What if MJ never retired and the Rockets Played them in 94 and 95?

This has been discussed a lot on these boards, and it's a question that has no answer. It always deteriorates into a "yeah they would, no they wouldn't" fest after a while though.

 

no they wouldn't!!


yeah they would!!!

 

See, I told ya!!

 

On the Sega Genesis I could always kick the Bulls ass when I played as the Rockets.

 

Well I guess that answers it there huh.

There's no question the Bulls would have won. The Rockets would have taken them to 7 games but Jordan's Bulls would ahve prevailed.

 

Well thanks Nostradamus. Who will win next year? I guess the Lakers will win "no question" asked. Gee...I dont know why the NBA is even bothering to have a season next year. We can just ask the great prophet TexasG!

A BIG ASS

We definitely would have kicked their freakin ass in 95!

 

The Rockets could have beaten the Bulls, especially in 94 with Mad Max there to play defense on Jordan. They always beat them in the regular season, so I believe we could have beaten them in the playoffs.

 

And you based that on what?

Head to head matchups?

The Rockets were like 12-1 against the Bulls before 94.

If it is your opinion fine but don't portray it as a given since the Bulls could not beat the Rockets on a consistant basis the last 13 meetings.


Now again the real answer will never be known but by MJ's own words , he stated that they ( the Bulls) had no answer for Dream.

 

Because it's the playoffs. I figured you guys should know most of all that the intensity in the playoffs is much higher than it is in the regular season. Plus there is no way in hell Maxwell could hold Jordan.

 

Well since the particular season we are talking about occured in the past Nostradamus(or predicting the future) has nothing to do with this conversation. Hindsight is 20/20 (you do know what hindsight means don't you), and looking back (not ahead) the Bulls would have beaten the Rockets.

The Bulls had won the 3 Championships prior to the Rockets winning their's. The 1 1/2 that Jordan was retired just happened to be the years that the Rockets won their's. When Jordan came back they won the next three (until he retired again). Jordan's Bulls would have won 8 stright if he didn't retire. Anyone who believes other wise is an idiot or just dosn't know basketball (or is simply a homer).

 

Nope, I base it on the fact that the Bulls won the three Championships before, and the three championships after the Rockets won theirs. Also basing it on the fact that the Rockets won their championships when Jordan was retired. If Jordan had played a full season both of those years the Rockets would not have won.

 

Anyone who believes that hindsight = predicting a hypothetical situation from the past is not someone who should be calling another an idiot.

 

The Orlando magic beat the Bulls (with Jordan on the team) during their playoff run to the finals only to get swept by the Rockets, so the Rockets swept the team that beat Jordan's Bulls, correct?

Raven

 

Again...it is nothing more than your opinion. The FACTs say that the Rockets owned the Bulls during their championship years. No other team can claim that.


Well MJ was one game away from going to the finals in 95 but had the ball stolen away and the Magic went on to be destroyed by the Rockets.

If MJ was so good then why couldn't he get to the finals when he was there for over a 1/3 of the regular season? IF MJ was the difference maker why didn't he make the diference in 95?

It is nice to see your tenacity when defending your opinion but like a poor marksman...you keep missing the target.

 

I don't know who would win, but the Rockets would have absolutely OWNED the lane. No Horace Grant? leaves Hakeem and Thorpe vs. Jason Caffey and Will Perdue. A bit of a mismatch there.

 

The thought of Hakeem in his prime versus Perdue is scary. How many records would he have broken? Would he have averaged 45+ a game?

 

EXACTLY.

the bulls never went through the rockets, ever, to get their championships. so based on texasg's logic i've come to the conclusion that if seattle never made the playoffs the rocks would have advanced and taken atleast 3 more rings from the bulls. that's fact right there.

based on everything, the rockets could have held their own and probably taken the bulls in both '94 and '95. the regular season records don't mean all that much but i hate this, " well it's the playoffs, so jordan is now a god" bullsh!t. so if they had played in '95 hakeem would have gone from maybe the greatest playoff performance in history to a man-servant of his airness? gimme a break. if the mvp got his ass handed to him what would luc longley have done? basketball involves alot of luck, maybe the rocks were lucky to miss the sonics those 2 years and maybe the bulls were lucky to miss the rockets.

 

I waste a lot of time reading sports info, and here I am asking ya'll to waste time reading my post; but the one team the Bulls said they did not want to meet in the NBA Finals was the Hakeem/Clyde/Barkley Rockets.

Hakeem and Jordan would have cancelled each other out in greatness; Barkley would have edged Rodman, although I don't underestimate Rodman's "mind" games; Clyde and Pippen would have been about a wash.

THAT would have been a great series.

Everyone talks smack about Jordan but in the first comeback, when his Bulls fell to the Magic, the Bulls lacked that dirty-work power forward. Enter Rodman and more championships.

I think the Rockets' real nemesis was always getting out of the West, getting past Seattle. If we'd met Seattle in the championship years, they wouldn't've been championship years.

The earliest incarnation of the Rockets, I think, would have had some trouble with the Bulls. When Drexler came on board in '95, that Rockets team might have matched well against the no dirty-work-PF Bulls.