I hear alot of people say to me (mostly MJ fans), that the Rockets were lucky to win titles in 94 and 95 cause MJ left the game. How do you think the Rockets would have matched up with MJ Bulls if they met in the finals of 94 and 95? Personally I feel the Rockets would have matched up well with them (maybe more so in 95 than 94, but still would have given the Bulls problems). Overall I see the Bulls having no answer for Hakeem, which is something the Bulls never really faced in a finals series. They usually had Pippen guard Stockton or a Payton...maybe Barkley in 93 was one guy they could not stop, but they had a solid Hoace Grant gaurding him.....I dont see the Bulls stopping Hakeem regardless of how they guard him. What do you all think? Lets say if we take their 93 team for example...
I remember watching Jordan play against the Rockets. The Bulls played well but I would bet we had the season series over them. The Rockets would have beat the Bulls.
A split. The first championship squad would have lost to the Bulls. Nobody was stopping the second one.
We played Chicago pretty well those years before Michael retired. Mad Max was a pretty good straight up defender on him. There should be an asterisk by all those Chicago championships. If Magic Johnson hadn't contracted HIV and retired early, he'd still be winning championships at age 43 with Shaq and Kobe and two bums off the street, or with AC Green, Worthy, Divac, Scott versus Michael, Scottie Poutin, and three bums off the street. The only reason Chicago probably beat them in 1990-1991 was Magic was already sick. If Larry Bird hadn't had persistent injuries, Chicago doesn't get out of the Eastern Conference, EVER, and maybe Krause breaks up the team that year.
The whole "Bulls vs. Rockets" hypothetical argument has been argued to death. We should look at what DID happen... In 1994, The Sonics were the best team in the NBA and probably would have gone to the Finals had the Nuggets not upset them. Not to mention that the Sonics were the one team in the league that owned us, and probably would have steamrolled us in the WC Finals. During game seven of the NBA Finals, John Starks has probably the worst shooting game in finals history. If he hits even a third of his shots, we lose to the Knicks. Also, do you remember that "clockgate" incident during the conference finals against the Jazz, where the clock didn't start for about 15 seconds? If the Jazz had made that shot, that clock stoppage would have been benefitial to US, giving us more time for the final shot. It all ended up being irrelevant, though... 1995 NBA Finals, game 1: Nick Anderson earns his "Nick the Brick" nickname after missing four consecutive free throws with Orlando up by three in the final seconds. Orlando loses momentum and we roll in four games... Hell yeah, we were lucky. As the old saying goes, though...It's better to be lucky than good.
Considering the Sonics "OWNED" The Rockets in the mid 90's...do you feel that Seattle was a better challenger in 96 finals to the Bulls then the Rockets would have been in 95 or 94 or whenever? Personally I dont think Kemp or Payton could dominate the Bulls as well as Hakeem could of (regardless of the year). Also I like Hakeem and Clyde in 95 as a duo to beat Kemp and Payton in 95......Yeah they owned them in the regular season, but many teams that own a team during the regular season end up losing in a playoff series. I dont see why the Sonics of then were better challengers to the Bulls considering neither Kemp or Payton could dominate the Bulls like Hakeem could have (while Drexler would also outplay rather easily Hawkins or whoever Seattle put on him). Seattle seemed stack with talent, but I dont consider Kemp to be a better playoff prime time performer against the Bulls like Hakeem could have been. Yeah Kemp was top 5 back then, but I could see him not exactly dominating the Bulls back in the mid 90's. Also you say this topic has been argued to death....does anyone have a link to this topic in the past?? I cant find it considering the SEARCH function does not work anymore on this site..why is that?
Nikos, I believe the "search" function is down due to the traffic from Yeow! Ming. As far as the 94 and 95 runs, the Sonics would have obliterated the 94 rockets. They had our number, as much as anybody hates to admit it. The bulls woulda gotten us too of course if jordan stayed. Heck the Knicks should have beat us that year too, but they choked and we took advantage. 95 was a different story...we were a team of destiny. Seattle stunk that year (I believe they were merely a 4 seed), and I think we would have taken em if we had to meet em in the conference finals (which woulda never happened anyways). Championships and luck go hand-in-hand, so nobody should discount our championships. With all or most successes, luck plays a large factor.
Search function is working again. It was temporarily disabled after the board was flooded when we got the top pick in the draft... Just about every basketball fan (including some Rockets fans) thought the Sonics would beat the Rockets in the '94 WC Finals, because Seattle played the famous George Karl zone that disrupted our low post attack. They beat us in 1993 and then swept us in 1996 (with Hakeem and Clyde). We finally got over the hump and beat them in 1997 when we acquired Barkley... Also, you mentioned that regular season dominance doesn't always equate to postseason dominance. The Rockets matched up very well against the Bulls in the regular season (Rockets and Jazz are the only two teams against whom Jordan has a regular season percentage under .500), so would this have equated to the Rockets beating the Bulls in the NBA Finals? Nobody really knows, and that's the fun in these arguments... My personal opinion is that we WOULDN'T have beaten the Sonics in '94 and '95, but we WOULD have beaten the Bulls in '94 and '95 (we probably would have beaten them in '97 also, but we can thank the evil Jazz for that, which is a whole thread unto itself...)
