Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)

[trekfan]

NBA League Update: The Playoffs, Conference Finals
By Sam Gray




The Bracket:


Injuries:


Round 2 Recap:

The West saw the Rockets put away the Warriors in five despite Houston losing Scottie Pippen midway through Game 2 (which they lost) — the Rockets dominated from that point on, inserting little-used Tim Legler into the starting lineup and watching him cook as he provided the Rockets with something they’ve not had all year — deep threat shooting. Golden State had no answers as they fouled often (Gary Payton may be the MVP of baiting players into fouls with his constant trash talk). Golden State simply couldn’t keep up with the Runnin’ Rockets.

In the other series, the Spurs and Mavs went the full seven games, Dallas and San Antonio engaging in a classic Game 7 which saw the Mavs enter the final frame up 2 before the Spurs authored a furious comeback behind David Robinson, who had sat a good portion of the second half in foul trouble — with 4 fouls and everything to play for, Robinson took over the game and buried Dallas shot after shot … ending the Mavericks season and keeping them from a wounded Rockets team in the WCF (and not allowing the Hale brothers to settle their differences in the postseason).

In the East, the Celtics and 76ers engaged in a tight series, but it ultimately came down to Larry Legend in Game 7 — with Barkley battling back spasms, Bird attacked him all game, wearing him down before hitting his one and only triple with 38 seconds to go, putting Boston up 98-92 — functionally sticking the dagger in Philly’s back and calling it done. Barkley performed adequately with his injury (12-8) but it’s not likely the Philly press will care.

In the other series, the Bulls shockingly fell 118-116 to the Cavs in a seven game slugfest. Chicago fell behind 2-0 in the series before rallying back, but it was Cleveland’s Craig Ehlo who put away Jordan and Hakeem, hitting a wild three that banked in during the final seconds, giving the Cavs a walkoff win and sucking the life out of the building for the Bulls fans. Jordan has fallen short of the ECF and the Finals for the 2nd year in a row and the Bulls know the clock is ticking — both Jordan and Hakeem can be free agents in the summer of 1993 if they don’t agree to extensions before then and the clock grows louder with every passing day.

Conference Finals Preview:

The WCF comes down two teams that know each other well — the Rockets and Spurs. San Antonio has the best big man in the conference, while the Rockets are without their franchise player in Scottie Pippen, who may not be able to go at all this series. Is David Robinson a big enough advantage to overcome the Rockets red-hot offense, led by ROY Gary Payton?

In the East, the Celtics and Cavs weren’t expected to get this far. Despite both teams being as good as they were all year, questions were asked if Boston was too old or Cleveland not experienced enough — the Cavs once more find themselves in the ECF and face a juggernaut in the Celtics, helmed by Bird, McHale, Parish, and Ainge; does Boston have one more Finals run in them or will the Cavs grab the torch and advance?

(The random number generator has assigned me Games 4 and 7 of the series. Can Houston survive without Pippen?)

[kibaxx7]

Grant shooting 16-of-20 for 37 points, that's insane, but the entire Fantastic Four (Grant-Payton-Pippen-Strong) has been unstoppable.

[trekfan]

Quote: Originally Posted by kibaxx7

Grant shooting 16-of-20 for 37 points, that's insane, but the entire Fantastic Four (Grant-Payton-Pippen-Strong) has been unstoppable.

They have been great -- like that nickname too. I've gotten through the first two rounds but without Pippen, the team's chances at winning aren't high. We'll see if the team can survive long enough to get Scottie back (if he can get back).

[trekfan]

Ch. 15

The WCF wasn’t what Houston wanted. San Antonio and David Robinson had advanced, meaning their biggest strength — center — would get to take advantage of one of Houston’s biggest weaknesses. Add in the fact that Pippen wasn’t expected back till Game 3 at the earliest, and Houston’s situation looked dire.

Dallas, for their part, had gotten further than expected after their injury plagued regular season, but losing in the second round was getting old for the coaching staff, the players, and the man who ran the Mavericks, Trent Lewis. Yes, their postseason had been a success, at least from a financial standpoint, but it certainly couldn’t be called that from a play standpoint. Lewis had found himself wishing, more and more, that he had opted to shake things up when he took over — the team was clearly missing something.

“As soon as the series was over I called up our GM, Saul Mathis, and told him we needed to address the center position. Robinson had eaten us alive and we had no answer,” said Lewis.

While Dallas was busy planning for the offseason, Houston had a conference finals to play. Game 1 didn’t go well. Robinson was every bit the problem that Dallas had dealt with, causing Otis Thorpe to foul out in the third and then the Spurs poured in buckets after; San Antonio won Game 1, 118-104, and didn’t look scared of Houston at all. But Game 2 saw the Rockets bounce back thanks to an unexpected 26 points from Mario Elie, who demolished the Spurs perimeter with his shooting, leading the Rockets to a 114-106 win.

