Bill Walton: Great Rocket Suporter

http://www.nba.com/playoffs2002/Wheres_Walton__Day_13-42529-220.html
Prior to the game, down on the floor, hanging with my kind of fans, I bumped into one of my favorite players of all time. One of the few in the league that I actually played against, Hakeem Olajuwon, easily one of the top five centers in NBA history. His performance in the 1994 and ’95 seasons is as great as they come. His mere presence invigorates, rejuvenates, inspires and just plain makes me feel better …


http://completesports.blogspot.com/2006/10/ultimate-bill-walton-quote-library.html

“Yao Ming is the best thing to happen to the NBA in a long time. He is just a beautiful person inside and out. The vision, the creativity, the gentleness of spirit … he has it all.”

“Tracy McGrady is doing things we’ve never seen from anybody – from any planet!”

"A huge Chinese population here in... Houston."

-- Bill Walton, making a comment on Yao Ming 1.21.2004

"You talk about Shaq as a ballerina, what a pirouette from Yao!"

-- Bill Walton, as Ming twists in the lane. 2.11.2004

 

note: I'm just guessing what he and Yao are saying:

Bill: Should I buy something at Gallery Furniture?
Yao: No, its crap, their sofas are too small.

 

its not countering. its CORRECTING. I don't like people putting false info out there. Walton is a great commentator and friend of the Rockets (I actually put proof in articles and pictures not made up crap). Also I met Walton, he didn't give me the shtick, he really enjoys talking NBA and he's honest.

Clutchfans is here to inform and educate the world. I'm not going to let the world go to crap by the haters.

 

I have forgiven Walton for that. It was Sichting's fault anyway.

What a glorious and emotional game though! The SUMMIT Crowd! We want Ralph!!

Paper: HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Date: FRI 06/06/1986
Section: 1
Page: 1
Edition: 1 STAR

Rockets KO Celtics!/Houston wins war in The Summit, whips Boston 111-96

By FRAN BLINEBURY
Staff

Well, the Houston Rockets said they were not going to give up without a fight.

But nobody ever thought that meant they were tossing their names into the ring as contenders for the heavyweight boxing crown.

Yet there it was, a cross between the Thrilla in Manila and Wrestlemania.

Ralph Sampson was ejected for punching Jerry Sichting in the main event and the Houston Rockets then decked the Boston Celtics 111-96 Thursday night before a bloodthirsty sellout crowd of 15,876 at The Summit.

The Rockets' victory cut the Celtics' lead to 3-2 in the best-of-seven NBA Finals.

Game 6 will be played on Sunday at noon in Boston Garden.

Akeem Olajuwon led the angry Rockets storm with 32 points, 14 rebounds and a Finals-record 8 blocked shots, while Rodney McCray added 17, Mitchell Wiggins 16, Robert Reid 13 and Jim Petersen 6 points and 12 vengeful rebounds.

Kevin McHale had 32 points and Larry Bird 17 to lead Boston.

Sampson had 12 points and 3 rebounds when he left the game.

But more than any gaudy numbers or awesome statistical line, it was Sampson who lit the Rockets' fire with his Me-Against-the-World routine, nailing Sichting twice, then Dennis Johnson to precipitate a bench-clearing brawl and the kind of ugly scene that you normally associate with a Liverpool soccer team.

I'm hoping this will pump us up," Sampson said. We definitely needed something and this should get us going, I hope. I think it might turn the whole thing around."

At the very least, it might prompt the NBA to call out the National Guard for Sunday after this one erupted into a riot near the proportions of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago with 9:40 left in the second quarter.

I've coached a few years and I think this was one of the most emotional non-seventh games," said Rockets Coach Bill Fitch. It was a tough situation . . . the fight. I don't know why fights happen.

In Boston, it's another story. It's hard to win there, but we're going up to play basketball."

Which will certainly be refreshing if that is the only game that's played.

Very early in the game, Sampson had nearly decapitated Boston's Danny Ainge while setting a pick; and the tone of a physical, loosely-officiated game was set.

The Rockets had just pushed in front 34-33 on a dunk when the hockey game broke out.

Sampson had been animated and aggressive, piling up 10 points in the first quarter and adding 2 more on a slam.

Following a miss by Boston, the Rockets came down the floor with the ball and Sampson bumped into Sichting several times.

As the Rockets tried to set up on offense, Sichting, Bill Walton and Sampson came together again in the low post on the right side of the hoop. Sichting hooked Sampson's arm, prohibiting the taller man from moving.

Finally able to break free, the 7-foot-4, 230-pound Sampson stepped back in plain view of referee Jack Madden and punched the 6-1, 180-pound Sichting in the face.

That blow did not connect solidly, but Sampson's second blow - another right hand - caught Sichting.

Johnson then came up on Sampson from the side, got in a punch and Ralph caught him squarely on the side of the face with a roundhouse left in return.

For a moment, it looked like Sampson was doing his own version of Joe Louis' Bum of the Month Club," or impersonating Bruce Lee in a Kung Fu movie, taking on all comers.

