[SI] Rockets over Magic #10 greatest playoff UPSET???

I still remember working the loading docks at RPS slinging packages during the graveyard shift. I had argument with a Rockets fan who worked with me on the docks about who would win the series. I picked the Magic to easily win... I'm so sorry.

BTW, yes, this was definitely an upset at the time. Penny was the next Magic/Michael and Shaq was the next Wilt at this point.

 

Yeah, I remember he was embarrassed by Penny, especially late of the games. Jordan was not at full force, clearly.

 

player A: 31.5 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 4.5 apg, 2.3 spg, 1.4 bpg, 48%/37%/81%

player B: 30.7 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 4.1 apg, 1.8 spg, 0.3 bpg, 46%/40%/82%


now, which one would you rather have, keeping in mind that stats are what actually win games, not perceptions.

 

as for the upset, if it was, it was barely one. by the records, it wouldn't even be the 3rd biggest upset for us in that playoffs as the other 3 teams had 59, 60, and 62 wins to the magic's 57.


and we were obviously better than our record. we had hakeem at the prime of the prime of his prime in those playoffs and the nucleus of a championship team.

 

The ones with the black and green squiggly lines? Me too--in fact, I got them, came home, and watched the Rockets beat the Suns in Game 7 in '95.

Greatest day evah.

 

he wasn't rusty. he was training the whole year to return.
what people forgot is that dreaded Spurs GAVE AWAY Dennis Rodman to the Bulls for Will Purdue.

Rodman dominating on the boards allowed Jordan the next year to pass the Magic. We know the rest of the story. Take Rodman away from that team, it would be 3 rings only.

 

Jordan wasn't rusty. I watched the games, remember his 55 against the Knicks. Orlando had a dominant front court against the Bulls non-existent one.

That more than Jordan's lack of fine tuning cost them the game. Even during the championship years Jordan still had the ball stolen from him. He had his shot blocked, and his pocket picked from time to time.

The difference is all in the packaging. If he wins they don't show those highlites. When he loses they show them, and claim the guy was rusty.

 

haha. hellllllllll yeah. those were tight shoes.

those were the days.

the "Ken Griffeys", the "Deion Sanders" [the shoe-tongues had a goalpost on a home-plate or something], the "Junior Seaus", the original "Huaraches", the Penny Hardaway "Air Pennys", the "Kemp Kamikazes", the FILA "Grant Hills", the Alonzo Mourning "NDestrukts" (sp?), the Pippen "Air Uptempos", the Barkley "Air Forces" [with the 'C B 3 4' on the bottom], the ugly Rodmans, the Reebok "Shaq Attacks", and for the old ppl, the original "Reebok Pumps" with the inflatable air pump that looked like a basketball.

gosh, i miss those days. that was when shoes were affordable. even the expensive ones were at a decent price.
the most expensive athletic shoes to start consistently breaking the $100 barrier were the Air Maxes. When the Air Shox came out, $100 was nothing. And then Jordan blew everything away when his briefcase shoes came for like $175 a pop. that's when you KNEW that it was out of control.

[sigh]

 

yeah i remember that 55. everyone saw it as a [premature] sign that Mike was back. i even remember the Inside Stuff of that following Saturday morning/noon (when it was on NBC) where Ahmad Rashad was like:
"'My MAAAAAAAAAAAIN man Will Perdue will be able to tell his kids in 10 years that he and Michael Jordan combined for 57 points - of course, he only scored 2.'
and THAT is your IN-SIDE STUFF."

 

Rusty my ass. He put up better numbers than he did in the second 3-peat. Yes, the stats don't tell everything, as they don't show that 95 was the only year MJ didn't have a PF.

 

I'd have to eat more crow than that. The real beauty of it was Olajuwon stuffed that down my throat exactly the way he did every one of his biggest fans. And I'd already said by that time that I thought Dream was the best center in NBA history.

The WCF's against San Antonio I still believe was Robert Horry's despite how most people remember it, but the team exposed every weakness we had.

Heading into Orlando I was just so grateful for the historic run we'd made, and I was thinking those guys did a hell of a job defending a championship most people nationally thought border-line invalid.

But even looking back on that series so many things happened that almost defy logic. A great Dream and Clyde doesn't explain why a healthy young 6'9 Penny wasn't murdering us in the interior. Dream was quite busy. Clyde looked like he was running on fumes, and almost every person on the roster just hammered the Magic.

It's easy for so many here to say that Sam was a machine, Horry was a dynamo and Mario was money. Well, Cassell fared a lot better against the Knicks, Horry was, well what he is, and Mario had been truly been invaluable over the course of a month; he had also been on the bench for almost the entire '94 Finals.

But I think Rudy could have put in anyone on that team in the game and they'd have just torn Orlando up. It makes no sense now, or did then.

'95 was the year Dream got annointed, and there's no way to give him enough credit, ever. Clyde was, at times, still amazing. But I do think that entire team was somehow infused with championship blood.

Rudy's remark is (well was then too) a cliche', but as he spoke it I think I didn't give him enough credit for what he did down to the last man on that team.

And that's not sentimentality. It's still WTF?

 

or it suggests he's a fierce competitor who didn't like losing.

 

We "upset" the Magic for several reasons but these two stand out for me:

1 The Magic played very poor defense in the series. One example: Elie destroyed them far beyond what he should have.

2 The Magic lost their poise on several occassions. We all remember Nick the Brick, but there were other occassions when they just looked lost and shellshocked. They played game 2 with a game 1 hangover. Not to take anything away from our accomplishment, but the Magic clearly didn't play their best because they weren't mentally ready for the Big Stage. Either that or they never recovered from blowing game 1. IMO, they never showed the heart they demonstrated in beating the Pacers in the ECFs.

 

i agree with that. however, i don't think the rocket's performance can be entirely separated from the magic's failures. the magic were overwhelmed from the 2nd half of game 1, on. the rockets came out in game 2 absolutely on fire.

 

the people at SI are a bunch of idiots/rockets haters

with the way the rockets caught fire in the playoffs that year, nobody was gonna beat them

 

MJ wasn't rusty in terms of stats, but I do think being unfamiliar with a lot of the Bulls' supporting cast(the team had changed a lot since June '93) might've contributed to his problems in the postseason. I still can't believe he let Nick the Brick pick his pocket in Game 1 like that.

That being said, the Bulls lost to the Tragic that year because their power forward was suiting up for the other team. They were forced to start Kukoc at the 4. Granted, the Rockets ran out Robert Horry as their starting PF for the last 6 games of the playoffs and won every one of them, but he was playing out of his mind at that point(some people were even making a case for him as Finals MVP). Plus he had the luxury of playing alongside some guy named Dream. The Bulls had the infamous 3-headed monster.

 

Remember the story on how that during practice for game 2, Rudy thought the players had "happy feet" after game 1. He then proceeded to chew them out and rip them up and down. We came out more focused in game 2 than any other game in the series. It almost wasn't a contest. I vaguely remember the Magic making some runs during the game but the outcome was barely in doubt.

 

I remember Nick the brick in game 1.....and had scheduled my travel to Vegas to coincide with the start of game 2.....we got rerouted due to whether to Utah for a bit and I missed the first half.....when we landed and we got to the casino, I asked someone wearing Rockets gear what the spread was...he said 20....and I was like, dang we are down 20....and he said "Down? Hell, no, we are crushing them"

Man, that was a great start to a trip in Vegas.

DD

 

I'm with you about MJ, but others can disagree. He played great but something just wasn't 100% right. Definitely the Bulls roster was weaker than the championship years because there was no Grant or Rodman at PF.