I'm not going to go back and dig through the box scores, but if I recall, in the Rockets victories over the Bulls during this time, they not only won, but they kicked their ass. So was Jordan getting a bunch of his points at garbage time, or when Max wasn't even in the game? The other thing that i see is that Maxwell averaged over 18 pts a game against Jordan. Bottom line is the Rockets, to quote Hakeem, "not only beat the Bulls, but they DOMINATED them", and Max played a HUGE part in it!
I don't think it's that Max held Jordan to under his average that was so key. The stats are not always telling. You have to watch the game to. It could also be that Max denied Jordan as many opportunities to score (even if he had a good percentage). The other thing is that having Hakeem helped a lot obviously. In a playoff series, realistically, I think our main advantage would be in the paint.
Maxwell was great defensively but he had the luxury of Olajuwon having his back and always ready to host a block party in the paint. Ask Kevin Johnson how fun that is. I'm sure that affected even Jordan's game.
Interesting to see it. But, it's how he got to those stats. If you watched the Rockets vs. Bulls games, Jordan did not get as much penetration and relied on jumpers. Maxwell also denied him well. The combo of Maxwell and Hakeem kept him out of the paint. Defense is always, and will always be, beyond stats.
Agree with that, but like I pointed out, the stats are deceptive and given the shooting in those months not out of the norm. The "20% less vs Rockets than vs his league average in 92/93" is a blatant and ridiculous lie, Jordan averaged 49% that season and roughly 46% vs Maxwell. Maxwell also Held him barely one percent below his December and January fg%. I'm okay with praising Maxwell, but maybe don't make up ridiculous lies.
I don't even know anymore what his % is about, it doesn't even add up when using simply ppg (did he try to use percentages for measuring the simple points of a tiny two game sample?).
Apparently some of you don't get this. If two players only saw each other twice a year for 3 years and played in every game, the total population of games is 6. A sample of the 6 games is less than 6. For Averages, Scoring Average vs the League vs Scoring average vs that team (2 games). Pretty simple math.
I never said that it was statistically significant, just that in general you would expect roughly half of Jordan's games to be UNDER his average. So tinman is making it sound like Maxwell was awesome for keeping under his average half the time, which is generally what you would expect. So basically Maxwell was an average defender against Jordan.
You know what they say: you can twist numbers to prove anything you want. Or they say something like that, ha :grin: I never even knew the actual numbers behind Jordan vs. Maxwell. I was just aware that the Rockets had the Bulls' number during the Hakeem era.
1. doesn't mean much in playoffs 2. doesn't help much if your team doesn't make it to the finals to meet them 3. I know you didn't claim any of this
I understood your point and fully agree. Just wanted to add that his games are even more pointless considering the very low number of games and context. When you only have 6 games and even then it's 50/50 you should realize that there is nothing really to point out in any favour.
1. they never faced in the finals 2. you can only analyze what did happen, they play 2 games a year, which we do with any team in the east. 3. i claim maxwell did a good enough job that it was mentioned in the documentary and was common knowledge for rockets fans back in the day.
You serious need to learn Math and may be reading comprehension too. VS ROCKETS 92/93 JORDAN AVERAGED 26 POINTS (2 games , 26 points each) VS THE LEAGUE JORDAN AVERAGED 32.6 POINTS THAT YEAR DIFFERENCE =6.6 POINTS 6.6 POINTS / 32.6 POINTS = 0.2024599 ~ 20.2 PERCENT
My goodness, folks, Five and 1. Jordan, his airiness hisownself, said Hakeem was the answer to the question. MJ and Philip were the lucky ones in mid-90s to miss TheDreamTeam that very much included MaddMaxx. That ain't no revisionist histoire, folks. That's Reality 101. And probably my sportsfandom's greatest regret is the two squads never did lace'm up in The Finals.
Jordan took a swing at Maxwell. Maxwell physically roughed him up when they played, and I watched Jordan every chance I could back then. He was physical in a way that would result in technicals in today's game. I never saw him as totally discombobulated as he was every time he played Maxwell. He totally lost his cool, which he just didn't do in any other circumstance regularly. Anybody who actually watched those games on HSE at the time would have no doubt that Jordan hated playing against Maxwell more than anybody else in the league, without even bring stats into it. I guarantee Jordan left those games more drained than against any other defender. He hated Max.
I don't think you can use 2 games to make a strong case. Vernon defended Jordan well. But that's not the reason we won. It's the guy who's last name starts with an "H"