Both benches then emptied and Walton tackled Sampson from behind and brought him to the floor.

At that point, it was complete pandemonium as everybody wanted a piece of the action.

Olajuwon also took a punch at - and hit - Johnson, raising a welt that eventually required a butterfly patch. Boston reserve Greg Kite came up from behind Olajuwon and clamped a headlock on him. That brought Lewis Lloyd flying over the pack to grab Kite.

About the only ones missing by then were Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper.

As coaches, players, referees and even fans in the front began to battle for their lives, Sampson finally broke free, stalked toward the Rockets bench and kicked the ball into the press table.

When the smoke cleared, Sampson had been given a punching foul and ejected.

Sampson exchanged angry words with Madden and fellow ref Hugh Evans as he headed toward the locker room.

I set a pick down low and they were talking about someone coming back behind the pick," Sampson explained in the hallway immediately after his ejection.

Then Walton grabbed me and Sichting hit me. Then I hit him and then everybody collapsed on everybody else.

It was a bull(bleep) call. If they want to play that way, we can play that way all night."

Indeed, Sampson's words proved prophetic.

Just six seconds after Sampson's ejection, his replacement Jim Petersen got into a shoving match with Johnson and another near-brawl erupted.

The benches emptied partly, Johnson was given a technical foul and play was halted as fans behind the Celtics' bench hurled plastic cups filled with ice and drinks onto the floor. That prompted security guards to go into the stands.

As the crowd chanted, We want Ralph! We want Ralph!" play finally resumed.

And it was the Rockets who used the fight as the emotional fuel to lift off.

Reid converted the technical foul against Johnson, then Rodney McCray hit a driving layup, Olajuwon two free throws and Olajuwon a 10-foot jumper.

That finished off a 7-0 run, sent the crowd into even more of a frenzy and gave the Celtics the first idea that maybe this wasn't going to be the night that they would pop the corks on the champagne bottles.

The Houston explosion was so sudden, swift and devastatingly effective that it might have been mistaken for a nuclear warhead going off.

Eddie Gregg put up a better fight against Gerry Cooney.

Wiggins and Petersen attacked the Celtics like starved wolves, sinking their teeth into almost every pass and their claws into almost every rebound.

Of course, it goes without saying that Olajuwon responded to the challenge and played on a different plane.

Oy vey,` said Boston Coach K.C. Jones. You can be sure that in Boston, Sampson will be in the game for 48 minutes. When Sampson went out, we lost our intensity and the Rockets gained intensity. We were organized chaos out there both offensively and defensively.

Sampson getting kicked out was a turning point. They just stepped up to another level and played fantastic in every way.

Olajuwon took over. He did what he said he was going to do. He was like Muhammad Ali. He made a statement and he backed it up. I was quite impressed with that."

You had to be impressed with the Rockets, who wound up shooting 14-for-25 for the quarter and outscored the Celtics 24-14 between the time of the fight and halftime.

That sent the Rockets into the locker room with a 58-47 lead, brimming with confidence and full, of course, with fight.

Sampson, in the 14 minutes he played, had hit 5 of 7 shots from the field, 2 of 2 from the line.

The Celtics, obviously shaken by the experience, made just 6 of 21 shots in the second quarter and wound up shooting 34-for-84 (.405) for the night.

Boston looked like a team that would suddenly be very happy to go back to the friendly parquet floor of Boston Garden to try to clinch their 16th championship.

The Rockets roared back out of the locker room still breathing fire and quickly bumped their lead up to 73-57 when Olajuwon rammed home a dunk with 5:44 left in the third quarter, made it 90-65 a minute into the fourth and it was over.

At that point, there was little reason to doubt that the plane tickets for the trip to back to Boston had not been purchased in vain.

All that was left was the scene on the court following the game that looked like something out of Peron's Argentina as the wild crowd refused to leave without a view of Sampson.

I really am sorry that it happened," Sampson said. It was an unfortunate thing. But if they are going to play that way, then I have to protect myself. I can't let them get away with that, just hurting me.

I was down in there and Walton bumped me and then Sichting was holding me. He wouldn't let me move. He kept holding and holding and then hit me in the back. So I hit him. Then the whole thing broke out.

Hey, I didn't want it to happen. But it did. Now it's going to pump us up in Boston."

After all, the Rockets had said they would not give up without a fight.

 

zong,
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=89342

 

http://media.www.thelantern.com/med...h.Of.Bill.Walton.Comedic.Genius-2904868.shtml

During a game in 2003, the Trail Blazers performed "the worst execution of the fast break" in franchise history, while in 2004 Cuttino Mobley was able to make "the two worst shot attempts in the history of this proud Houston Rockets franchise."

 

"Either way, that doesn't take away from what I believe was one of the great clutch performances of our lifetime," Walton said. "Horry took this team and put them on his back. He may not have the most talent out there, or the most athletic ability, but he was the best player on the floor when it truly counted."