Game 3 saw Pippen warm up but not suit up as he wasn’t ready; the sight of their best player trying and not being able to go basically did the Rockets in and they lost Game 3 113-95 in a blowout. It wasn’t pretty and the team’s mental state was in bad way; anyone with eyes could see that Houston was beginning to feel they had no chance against the best center in the conference.

Game 4 was critical — if Houston lost, the series was effectively over; few teams had come back down 3-1 and it was near impossible to do so without your best player.

“I told them I was ready to go,” recalled Pippen, “but really I probably needed a few more days of rest. My knee was something like seventy percent, not a hundred, and it hurt to go up and down the court too fast. But I had to go in. I wasn’t about to let us get this far and watch it fall apart on the bench.”

Game 4 found Houston in San Antonio, the house of the Spurs rocking as the Rockets made their way onto the court. There had been no pregame speech, only a chalkboard with the words “Elimination Game” written in big letters. The players and coaches knew that losing this game was a death sentence.

The start of the game saw both teams trade blows — Payton would score for Houston but Robinson would get the bucket back on the other end for San Antonio. Pippen visibly looked off going up and down the court, his knee bothering him, but his presence was absolutely critical, at least from a morale standpoint. After one, the Spurs had a small 33-28 lead.

In the second, Houston took off — Pippen was moved to point, something the Rockets had taken to doing during the second-half of the regular season but had rarely deployed in the playoffs, and that got the Rockets star easy buckets thanks to the mismatch. Houston ended the first half tied 58-58 with their Texas foes but it had come at the cost of fouls — Pippen had three, Payton two, Roth four.

“We were aggressive that half in our defense, we were playing with a lot of energy,” recalled Rockets head coach Randy Kern. “I thought some of those fouls we got called for were bull*hit, but the officials didn’t much care about my opinion.”

Kern’s halftime message to his team: keep doing what you’re doing. The Spurs were feeling the pressure and they were wearing down — more and more of the offense was going through Robinson, which left other guys on his team standing around. They were becoming disengaged.

The third quarter would prove to be the deciding one as the Rockets came out of locker room and got a big triple from reserve Tim Legler, which set them on a run — they won the quarter, 26-18, and the team believed they could win. Despite Pippen and Roth both fouling out on questionable calls early in the fourth, the Rockets bench came through and delivered Houston a much-needed 112-107 win.





The series was tied 2-2; it wouldn’t stay that way as the Spurs took Game 5, 107-96, thanks to a 30-15 night from Robinson, who dominated Thorpe. Game 6 saw the Rockets return to San Antonio but get out with a win thanks to Payton (24-5-10), Pippen (18-6-4), and Thorpe (18-8-5) having big games in the 92-87 brawl. Thorpe, in particular, stood out after the shellacking he got the game before — the coaching staff wasn’t sure they’d ever seen the man so driven to win in a potential series ender.

It all came down to Game 7. By this point, the Rockets knew who was waiting for them in the Finals, just like everyone else: Boston. The Celtics had punched their ticket to the Finals with a 4-1 gentlemen sweep of the Cavs, a surprising outcome to some. Cleveland was younger and more athletic than Boston, yet the Celtics had far more experience — and in the postseason, experience mattered.

That’s why many in the press, even the local press, were picking San Antonio to advance. Wrote Houston Chronicle columnist Chris Judge:

Houston has achieved more and gone further than anyone — this writer included — ever dreamed at the beginning of the season. But all dreams have to come to an end — reality waits for no one. The reality for the Houston Rockets is that David Robinson is the biggest advantage in this series and he has no equal on either roster. Houston has clawed their way to a Game 7 and done so with their best player playing on a gimpy knee; Pippen has gutted out the last three games and has earned the respect and adoration of Houston’s fanbase with his conduct on and off the court. But the injury situation of Pippen, combined with the youth of the roster and the matchup nightmare that Robinson presents makes this prediction painful, but likely correct: San Antonio will advance and there’s no shame in that.

Judge had been particularly hard on Houston throughout the year but as the Rockets kept winning — and winning in entertaining ways — Judge had come around. “I sincerely believed they were done … every game they won that series they did by the skin of their teeth,” said Judge.

But while the local and national press were predicting winners, the Rockets had received great news: Pippen’s knee was nearly fully healed. If you squint through the game tape and look at the box scores, you can see this bearing out — Pippen was looking more fluid, more comfortable, each passing game. The difference between the foul-prone, nearly lead-legged Pippen in Game 4 and the more spry version in Game 6 was stark. “I was feeling close to a hundred percent,” said Pippen. “Doc Ross had been getting me into treatment as soon as the games were over and kept working with me even on the off days. He mother-henned that *hit.”

Game 7 saw Houston back at home and they donned their alternate reds for the closeout game, the crowd roaring (and dressed in their free Houston “Red Nation” playoff shirts) with excitement as Pippen didn’t jog out for the starting lineup — he ran, full speed, lapping his teammates once while looking towards the Spurs.

