Just watching the post game show on TNT. They mentioned the NBA is all about matchups and the Spurs have the Sun's number. Kenny then went on a tangent to his playing days and brought up how Seattle had the Rocket's number. Charles then went off and talked about it for a good 30 seconds...he mentioned how the Rockets lost 19 straight to the Sonics and how Hakeem kept on fighting the double team. He on the other hand would pass it out for good shots. I remember it a little differently. When Seattle swept us in the 96 playoffs, Hakeem passed it out almost every time. It wasn't until he started shooting over the double team did we have any success in game 4. Also Barkley just backed himself to the bucket for a layup when playing Seattle. I admit though in general he was more efficient at kicking it out for open shooters.
As I remember it. The young Shawn Kemp was athletic enough to somewhat neutralize Hakeem and the Sonics defense was good enough and Payton in his prime killed our guards. Barkely did indeed allow us to beat the Sonics. Charles could be right on how he did it. I thought it was just that Barkley and Hakeem were too much power and quickness for Seattle's front line.
Come on, we all know full well that Seattle played an illegal zone. They played us back then a lot like Phoenix does today. Bastards.
Funny the Sonics were my favorite team those years... against the best teams...they had at worst 3 to 1 records.. but against the weak teams... they had like 0-4 records.. kinda like the Rockets of today when they play down to the weaker teams... I think there was two years in a row the Sonics got the no.1 seed in the west only to lose to the no.8 seed first round... that was so painful
Exactly right-they always got away with it. They had out standing shooters. Detleff Shrempfh (sp?), Perkins, Hersey Hawkins- really good shooters. Payton was a cypher- outstanding defender in his prime-the "glove"-he was an all NBA point guard. They were really difficult to play for us. Had they not gotten away with the illegal zone defense-who knows? Charles BArkley should not get all the credit for us beating them in '97....
I used to cringe, kind of like when we play the Suns now, when we'd have to play the 90's Sonics. That illegal D just killed us!
at least we hear the "clang" rafer alston shoots wide open threes and sometimes it hits nothing but backboard
even though they beat the rockets, i never really hated the sonics. i liked kemp payton and detlaf got on my nerves
Barkley was a slightly better passer than Hakeem. But that's not the reason he won the seattle series for us. Seattle's game plan was to relentlessly trap and double Hakeem. They were able to do this because they had pretty quick guys at all the other positions other than center to bring the double. But when the Rockets switched to posting Barkley, Perkins was too slow to help on the double team. So he became a liability that the Rockets could exploit.
Yall are blind. The reason we lost to the Sonics was Karl's semi-illegal zone swarms and REBOUNDING. Willis+Barkley=rebounds...
I'll go for that. Nice to see we have so many fans from back in those days. I hated playing Seattle back then.
As I recall, the Seattle Sonic and George Karl incorporated an 'zone' defense against Hakeem and basically dared the refs to call illegal defense every time down the floor....the refs swallowed their whistles and we lost every playoff series. O and Kenny guarding GP basically was equivalent to Rockets starting every game down by ten.
The whole damn reason we got Charles was to beat Seattle. And it worked. Didn't get the big one though.
Shawn Kemp was invisible to Hakeem. That's why they had to play illegal defense. On the other end, Hakeem owned Kemp. I remember sequences where he blocked 2,3,4 blocks in one possession. In 96, the 3s were raining--the Sonics hit a ridiculous percentage. If Seattle played Chicago the same way they played against us, I could've seen them winning it all. They lost a couple games in Finals before they really hit their stride.
