Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
Still catching up, but Sir Charles looks pretty good in gold. Great stuff!
Still catching up, but Sir Charles looks pretty good in gold. Great stuff!
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
Thanks for taking the time to catch up.
Yes, Barkley in Lakers gold was something that might have actually happened in the real world had things gone differently. I decided Sir Charles gets that possibility here -- though whether he can win in a tough conference is another question entirely, the Lakers are stacked as a team (and the West is stacked overall).Comment
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
Ch. 28
The Houston Rockets were cruising with ease through their schedule and things didn’t get much harder when 1993 rolled around; Houston won its first two games of the new year, besting the Suns (124-118) and the Jazz (119-100) with relative ease. The Rockets welcomed the Knicks to their homecourt on January 5th, 1993, and the game was billed as a big time matchup — it was Patrick Ewing, one of the best centers in the game, versus the rookie sensation Shaquille O’Neal.
Ewing and the Knicks were, for the first time in the 90s, looking like legitimate title contenders. PG Rod Strickland was thriving and was likely to re-sign with the Knicks in the summer; Charles Smith, traded for Charles Oakley, had become a key piece of the offense and helped space the floor for Ewing to wreck house inside the paint. Ewing himself was having one of the best years of his career and was getting MVP talk from the New York media.
The biggest difference in New York might have been their new head coach, Trent Pederson. Pederson had taken over the Knicks during the offseason and had implemented a faster paced, less grind it out style of Knicks basketball — not only was it stylistically appealing, it was getting major results as the Knicks led the East.
“Getting Trent in there was a breath of fresh air,” Ewing recalled. “Things had gotten stale with the offense … we just got predicable. It was centered around me a lot and that wasn’t winning us as many games as we needed.”
The Knicks wanted to prove they were on the same level as the Rockets; after all, Houston may have been two-time defending champs, but they didn’t have Patrick Ewing — Ewing was confident he could, much like Olajuwon, force the rookie O’Neal into foul trouble. “Shaq on the bench is the least threatening player in the game,” Ewing said. “People like to lay into him for his free throws, but he’s still on the court then; early on, I liked to pick on him and get him into foul trouble. He didn’t know how to play the refs yet, that comes with experience.”
The game tipped off and, in traditional Houston fashion, the defense started off strong while both teams offenses felt each other out. The first team to break the 0-0 tie was the Knicks, behind a beautiful layup from Gerald Wilkins.
Houston — and O’Neal — would respond rather forcefully.
“WHAT A JAM!” the announcers screamed as O’Neal demolished Ewing under the rim. The Summit rocked from the putback and the tone had been set for the game — and it was a tone that got increasingly more hostile as the game went on.
Midway through the second quarter, Scottie Pippen — a longtime foe of the Knicks in his former days as a Bull — stole the ball, broke out in transition, and went up for a monster dunk over Patrick Ewing. Ewing, very aware he was about to be put on a poster for the second time in the same game, fouled Pippen and he delivered a hard one.
Pippen was knocked out of the air, nearly had his head crack open against the rim, before falling to the floor; Pippen thankfully landed belly first and had managed to catch himself on the way down, but he was incensed. He hopped off the floor and went after Ewing.
“He could have really *ucked me up,” Pippen said. “That was one of the dirtiest fouls I’d ever taken and I’ve been fouled a lot, but he could have ended my career — hell, my life — with that *hit.”
Back turned and not facing Pippen — Ewing was staring into the hostile, booing crowd, almost seeming to egg them on — Pippen delivered a push straight into Ewing’s back and sent him careening into the first row. Ewing shot back out onto the basketball court after Pippen and the court became chaos; the players on the court massed into the fray, benches cleared, coaching staffs tried to separate the two teams, and the officials tried to keep some semblance of control.
Ewing and Pippen delivered a couple of licks to one another before the veteran Moses Malone managed to separate the two — mayhem reigned for the next ten minutes as the fray died down, the crowd booing the Knicks players and throwing concessions at them.
“It was a scary moment,” recalled journalist Sam Gray. “There was real violence in the air — Pippen wanted to take Ewing out, both these teams had some history with each other from past lives, and the officials nearly lost control of the whole thing.”
The next half hour saw the game frozen in time as the arena workers cleaned up the court, arena security made their presence felt in the crowd, and the two teams were sent into their respective locker rooms to cool off.
Coach Kern wasn’t pleased with his players, but wasn’t going to single anyone out — he understood where Pippen was coming from. “That type of foul could end more than a career,” Kern said. “It’s the type of play that could end a life … if Scottie had cracked his head on the rim, we could have been looking at a lot worse.”
The Knicks locker room was full of frustration, most of it coming from Ewing. Embarrassed first by a rookie big man, Ewing wasn’t willing to be embarrassed again. “I fully admit I let my emotions get the better of me,” Ewing said. “I just lost my cool.” His teammates supported the foul in the locker room as their head coach tried to calm them down — but the Knicks weren’t concerned with the basketball game anymore; they wanted to punish Houston.
When the teams were finally summoned back onto the court, Ewing was assessed a flagrant 1 — a call that elicited even more boos from the already hostile crowd and a profanity-filled rant from Coach Randy Kern; Kern was promptly ejected from the game and had to be escorted out by security as he continued to hurl some very creative insults to the officials.
“*uck, Randy lost his *hit that Ewing wasn’t ejected,” said Gary Payton. “I ain’t never heard a man use the word ‘*uck’ in as many ways he did in that moment … *hit, he made me look like a boy scout.”
More technicals and fouls were handed out over the next ten minutes by the officials, though no one else was ejected — the game resumed with Pippen shooting his free throws and the Rockets, driven by a crowd that wanted blood, killed the Knicks in the remaining second quarter and won the game 122-103 in a rout.
The win wasn’t what anyone remembered from that game, though — the headlines on the news channels and in the papers were about the forty-minutes of stoppage time from the brawl and there were hot takes galore. The league handed out multiple large fines, both to the organizations (for “lack of institutional control”) and to the players involved; no suspensions were handed down, but it was made clear to all parties that they would need to be on their very best behavior the rest of the season to avoid missing time.
The game would become known as “The Summit Slugfest” in NBA lore, but it’s reverberations would be further reaching than anyone expected. That night, as Scottie Pippen and others on the Rockets made their way home and watched the coverage, something became very apparent about the brawl. Every single New York Knick, on the court or on the bench, ran to their teammates defense when the fight broke out. But that wasn’t the case for the Rockets as three players conspicuously hovered near the Houston bench as the brawl broke out:
Horace Grant, Scot Roth, and Tim Legler.
