harden wouldn't be good back in the day when hand checking was allowed?
Dick Bavetta out there looking super old. Little did we know he'd still ref 19 years later. (Easily amongst my favorite refs ever) Haha, making it weird with the kiss...
It's too bad the 1995 Rockets team, which accidentally cracked the code by having 4 shooters plus an athletic big and playing at a higher pace - didn't build off of that more and make it the model going forward. (also, sitting low-efficiency volume chuckers like Vernon Maxwell was a good idea) They had something there, to the surprise of most of us at the time who thought you still needed a traditional PF who could bench press 300 lbs and not score outside of 3 feet, but the league instead went backwards, sliding into the halfcourt, slow-paced late MJ Triangle/Jerry Sloan nadir that lasted until the Pringles revolution.
there is a saying , I think its winston churchill's one that goes something like: Most of the people stumble upon the truth, but they pickup themselves and proceed like nothing happened.
