[Ringer] All Hail the Upset Champions... the 1995 Houston Rockets

That team was one for the ages. As great as the first Championship was, the second was incredible. Everything from Kiss of Death, through Olajuwon's domination of Robinson, to the sweep of the Magic, are my happiest moments as a sports fan.

The Olajuwon-Horry-Elie-Drexler-Cassell/Smith lineup is by far my all-time Rockets team. All the other Rockets stars were great, but if I had to go to battle, the chemistry and complimentary skills of that team were on another level.

 

That playoff run was magical. If I'm not mistaken, they beat the top 4 teams in the league, record-wise, during that run. I'm pretty sure that never happened before, and may never again happen.

 

Waiting for the Bubble games to start, I got bored and started re-watching 1995 playoff games. I re-watched Game 7 from the Suns series.

Is it just me, or was Elie's kiss-of-death shot kind of insane under the circumstances? Tie game, 7 seconds to go, the Rockets had the ball. How do you not run the clock down to zero before taking a shot? Taking a 3 (no matter how open) with 7 seconds on the clock is ballsy as hell, and could have been catastrophic if he had missed!

Obviously one of the all-time great Rockets moments, but wow.

 

It's interesting how some of these got ranked. Warriors, Lakers, LeBron go 1,2,3 and while I agree that the Warriors beating the Mavs when they won 70 regular season games is probably number 1, how is the Nuggets/Supersonics series not number 2? That was an upset. Big time. They have several listed as big upsets and they're the 4/5 seeds. How is that a "huge" upset?

I think the guy put together numbers that filled his agenda which is to put the big media teams up top. Anyway, it's nice to see our Rockets up there 3 times and add the 1986 Rockets beating the Lakers. Getting 4 of 25 is pretty cool!

 

Without HCA in any of the series.

Practically won two Game 7 on opponent's HC (Suns & Jazz). Jazz was Game 5 because first rounds were best of 5 back then. In both of these games they were trailing in the game and mounted a comeback to win the game.

They might as well add the Suns series along with the rest of the series in the list because they were down 1-3 in the series and won the last 3 games to close the series out, while winning 2 elimination games on the Suns court in the process.

The team that has faced the most elimination games in a single playoff run and won them all to win the ring also I believe.

And let's not forget that the team won without Zan Tabak getting any minutes in the playoffs, as far as I can recall. Imagine if he had played.

 

I would rather have a guy with the balls to take the shot early in that situation when it presents itself, rather than the guy that wants no part of a big and pressure filled shot like that and either passes it off or chokes.

We had big shot takers/makers role players: Horry, Sam, Elie and added to Drexler and Hakeem that were big game players. Thats the reason that team was able to upset all 4 teams. Clutch DNA.

 

Legends
Horry , Cassell and Ellie prove after the rockets they were clutch as well
Team was significantly better than what people rank them

 

I wish I wasn't three years old at the time. I was too young to understand and fully experience how great this team and championship run was.

 

One of my favorite title runs of all time. Can't believe the series against Phoenix wasn't mentioned. Phoenix led 3-1 and could've won in 5 games if Barkley hit free throws. My other favorite runs of all time are 2011 Mavericks and 2004 Pistons.

 

Just watched the 20th anniversary Double Clutch -- that run in 95 was glorious.