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
Ch. 29
January 6th, 1993: the practice after the Knicks game went off the rails almost immediately. Pippen, still hot after the previous night’s scrap, came into the practice with pointed questions for Grant, Roth, and Legler. Quickly the other players on the team also joined Pippen with questions; the three players held they stayed near the bench to avoid any chance of suspension, but the explanation sounded more and more like an excuse.
“I felt a bit betrayed,” said Pippen. “Horace and I came into the league together, we had gotten tossed out of Chicago together, we had won championships together … we both knew the Knicks played rough, especially when they were losing, but to have him just stand by when they nearly took my head off … I just didn’t know what to make of it. It made me angry thinking about it.”
Kern could see a major fracture forming in his team right before his eyes — he called practice off, sat everyone down, and requested — strongly — that the team clear the air, then and there. “We can’t have this *hit festering,” Kern told his team. “We need to deal with it now and we’re going to start that process right here, today.”
Pippen was the first to speak, telling the team how he felt about Grant, Roth, and Legler hanging back and again asked the three players why.
Grant and Roth remained silent. Legler did not. “It wasn’t our fight,” Legler said to the team. “You’re the team’s star, you’re the guy to get all the shots, we figured you could handle taking a little shot and then giving a bigger one back.”
Grant and Roth both agreed with Legler, further adding criticisms about the offense, about their lack of touches, and about how the team had become too “fixated on Scottie, Gary, and Shaq” to really give a damn about anyone else. The months of seeing his touches drop, reading the press sing the praises of the other stars, and being reduced to not just the third guy but the fourth had finally worn down Horace Grant’s patience.
The air-out session became contentious after that as most of the team argued against Grant, Roth, and Legler. Legler, in the course of the arguments, would end up apologizing for his actions and showing regret. “I genuinely felt bad,” Legler recalled. “I had let bitterness get the better of me in a way that was detrimental to the team.”
Grant and Roth dug in, however. Kern ended the session and ordered his players to go home and cool off, but the damage had been done. “I knew after that whole thing that we had a major problem on our hands,” said Kern.
The head coach met up with Nate Hale immediately afterwards and told him that the team had hit an iceberg. “I told him we were going to sink if we didn’t move on from Grant and Roth. Legler apologizing and owning up to his actions saved him, but Grant and Roth had lost the trust of their teammates … the two had positioned themselves as a separate group,” said Kern.
Hale didn’t want to trade either of Grant or Roth. Both were too versatile, too important to the team to be adequately replaced in the middle of the season, a month before the trade deadline. “We had received inquires about both before,” said Hale, “but none of those offers were really serious.”
Hale hoped it would all blow over, but the morning of January 7th, 1992, both Grant and Roth formally requested a trade from the Houston Rockets. “It was time for me to go,” recalled Grant. “We had had it out the day before and things were said by both sides that were going to be hard to get around … I was tired of everyone overlooking me, overlooking Roth, overlooking the rest of the team. Tim Legler was too, but he was afraid he’d get shipped off somewhere, play poorly, and never make an NBA roster again. I wasn’t afraid of that; I wanted to be somewhere that really appreciated what I brought to the table.”
Over the next two weeks the Rockets would play winning, but tense, basketball — they’d go 6-2 in that timespan and look just as dominant as ever, but the locker room was turning into a warzone. Grant and Roth were shunned, Legler was kept on the fringes, and the rest of the team had coalesced around Pippen — and to a lesser extent Payton and O’Neal — in an “us versus them” mentality.
“One of the most uncomfortable locker rooms I’d ever been in,” recalled Kern. “At that point we weren’t playing as a team, we were just a collection of talented people doing a job, no heart, no soul, just work. We weren’t going to really win anything that way … we were coasting on our talent, that’s it.”
Nate Hale and his front office spent those two weeks working the phone lines and eventually circled on a deal with a team familiar to Horace Grant: the Detroit Pistons.
Detroit, sensing their championship window was about to slam shut, decided to re-tool around the aging Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars by importing in Grant and Roth.
Horace Grant and Scot Roth would be sent to Detroit for a package around veteran big man John Salley — Salley, along with young SG Mark Macon (drafted 17th overall in 1991), and two unprotected 1st rounders in 1994 and 1996 was enough to get Grant and Roth out of Houston. Both Grant and Roth would be starters on Detroit and both would, by season’s end, have new contracts from the Pistons.
Kern was happy to finally have the matter behind the team. Pippen was still angry at Grant and had no well-wishes to give his former teammate. “In my mind, he wasn’t a teammate after we had it out,” said Pippen. “He was just someone I worked with … it took us a lot of years to move past that.”
“If I could do it again, I would do it differently,” admitted Grant years after his career had ended. “Obviously, we had something really special going on in Houston and I let negative emotions get in my head … it’s hard to not want more for yourself as a young player, in his prime, and I thought I could be more somewhere else.”
The trade was a bit of an undersell, but Grant’s trade demand had cooled the market some for him; the return was solid, especially as it concerned veteran John Salley, who would immediately slot in as a big minutes player for Houston. One issue though: John Salley wasn’t going to report.
“I had no love for the city of Houston, I hated that place,” recalled Salley. “I didn’t want to live there, I didn’t want any part of the state of Texas … I told my agent I wouldn’t show.”
The transaction had already been approved by the league office, so there was no undoing the trade — Salley was Houston’s problem now. Hale quickly pivoted and shipped Salley off to a new destination, this time one the player was fine with: Atlanta.
Picking up the expiring contract of Antonie Carr and a barely protected 1993 1st rounder, the Rockets had to settle for another less than ideal return, but added more picks to their stockpile. “I wish we had gotten more from that deal,” said Hale, “but we did the best we could on short notice. Salley really, really, made it clear he hated Houston so off he went.”
January 24th, 1993: two days after the Rockets had shipped off Grant and Roth, Houston welcomed the Lakers to The Summit; LA wasn’t at full health as Charles Barkley was out with a tweaked back, so the Lakers had to trust in backup SF Kelly Tripucka.
It was the second time the teams would meet and the Lakers were looking for payback. “Houston was the best team in the conference that year and had been the best team the previous two. We had to show them we could beat them like they beat us,” said Magic Johnson. “Everyone knew we were the two best teams in the conference, maybe the league, so it was gonna come down to us when it was all said and done.”
The Rockets debuted their “blackout” classic jerseys. The league saw the trade of Grant and Roth as weakness — especially after John Salley, a respected veteran, refused to report to Houston. “The headlines were saying we were a team about to implode,” recalled Shaquille O’Neal. “That wasn’t it at all, we had some guys who weren’t willing to sacrifice to win titles — that was it. Ain’t more complicated than that and we moved those guys.”
This was going to be first game Grant’s replacement, Sasa Drobnjak, was going to start and it was a game the young rookie from Slovenia wanted to do well in. “I had big ideas on my play,” said Drobnjak. “I wanted to hit many big shots, wanted to show I belonged … I put quite a bit of pressure on myself.”