“We were in trouble from there,” recalled David Robinson. “We knew he was feeling better, but when we saw that a few of us looked at one another and knew we were going to have to defend him different that night.”

The Spurs knew the Houston home crowd was going to be loud — all throughout the season, the home-court of the Rockets had been among the best. “We told the arena people we wanted a college atmosphere,” recalled Rockets GM Nate Hale. “We wanted that place to rock and we wanted every game to feel like a top ten matchup.”

The Rockets got that throughout the season and got it in spades this night. Houston lost the tip but the defense showed up, as Horace Grant snatched the ball out of the air with a steal and passed it down the court to a streaking Payton, who spun, went along the baseline, and nailed a tough layup as the crowd erupted. Houston led 2-0 in the first thirty seconds.

It would be that kind of night for the Spurs. The Rockets defense was on fire, swatting away and stealing anything that came near them — San Antonio was shooting under 30% from the field at one point in the second — and even if they did score, Houston got it right back on the other end in emphatic fashion.



Grant had a huge game, the best of the series for him, putting to rest the narrative that the Spurs Terry Cummings was the better player. Cummings had gotten the better of Grant in nearly every game of the series, but in Game 7 Grant would dominate his competition. “It was a level of aggression he hadn’t displayed all series,” said Judge. “Cummings had just been eating him alive game after game but in this one Horace wasn’t having it. He was angry.”

The Rockets destroyed the Spurs in the first half, 57-33 — a shocking, double-take inducing lead. It would grow from there as the Rockets kept scoring in the second half and the Spurs rolled over. “We didn’t rise to the challenge today,” Robinson said after the game. “We faltered and we fell. It’s about getting back up now.”

Houston would win the game going away, getting a big night from Pippen (33-9-7), Thorpe (31-12), Grant (27-15-6) and ROY Gary Payton (15-11-17). An utterly dominant performance by a team the media thought had lost the Olajuwon trade.






The celebration in Houston was on and it was glorious — but not everyone was celebrating. After all the postgame press conferences, after the interviews, after the joyous hugs and locker room fun, Randy Kern was in his office watching tape on an old foe.

The Celtics were waiting.

[trekfan]

NBA League Update: Finals Preview
By Sam Gray



The Bracket:




Conference Finals Recap:

The West saw the Rockets and Spurs engage in a full seven game series — with Scottie Pippen returning in Game 4 (Houston down 2-1 in the series), swinging the momentum in favor of the Rockets briefly before San Antonio regained the series lead. It came down to Game 7 in Houston and the Rockets didn’t fool around, blowing the doors off the Spurs every quarter and putting the league on notice that, for the first time since mid-March, they were back to full health.

In the East, the Celtics didn’t have nearly that same kind of tense series — Cleveland stood no chance as Larry Bird feasted on the lack of a Craig Ehlo (who, unlike Pippen, was unable to make a go of it with a back injury) and the Celtics only dropped Game 1 — then proceeded to win four straight and grabbing a few days extra rest on top of that.


Finals Preview:

It’s a battle of two franchises who have outstanding superstars (Pippen, Bird), a cadre of great role players, and two secondary stars (ROY Payton versus veteran big Kevin McHale). Houston hasn’t made the Finals since 1986 (where they were beat by the beautiful passing of the Celtics) and the Celtics haven’t gotten this far since 1987 (where they lost to the Lakers).

The Rockets have made the Finals twice (1981, 1986) and have lost to Bird and the Celtics twice — but now, armed with Pippen, Houston may be able to finally negate Bird and win a title. The question is, will the Rockets — now fully healthy — step up, or are the Bird-led Celtics just too much to overcome?


(The random number generator has assigned me Games 2 and 3 of the series. The Rockets have been dominant in certain stretches of these playoffs, but can they win against the veteran, Larry Legend-manned Celtics?)

[studbucket]

Only 5 years after Boston won the 86 Finals 4-2, there's a rematch. Except I think Houston's entire roster has turned over. Boston may have 3 guys left from that team? This is a very interesting matchup. Unusual to have a Finals matchup within the same decade and have a team with no players that were part of the first matchup.


https://www.basketball-reference.com...606080BOS.html

[trekfan]

Quote: Originally Posted by studbucket

Only 5 years after Boston won the 86 Finals 4-2, there's a rematch. Except I think Houston's entire roster has turned over. Boston may have 3 guys left from that team? This is a very interesting matchup. Unusual to have a Finals matchup within the same decade and have a team with no players that were part of the first matchup. https://www.basketball-reference.com...606080BOS.html

Yeah, this is gonna be a really fun Finals series. Boston had its three main guys left here in Bird, McHale, and Parrish - Houston is all new guys.

The Finals recap will be up tomorrow, it's a doozy.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

[kibaxx7]

I think no one expected such a lopsided Game 7 win! Back in the Finals just a year after dealing Hakeem. That's huge.