The young Drobnjak brought an element to the Houston offense that the Rockets didn’t have much of: three-point shooting. Drobnjak wasn’t a sharpshooter from that range, but he was a decent threat and Coach Kern was betting that the young player’s fresh legs, plus his willingness to shoot from that deep, would give his offense a new wrinkle. “Honestly, I just wanted him to stay out of foul trouble and not press,” said Kern. “I needed him on the floor as often as he could be, just so he could get experience and get used to the speed of the game.”
Kern hadn’t anticipated going into the post-All-Star Break part of the season with two rookies starting for his team; O’Neal had more than proven ready for the minutes and had proven very receptive to Moses Malone’s influence. “Moses was a great mentor for Shaq,” said Kern. “Moses wasn’t someone who was going to pressure the rookie into doing things just one way … Moses had knowledge to impart and Shaq listened; you could probably credit some of Shaq’s career to Moses Malone, just on the basis of the simple things Moses impressed on him to do daily.”
“Big Mo showed me the way,” O’Neal said while pointing to his head. “He got through my thick skull, taught me the easy ways of taking care of myself … learned more from him than a lot of personal trainers, that’s for sure.”
The game started off slowly for both teams; the Lakers desperately tried to score on the Rockets as fast as possible, but only managed to score 4 points in the first four minutes of the game. Houston had scored just two — the new look Rockets seemed a little out of sorts, but with less than eight minutes to go in the opening frame, Houston’s defense stepped up.
Led by a newly-shaved Shaquille O’Neal (O’Neal had shaved his head bald, as was the trend at the time), the Rockets denied the Lakers repeatedly on one end and took advantage of poor Kelly Tripucka on the other.
The first quarter would go very, very poorly for the Lakers after that — Houston took off while LA looked stuck in the mud. Over the next five minutes, SG Mark Macon — acquired in the Detroit trade — would hit his first bucket as a Rocket and then Gary Payton would rob the Lakers blind.
The game wouldn’t be competitive after that. The lack of Charles Barkley made the Lakers weak at SF, and the constant rim-running by Pippen angered Dennis Rodman — so much so that Rodman would foul out in only 19 minutes of play early in third quarter. “We just fell apart out there,” said Lakers head coach Chuck Daly. “We made it hard on ourselves and that’s something we can do every now and again … we’ll move forward and be fine.”
The new uniforms, the new starting lineup, and the new teammates didn’t seem to impact the old Rockets; if anything, all the change seemed to make them even better. Sasa Drobnjak had done exactly what his head coach had wanted, putting up a near triple-double in his debut as a starter just by doing the little things. “I was a hustle guy, according to coach, and I liked the sound of that,” said Drobnjak. “I was a hustler.”
“Sasa really fit in well with us that first game,” recalled Pippen. “There was some fear, in the back of my mind, that he might try to do too much, but unlike Horace, he just took what was there and was happy to do whatever — he wanted to win. Didn’t care about anything else. He was a great teammate then and he’s still one now.”
The next four games saw the Rockets go 3-1, each win just as convincing as the Lakers one, and the local paper was effusive in its praise of the Rockets. Wrote Houston Chronicle columnist Chris Judge:
The Rockets trade of Horace Grant and Scot Roth looked questionable from the jump, but after a few games — each one seemingly more dominant than the last — the short-term verdict is in: Houston is better off now than before the trade. Without Grant and Roth complaining about touches, the Rockets big three of Pippen, Payton, and O’Neal have been allowed to thrive at an even greater level. Houston’s front office should be commended for the deal — the Rockets quest for a three-peat is alive and well.
On February 3rd, 1993, Houston met up with the struggling San Antonio Spurs and it was a tale of two very different Texas teams.
The Spurs, despite the talent infusion Reggie Miller brought to the team, were only a few games above .500. Worse yet, San Antonio’s David Robinson seemed to be just a step slower that season and the statistical comparisons between him and the other centers in the league showed Robinson was not as far ahead of the competition as some thought.
As was becoming glaringly apparent to the rest of the NBA, Shaquille O’Neal was no ordinary rookie: he was a Goliath who was getting better with every game. “He nicknamed himself ‘Superman’ and he certainly seemed it early on,” recalled Robinson. “I had watched the film of him against the Bulls, watched as Hakeem got him into foul trouble, and knew that was my only way to combat him then … I had to make him afraid of the whistle. I needed to make him hesitate.”
The Spurs first quarter went poorly; the Rockets had lifted off without much issue, but San Antonio’s offense was cold. Reggie Miller wasn’t getting the calls he wanted and he was loudly complaining to the officials about all the things the Rockets players were, supposedly, doing to him.
“Reggie was always a complainer,” said Pippen. “He worked the officials all game … he never met a call he couldn’t complain about.”
While Miller was complaining, David Robinson was being shut out by O’Neal — Robinson was struggling to get position on the rookie and O’Neal wasn’t showing the veteran any sort of deference. “He wasn’t the best, he wasn’t as good as me even then,” said O’Neal. “He got press like he was, he got credit like he was, but he wasn’t that good — he was just intimidating looking. He was ripped, that’s all.”
As the first quarter dragged on for the Spurs, O’Neal’s assessment of Robinson looked more and more correct.
Payton’s jam over one of the game’s best defenders showed just how big a difference O’Neal’s presence made. “I was worried Shaq was gonna go over top of me for an alley-oop,” said Robinson. “All Gary had to do was lob it up there, so I played the passing lane, came over late, and got put on a poster.”
Near the end of the first quarter, San Antonio finally made it to the foul line for the first time, but the Rockets didn’t mind — they answered quickly.
The first half was all Houston, as they took a 66-42 lead into the break, but the Spurs didn’t go away. A furious second-half saw San Antonio claw their way back, but Houston managed to hang on thanks in large part to the play of Drobnjak, who had 11 points in the second half and put together his best performance of the season with 19-6-7. “Sasa came in clutch that second-half,” said O’Neal. “Found a groove, rode it, and looked good doing it.”
The Rockets had bested another in-state rival and would go 7-0 before the trade deadline and the All-Star Break. Houston, after a rocky January, had rebounded in a big way and was looking like the best team in the league — perhaps a better version of themselves from earlier in the season — and the rest of the NBA could only look on.
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA 2K20)
I was going to ask this same thing, trek, then went on vacation. My team is not a defending champion -- it's hovering .500, but I definitely want to make the final step and add Walton next season; that means trading for the 1st pick as well.#AllRed | Club Atlético Independiente
× Watched: The Phoenician Scheme (2025), The Brood (1979), Death of a Unicorn (2025) ×Comment
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA 2K20)
Yeah, with any move that brings in a player of Walton's caliber, it won't be cheap -- I traded away a lot to get Shaq (he's worth it) and his presence has upset the dynamics of the team a bit (as you can see in the last post, where Horace Grant and Scot Roth demanded trades due to lack of touches). He's an absolute beast to play with, a dominating force -- really enjoyable.
More adversity will come the Rockets way as this season and next go on, but I don't regret trading for Shaq; if anything, his free throw woes make me sweat when he's on the line late, in close games.Comment
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
NBA League Update: Trade Deadline Edition
By Sam Gray
All-Star Teams:
The Trades:
The Kings, firmly losing (yet again) moved on from former 1st rounder Kenny Smith, sending him to the Spurs for Avery Johnson and a 1994 1st rounder (lottery protected, likely to convey). Smith hasn’t exactly been great in Sacramento, but that can hardly be blamed on him — the Kings’ issues run deeper than one player. Sacramento made a move to grab an asset here while the Spurs got a solid, if underused, young PG; point guard has been a weakness for San Antonio as the Spurs routinely get lit up by the likes of Gary Payton and Derek Harper in their division — they’re hoping Smith helps mitigate that issue.
The Wizards got involved again at the deadline, the second year in a row, and sent off SF John Williams to Cleveland for a 1994 1st, Anthony Peeler and Kenny Williams from Denver. Denver receives SF Orlando Woolridge (putting up 15-5 as a backup SF on Cleveland) and gets a veteran piece for their playoff push. The Cavs did this trade for two reasons: first, the fact that Craig Ehlo has been cooked in the playoffs the last two years and second, the fact that Ehlo has battled injuries all season long — Cleveland wanted to get another, younger body in there and John Williams is that.
The final deal of the day saw the Magic make a move for their own playoff push, acquiring Vinny Del Negro (and his recently extended contract) for Nick Anderson and a 1994 1st rounder (top 5 protected). Del Negro has been a good shooter for a bad Pelicans team and gets shipped out to a Magic squad looking to make the playoffs (currently 8th in the conference). Anderson gets a fresh start in NOLA, hoping to get his career on track after years of going nowhere in Orlando.
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
NBA League Update: All-Star Break Edition
By Sam Gray
Injuries:
Standings:
At the top of the West are the Rockets, who are beginning to separate themselves from the pack; Houston’s trades of Horace Grant and Scot Roth (along with the trade of John Salley after he expressed his displeasure at being in Houston) forced the Rockets to start rookie PF Sasa Drobjnak at PF and move the healed Walter Davis into the starting lineup — the result has been more wins. The Lakers are their only real competition for the top spot as Magic, Barkley, and Rodman continue to carry the team. Phoenix, Dallas (buoyed by the return of Clyde Drexler after a 39-day absence), Seattle, and Golden State are all behind them, firmly in the second tier and any of those squads could take the 3rd seed.
Fighting for the 7th and 8th seeds are the Spurs, Clippers, and Nuggets — each of these teams has a case for the last two playoff spots out West, but only two will get in. Each is hoping for a late season run to get higher in the conference — Denver has a 3-game winning streak currently and could be getting hot at the right time.
At the bottom of the West, the Jazz (who were unable to trade Karl Malone at the deadline due to his insistence that he would not sign a new contract with whatever team ended up with him), the Pelicans, T’Wolves, Kings, Blazers, and Grizzlies.
The top of the East is led by the Bulls, who are seeing MVP campaigns from both Jordan and Hakeem once more, though Chicago is quite unsure if either will be a Bull next season — neither superstar has committed to a contract extension and both seem to want to dip their toes into free agency, potentially destroying the Bulls as we know it in the process. The Knicks and Celtics are right behind them, but Boston is concerned with Larry Bird more than anything else — Bird has informed the team he plans to retire at season’s end, hell or high water, and Boston knows this is the last run for this core. Philly, Cleveland, and Detroit follow them, each potentially could do enough to make up ground and grab a top-2 seed.
In the middle, fighting for the 7th and 8th seeds, are the Raptors, Magic, and Hawks. Toronto, stunningly, still remains over .500 and looks like they’ll make the playoffs for the first time ever. Orlando may join them in the woeful 8th seed, but they’ll have to fight off the Hawks to do so — both Orlando and Atlanta made moves to help them get a playoff spot, but whether they made wise choices won’t be known for years to come.
At the bottom of the East are the Pacers, Nets, Heat, and Hornets (each a long win streak away from stealing the 8th seed), then the dregs of the conference in Milwaukee (beset by injuries all year and just bad), and the Wizards (just plain bad and old at too many spots). Washington has a good chance at Chris Webber, but they’ll need the lottery balls to be kind to them.
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
Ch. 30
The All-Star Break came and went and the Rockets met a bit of resistance for the first time all-season; Houston’s first game after the break was a loss to the Hawks (100-95), before losing to the Heat a week later (102-100) and then losing to the Mavericks a week after that (117-115). Thursday night games were, apparently, the only weakness Houston had.
Despite going only 6-3 in that timespan (a record a team like the Sacramento Kings would kill for), the Rockets were feeling fine — they were, once again, in line for the Lakers regular season record of 69-13, but the players and the coaches were both going out of their way to avoid talking about it. “Frankly, with all that had happened that year, we just weren’t concerned with it as much,” said Pippen. “Finishing the season with a championship was our top priority … we had a lot of people who thought we couldn’t do it. A three-peat was a rare, rare thing.”
Winning three straight titles required a level of luck and work that hadn’t been seen in the NBA since the 1966 Boston Celtics — who won 8 titles straight, albeit in a much smaller and much less athletic NBA. “To compare any modern team to those old Celtics was unfair,” said NBA journalist Sam Gray. “Those Celtics had an easier time of it in a lot of ways … there are those who believe that those old teams deserve more credit than they get, but I think nostalgia has colored their views.”
The Rockets moved into mid-March looking like world beaters and there was one matchup rookie Shaquille O’Neal had circled on his calendar: a March 12th, 1993 game versus the Milwaukee Bucks. O’Neal had famously declared Toronto and Milwaukee “unfit” cities for him during the draft process and neither city has ever forgiven him for it. “I don’t think I was wrong about either, really,” said O’Neal. “At least then … now, I think if I was coming into the league, I’d be fine with Toronto; definitely not Milwaukee, though, they still need help.”
The earlier games in the season hadn’t been noteworthy for O’Neal, at least in Toronto — the Rockets had beaten their opponents (and former teammates) easily. The matchup against Milwaukee in December had been a game O’Neal wanted to show out for, but fellow rookie Alonzo Mourning — who had embraced being in Milwaukee — was a late scratch for the game due to a stomach illness … at least that was the official story.
“He ducked me, plain and simple,” said O’Neal. “He didn’t want me to embarrass him on his home floor … so he just sat and watched me destroy his team, get booed, and win. He didn’t want any part of me.”
O’Neal hadn’t kept those thoughts to himself, either; he relayed his theory to the press after the game and accused Mourning of cowardice. Mourning let the Milwaukee Bucks PR team handle it, but the accusation had gained traction as the season went on — O’Neal showed up the best centers in the game in Olajuwon, Ewing, and Robinson, but when it was time for Mourning to take a crack at him, the second pick in the draft couldn’t play.
“I legitimately had a stomach bug,” recalled Mourning. “I’ve told Shaq this a thousand times over the years, I had some bad sushi the night before and it wrecked me; I was getting IVs all day trying to get hydrated for the game, but I just couldn’t go.”
Now in Houston, Shaquille O’Neal was hungry to make his rival center look bad. “It was full on barbecue chicken alert — defcon 1 barbecue chicken alert.”
O’Neal may have been a bit too eager to play that game. O’Neal and Mourning went at each other early, each player picking up an early foul just two minutes into the game. “There was a lot of trash talk, the refs were trying to keep *hit under control,” recalled Gary Payton. With 9:41 to play in the first, Payton got whistled for an offensive charge and nearly added a technical for his trouble.
The turnover gave Milwaukee the ball and the two rookie centers went at each other again.
The back and forth continued in the first as both bigs struggled to score on one another — but with both rookie centers basically canceling each other out, that left room for Sasa Drobnjak to show off some.
The first quarter started to go well for Houston after that — Payton had been trying to force the ball into O’Neal up to that point, but he went away from that strategy midway through the first and the Rockets never looked back. “Mourning was keying off on Shaq, their entire defense was built around that, so I had to stop forcing *hit and start moving *hit around,” said Payton.
O’Neal got another poster dunk on Mourning before the end of the first, showing his dominance.
The rest of the game was a rout — Milwaukee slowed O’Neal’s scoring, but they couldn’t stop the big man from affecting the game in other ways. Mourning outscored O’Neal, but O’Neal came away with a near-triple-double and was an absolute terror on defense. “I let him have a little inside, but I made sure everyone else was going hungry,” said O’Neal.
The win propelled Houston the rest of the season, going 14-3 the rest of the way; the loss that prevented them from besting the Lakers regular season record? That came against Magic’s Lakers. “We wanted that record to stay with our franchise,” said Magic after the game. “No way were we going to give up that record for our legends.”
The loss that prevented the Rockets from tying the record? That came against the decimated Portland Trail Blazers, who had plenty of axes to grind against Houston (not the least of which being driving Clyde Drexler out of Portland).
The Rockets weren’t terribly concerned about those losses or that record, though — as March turned to April and the regular season came to an end, Houston’s championship players focused the team on the playoffs, on the three-peat, and on finishing the year with a title. “We had a tough path ahead of us,” said Coach Kern. “The rest of the league had gotten better because of us and these playoffs were going to be hard.”
Little did the Rockets know just how hard the postseason would be.
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
NBA League Update: Regular Season Finale
By Sam Gray
Award Winners:
Injuries:
Standings:
The Non-Playoff Teams:
The final week of the NBA season saw the playoff teams fighting for positioning — but the final playoff spot in the West was not in doubt. San Antonio punched its ticket thanks to another late-season Denver collapse (2-8 in their last 10) and the Spurs did just enough to secure a playoff spot.
In the East, the final week of the regular season saw the Pacers and Hawks battling for the final spot for the second year in a row— Atlanta didn’t finish the season strong, but they had built up enough of a lead late in March to keep the Pacers at bay (Indiana went 7-3 in the final 10, a strong finish for an otherwise bad season).
The Playoff Teams:
The 1993 playoffs features some juicy Round 1 matchups. The 1st seeded Rockets face the 8th seeded Spurs, in a rematch of last season’s Round 2 series (where Houston obliterated the Spurs 4-0). San Antonio added Reggie Miller this season to help them defeat Houston, but Miller’s gifts — great in Indiana — haven’t made the difference as expected. Houston arrives here after a rocky January, which saw them trade away two of their starting five (Grant, Roth) due to lack of touches — those touches went to ROY Shaquille O’Neal, who’s proven worthy of the 1st overall pick in year one but now faces the playoffs for the first time ever.
Below them, the 4th seeded Suns take on the Sonics. Seattle has been good all year long and they’re not scared of anyone in the West, as they’ve beaten everyone in the bracket at least once. Phoenix made a big move in the offseason to strengthen their second unit and the only way to know if they succeeded is if they can make it back to the WCF; the pressure is all on the Suns at this point.
The Mavs and Warriors face off as the 3rd and 6th seed, each team having dealt with injuries to key starters all year — Dallas is wounded as they’re down super sixth-man Sam Perkins for at least this series and that might make enough of a difference against the Run TMC Warriors. Golden State needs to see some success this postseason, else the core of this team — Mullin, Hardaway, and Richmond — may be broken up.
Finally, the Lakers and Clippers face off in a battle of LA. The Lakers will be without Vlade Divac, who’s injured and will miss a good chunk of the playoffs; the Clippers will want to take advantage of that, but with Rodman and Barkley vacuuming in rebounds, the deck is stacked against them. If the Clippers can beat the Lakers, it’ll be a huge win for the organization.
In the East, the Bulls take on the Hawks and it’s not expected to be a close series; Atlanta got swept last year by Chicago in Round 1 and few expect a different result, even with John Salley now starting at center. The Hawks haven’t looked good all year, limped into the postseason, and this could be the last iteration of this Atlanta team if they can’t make this series a close one.
The 4 vs 5 matchup is the 76ers and Celtics. Philly has looked very solid all year, despite dealing with injuries to their backcourt for some of it — Boston, however, should still be seen as the favorite in Larry Bird’s last postseason. The Celtics will be riding that emotional high and Bird won’t want to go out in Round 1; expect a tough battle.
The 3rd seeded Cavs face off against the rival Pistons yet again, as Detroit never could do enough to break into the top-tier of the conference (even after the trade for Roth and Grant). The Pistons know they’ll need their new additions to make a difference here, else what they gave up to get Roth and Grant will not have paid dividends immediately — and this aging Pistons team needs those trades to work.
Finally, the Knicks face off against the surprise of the year, the Raptors, in a series that New York should win easily — the Knicks are healthy, are loaded with a more talented roster, and have everything to play for (their path to the ECF looks easier than Chicago’s as they’ll get to avoid Boston). Toronto, for their part, are happy to be here and their trade of the 1st overall pick (which turned into Shaq) looks more and more like the correct move for the expansion franchise — at least in the short term.
(Random number generator has assigned me Games 1 and 5. Can the Rockets put an end to David Robinson, Reggie Miller, and the Spurs?)
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
Ch. 31
The 1993 playoffs were going to be a gauntlet out West for the Rockets — there wasn’t a team in the postseason they didn’t have history with. Everyone out West, in one form or another, had a reason to hate Houston and Houston had a reason to hate them. “The one thing about the regular season was that its length made you think you could be dominant for long stretches of time,” recalled Coach Randy Kern. “When you put together a 60-win season, you likely had long stretches of dominance and it feeds into the line of thought that, come playoff time, you can just do the same thing. It’s not even close.”
Playoff basketball was going to be a new experience for quite a few players on the team — players like Shaquille O’Neal, Sasa Drobnjak, and Mark Macon (Macon had been injured the 1992 playoffs, missing the postseason for Detroit). All three players (O’Neal and Drobnjak in particular) would have important roles to play in the coming games. The veterans like Moses Malone and Walter Davis, survivor of many a playoff series, told the rookies to get ready for the toughest stretch of basketball they’d ever play.
“I didn’t believe them then,” recalled O’Neal. “We had just won 67 games, we were killing teams out there … there wasn’t any real reason for me to doubt we wouldn’t do the same here.”
O’Neal’s round 1 matchup would be a familiar foe: David Robinson. The Spurs had finished the season poorly, going 5-5 in their last ten — they knew that, even with 47-wins, they hadn’t given themselves the best chance at going deep into the playoffs. But San Antonio was a veteran postseason team and though Robinson’s regular season hadn’t been as great as he wanted, he was determined to put the rookie O’Neal in his place during the playoffs. “The postseason was where experience beat out youth,” said Robinson. “Yes, Houston was a two-time defending champ, but moving on from Grant and Roth had taken a lot of experience out the door … we thought we could get them.”
Add in the fact that Reggie Miller was known as a playoff assassin — at least out East — and the Spurs felt that Houston’s mid-season trade had put a sizeable chink in their postseason armor.
Game 1 would be the first test of that theory and the first quarter showed that San Antonio might have been on to something: despite the Rockets taking an early lead in the game, the Spurs didn’t fold early, even with O’Neal delivering a massive dunk on David Robinson.
San Antonio continued to hang around midway through the second — the game had slowed down some and both teams were trading fouls and sending each other to the line. Everything was going according to plan for the Spurs, who were betting the Rockets would be uncomfortable playing a slower, defensive pace. “They ran on everyone all season, but they hadn’t demonstrated an ability to shift down,” recalled NBA columnist Sam Gray. “Houston could do it, but they didn’t like to a lot of the time … it wasn’t how they were built. Keeping them out of transition and making them think was a solid strategy.”
But the Rockets, even slowed, were still lethal if given just an inch in transition — as Scottie Pippen and Shaquille O’Neal proved with a little over five minutes to go in the second quarter.
The transition dunk energized the Rockets and gave them their biggest lead of the game at 8 points — and Houston would, finally, lift off from there, allowing the Spurs to only score 4 more points in the quarter while the Rockets went on a major run; Houston would finish the first half up 56-37. The Rockets would win the game going away, 122-94, embarrassing the Spurs yet again in yet another rout.
The Rockets got big performances from Gary Payton (36-7-8-3) and Shaquille O’Neal (32-10-3) while Scottie Pippen ran the floor as a point-forward and made sure everyone got involved (Pippen finished with 18-7-11). It was a statement victory for Houston and a deflating loss for the Spurs.
O’Neal wasn’t so sure why the veterans were worried about the playoffs; to him, it seemed like the Runnin’ Rockets were firing on all cylinders. “We’re just doing what we’ve done all year,” O’Neal said after the game. “And San Antonio is doing what they’ve done all year, too … losing.”
The bulletin board material was not overlooked by the Spurs. “We hadn’t had a great season but we weren’t some lottery team,” said Robinson. “Shaq’s talk got our attention.”
Game 2 saw the Spurs win, 129-124, thanks to San Antonio’s bench thoroughly outplaying Houston’s; the Rockets were forced to go to their bench unit early thanks to foul trouble for veteran Walter Davis (who was much slower than the younger Reggie Miller) and rookie Sasa Drobnjak; the Spurs stole Game 2 by the slimmest of margins.
Houston would come back and take Game 3 103-95, but the win was far from guaranteed — the Spurs and Rockets were tied at 54 at the half and the Rockets bench was, once again, struggling to get going; not only that, but Davis was fouling at a high rate and O’Neal was not shooting well. “Shaq was forcing shots on Robinson,” said Kern. “I tried to keep him focused on taking good shots, but he was definitely out to bulldoze Robinson and getting frustrated when he couldn’t.”
“Yeah, I was going after him,” said O’Neal. “Shouldn’t have, but I was, I wanted to beat him when it really mattered.”
Houston was up 2-1 heading into Game 4, but wouldn’t be able to close it out, losing 99-95 to San Antonio and seeing both Walter Davis and Sasa Drobnjak foul out early in the fourth. “I was being picked on,” recalled Drobnjak. “They were very good at making me foul and I was very bad at stopping.”
The first round series would go to the deciding Game 5 — thankfully on Houston’s home floor, but the Rockets hadn’t expected to be pushed this hard, this fast, this soon in the postseason. “We had gotten away from the three Ps,” said Kern. “Between the lack of passing and all the fouls, we were playing too much individual ball. Too many guys were trying to do too many things.”
The locker room chalkboard had the three Ps prominently displayed and the pre-game discussion was all about getting back to basics. “We needed that reminder,” recalled Pippen. “If we were going to three-peat, we had to do what got us there.”
Kern also made an important lineup change — Davis would be benched for second-year man Mark Macon. “Coach had faith that I could stick to my man and not get in foul trouble” recalled Macon. “That start was big for me.”
Macon’s directives were simple: stay out of foul trouble, bother Reggie Miller, and don’t force shots. The first quarter of the game didn’t exactly go to plan for Houston, as the Spurs continued to play their brand of slow it down basketball, winning quarter one 24-19.
Early in the second quarter Kern would turn to his key bench guys — Michael Williams and Moses Malone — to give the Spurs a different look and try to get Gary Payton and Sasa Drobnjak some rest. Williams, a playoff veteran and always seemingly around for big moments in the postseason, responded almost immediately.
The second quarter saw the Rockets go on a run and take a slim 47-43 lead into halftime. The Rockets seemed like they were adjusting to what San Antonio was doing and, in the third quarter, Houston started to take off.
Things went badly for the Spurs after that — the lead now 10 points, San Antonio could no longer afford to go slow and steady. “We had to speed up to keep up,” said Robinson after the game. “And we just couldn’t keep up.”
Houston owned San Antonio in the second-half and won the game 112-93, getting a huge closeout performance from Scottie Pippen (44-4-4-6-2), a Houston playoff record (eclipsed only by Hakeem’s 49 points in the 1987 playoffs). Payton added 30 points and 6 dimes, while O’Neal put up 14-14 with 4 blocks. Houston was the last team to punch their ticket into Round 2, but had done so in emphatic fashion.
Their second round opponent? The Seattle Supersonics, fresh off their own large closeout win (147-129) against the Suns and looking for more.
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
NBA League Update: The Playoffs, Round 2
By Sam Gray
The Bracket:
Round 1 Recap:
The West saw the Rockets put down the Spurs in the full five — San Antonio battled hard every game, but it all fell apart in the second half of Game 5, which saw Pippen go nuclear, ending up with 44 points (a Houston playoff record) and a sound defeat of the Spurs. In the other series, the Suns got blown out in Game 5 against Seattle in a series of blowouts — only game 4 was close (131-122) but neither team played defense particularly well and Seattle demolished the Suns 147-129 in a beatdown. Phoenix will need to examine just how committed they are to this core after another early exit from the playoffs.
In the 3 vs. 6 matchup, Dallas found themselves upset again, this time by the Warriors, as the Mavericks continued playoff futility — despite a high payroll, a talented roster, and good coaching — haunts them. Dallas took Game 1, lost Game 2 by only a single point, then proceeded to get blown out in Games 3 and 4. With the Mavericks poor performance, expect their roster to look different next season. In the final playoff series out West, the Lakers easily swept the Clippers despite missing Divac — LA is now a step closer to getting back to the Finals behind Magic, Rodman, and Barkley.
In the East, the Bulls almost lost their series against the Hawks — Chicago was down 2-0 against Atlanta, and all the Hawks had to do was win one more game; instead, the Hawks choked away Game 3 (losing the final quarter 34-14 and the game by five points), and were not competitive in Games 4 and 5. This was the best chance Atlanta had at making a mark, and they missed. In the 4 vs 5 matchup, the Celtics once more beat the 76ers as Bird went off — putting up 30-5-10 in the series, Larry Legend personally ended Philly’s season in his last tour of duty.
In the 3 vs. 6 matchup, Detroit put away Cleveland thanks in no small part to Horace Grant (16-12) being everything they needed to beat back the Cavs front line. Detroit moving into Round 2 has to feel good for a team thats been knocked out in Round 1 two years running. In the final playoff series out East, the Knicks took care of business easily against the young Raptors; Toronto managed to grab a big Game 3 win on their homecourt, a milestone for the young franchise, but ultimately they weren’t good enough to scare the Knicks.
Round 2 Preview:
Out West, it’s the Rockets versus the Sonics. Seattle has played Houston well the past two seasons, but what the Sonics don’t play much of is defense — Seattle’s offense is their main weapon. Houston, after a tough fight against San Antonio, will be looking for a quick series here and will need to press their advantage inside (Shaq has no equal on Seattle’s roster) to succeed; the only way Seattle scores an upset here is if they run the Rockets off the floor and get them in foul trouble.
In the second series, the Lakers take on their in-state rival Warriors. Golden State isn’t afraid of LA but the Lakers play defense, rebound, and run the floor in a very showtime-like manner — though Magic Johnson isn’t as spry as he once was, he still commands the Lakers offense excellently and presents a huge mismatch against Golden State’s Tim Hardaway. If the Warriors want to win, they’ll need their bigs to battle Barkley and Rodman to a standstill — a tough ask for any team.
In the East, the Bulls face off against the Celtics and this series feels like an ECF matchup. Boston is another year older, Chicago is another year wiser, and the Celtics got the better of Chicago last year in the ECF — much to the chagrin of Jordan and Hakeem. If the Bulls want to avoid a breakup of their team, they’ll need to put Boston away, end Larry Bird’s career, and punch their ticket to the ECF … otherwise, the Celtics could steal this one, again, and send the Bulls into an offseason filled with dread.
In the East’s other series, the Knicks take on Detroit in a matchup that hasn’t been seen in many years — the main players on these teams are similar, but not the same. Patrick Ewing has come into his own fully as one of the best centers in the game, while Detroit is still rolling out the barely mobile Bill Laimbeer — if the Pistons have any hope of beating the Knicks, it’ll be because of Horace Grant, who presents the Knicks with some matchup issues.
(The random number generator has assigned me Games 1 and 4 of the series. Can the Rockets send Seattle home early?)
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
Enjoying all of the custom jerseys/courts in this Association — you still get that familiar feel with a lot of the teams but they all have their own unique spin to them. Love NBA 2K modded on PC!Bengals
UNC Tar Heels(Football and Basketball)Comment
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"It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul"
New York Islanders | Utah Jazz | Kansas City Chiefs | Aston Villa | Brazil!Comment
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Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)
Ch. 32
The Seattle SuperSonics were a team that was better than many expected; led by SG Nate McMillan, veteran SFs Dale Ellis and Xavier McDanial, and flanked by young PG Terrell Brandon and PF Shawn Kemp, the Sonics weren’t a team to be taken lightly — they had come just one game away from being the 3rd seed out West and had one of the deeper benches in the NBA.
But Seattle was firmly the underdog in the mind of the sports world, journalists and bettors alike, and Houston wasn’t particular scared of Seattle. “We believed we could take their best shot and barely *ucking flinch,” recalled Gary Payton.
Payton and the Rockets had battled the Sonics twice during the regular season and the two teams split the games — a 101-98 win for Seattle and a 98-91 win for Houston. The two teams had seen each other back in February, months ago, and not much had changed for either in that time.
“We had an idea of who they were and how to beat them,” said Coach Kern. “But when it comes to playoffs, nothing is ever quite as easy as the regular season … entire coaching staffs save their best stuff, their secret weapons, for the playoffs. Playing the same team, over and over, quickly shows you how important adjustments are. To succeed in the playoffs you have to adapt … or you die.”
Adapt or die. That was the message underlined on the Rockets chalkboard in the locker room — a reminder to the team that, whatever they threw at the Sonics, Seattle was going to try and negate it. “Randy was telling us that we had to stay true to the three Ps, but we had give them different looks … we couldn’t just walk into our sets, we couldn’t roll the ball out there and get the win,” recalled Pippen. “He kept us level-headed.”
Game 1 saw Seattle get manhandled from the tip.
The first few minutes of the game saw Houston lock down Seattle, preventing the Sonics from doing anything they wanted.
Payton was living up to his nickname as “The Glove” and was setting the tone for the whole team. That defense turned to offense quickly and the frustration started showing for Seattle early.
As the first quarter went on, Payton, Pippen, and O’Neal each made big defensive plays to set the tone for the entire Rockets roster — and the triumvirate just fed off one another. It became apparent to anyone watching that the Rockets, at least early on, were in a zone and the two-time defending champs were coming out on fire.
“We got buried early, got down on ourselves early,” Seattle coach George Karl said after the game. “We didn’t allow the game to come to us, we forced things and Houston just ran over us. It’s about control and we didn’t have it.”
Houston dominated Seattle the rest of the way — the Sonics just couldn’t climb out of the hole the Rockets put them in. O’Neal led the way for Houston with 27-9-4-3-2 — not a triple double, not even a five by five, but a performance that showed just how far ahead the rookie was of the supposed curve. “The paint was my domain,” recalled O’Neal. “Kemp tried to make is his, but that place was mine … that’s where Shaqzilla lived and anyone in there I didn’t want got taken out like a little city.”
Pippen and Payton were both effective, even with Pippen fouling out midway through the third after he and Xavier McDaniel had been going at it for a decent part of the second-half. Despite Pippen’s absence, the Rockets just chugged along, winning 113-87 — the second round looked like it would go easy.
The SuperSonics didn’t get the memo, though. Embarrassed in the first game, Seattle came out and stole Game 2 in Houston with an electric 36-24 first quarter burst — the Rockets, notoriously known for feeling out their opponents in the first few minutes of the game, never got off the ground — Seattle ran laps around them. The Sonics got a huge game from their bench and Nate McMillan (18-7-8-4), and won 107-86 as multiple Rockets fouled out early in the fourth quarter, ending any hopes of a comeback.
“We were out-hustled and we were arrogant,” said Kern. “That game should have been a wake up call, it was the worst game we had played in the playoffs that year by a longshot.”
The game did prove to be a wake up call … for Seattle. The Sonics, sensing they had exploited a weakness the Rockets hadn’t exactly been hiding, shifted their offense into high gear. “We decided to start the game with our best stuff, our high-octane stuff,” recalled Nate McMillan. “Rather than play it a little slow, we played it a lot fast and it threw them off.”
Game 3 saw Houston fall again thanks to another blistering first quarter from Seattle — a 31-24 run — and the Rockets wilted from there. Houston’s players, particularly O’Neal and Drobnjak, were forcing shots and shooting awfully from the field — fouls didn’t doom the Rockets this time, it was simply field goal percentages. “Anytime the ball went into me, I wanted to wreck someone inside,” said O’Neal. “I wasn’t playing smart basketball, I was playing selfish basketball.”
The Rockets bench was struggling outside of veterans Walter Davis and Moses Malone, and Houston was staring at something unfamiliar; they were down 2-1 after a bad 116-98 loss to Seattle.
Heading into Game 4, the coaching staff knew that they’d need to make a change to shift the series. Down 2-1, it was readily apparent that something wasn’t working and Kern felt a change was needed. “I decided we needed more experience in the starting lineup, so Macon rode the pine,” said Kern. Young Mark Macon, who had taken over the starting job against the Spurs, didn’t take the news well.
“I thought it wasn’t the right move,” said Macon. “I wasn’t the issue … Kemp was dominating inside, that wasn’t my fault. We needed a change there, not on the outside — I was doing a good job slowing McMillan.”
With Macon on the bench, veteran Walter Davis took the starting job — functionally, it wasn’t that much a difference in minutes as Davis couldn’t handle a full 36-minute work load anyway. But the tone of the starting lineup shifted with Davis in it — Davis, more than anyone, had something to play for.
“This was it for me,” recalled Davis. “I had this chance and only this chance to win a ring … with my medical scare earlier in the season, I knew for sure I wasn’t coming back. I told myself I had this moment to step up or I was just gonna step out without even sniffing a title.”
Davis’ motivation wasn’t a secret and the rest of the team, especially Payton, Pippen, and O’Neal, took notice. “We had to get it for Walt,” said O’Neal. “We weren’t gonna go down 3-1 and let him leave like that … nah, we had to get that one.”
The start of the game saw the Rockets go down early, yet again; despite the motivation Davis provided, Houston was still struggling to slow Seattle. Down 13-9 midway through the first quarter, the Sonics were following their gameplan to the letter … at least until Payton started to get going.
The game would become an extremely close, tight affair after that. Neither team could manage to get a lead of more than a few points before the other stormed back; throughout it all, though, Gary Payton was there jawing away. He trash talked up and down the court, and the fouls for Seattle began to pile up as Payton got into the opposition’s head.
Payton would go the free throw line, over and over, and the Sonics players — particular Shawn Kemp — were getting tired of it. “I *ucking hated him,” recalled Kemp. “Just mouthin’ off at everything … even when we got a bucket on him, he’d find a way to trash talk us about it. Just a grade A *sshole.”
Payton’s repeated trips to the line and repeated buckets wore down the Sonics, and by the fourth quarter Houston was looking like a team ready to finally pull away.
The O’Neal slam broke the dam the Sonics had built — Houston went on a tear after that, a 34-17 run that saw the Rockets continue to feed Payton, who had the entire Sonics roster on strings. Payton would finish with 41 points, 4 boards, and 13 assists, going a ridiculous 16-18 from the field and 8-8 from the free throw line.
It was a crushing defeat for Seattle; given the chance to take a commanding, near-insurmountable 3-1 lead, the Sonics faltered late and couldn’t recover. The biggest reason for the loss was Kemp’s foul trouble; Payton picked on him so much that Kemp fouled out with five minutes to go in the game and the Sonics collapsed after that.
“Once we took that game, we were in their *ucking heads,” said Payton. “They didn’t want anything to do with us after that.”
Indeed, Game 5 saw Kemp play reserved — despite an early 27-20 lead in the first, the Sonics faltered every quarter after that and lost 99-91, thanks in large part to another lineup change; Moses Malone started in place of Drobnjak and the veteran center baffled Shawn Kemp. Kemp was decidedly less aggressive on defense thanks to Gary Payton and on offense was stymied by Malone, who rebounded at such a high rate Kemp’s easiest points — the putback — were taken away.
Game 6 saw Seattle come out flat, losing the first quarter 20-12, and the Sonics never recovered; Kemp was, again, a non-factor as the Rockets bench unit — silent for most the series — stepped up thanks to Drobnjak’s play. In just 21 minutes of game time, Drobnjak finished with 16-4-2-2-1, on outstanding shooting (5-8 from the field, 2-3 from deep). Drobnjak finding his shooting stroke and stretching the floor allowed the Rockets to dictate the game — Houston won 96-85 and advanced to the WCF for the third year in a row.
“We folded,” Sonics coach Karl said after the game. “We had a winning hand and we folded.”
The disappointment in Seattle was profound but the Rockets were relieved; they had survived a scare, a real one, in the playoffs and their chance at a magical three-peat was still alive.
Their hardest test was ahead of them, however — their opponent in the WCF was a familiar one: the LA Lakers.
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