the regular season means absolutely nothing in the playoffs. look how the lakers are handling a magic team that dominated them in the regular season.Originally Posted by Rode Block
he came back very late that season. he only played 17 games. the following 2 years the bulls damn near had two 70 win seasons in a row and 2 NBA titles.
Last edited by THE W; 06-11-2009 at 05:24 PM.
Christianity = White Supremacy
the Bulls would have definately been in the Finals had Jordan not retired.
Those Bulls/Rockets Finals would have been classics, especially that Rockets team that had Drexler.
I think the Rockets could have won in 95 but not in 94. Still, I would guess that the Bulls probably would have won both because they were unbeatable during that time, and that would have been during the prime of their prime.
'
imagine that...8 in a row.
They BARELY beat the Lakers in the regular season...
Jameer Nelson went off on the Lakers BOTH games...and he obviously can't do too much in the finals.
Again, there is nothing that anyone can show that says the Bulls would have been able to beat the Rockets in the Finals...While Hakeem holds a 5-1 record vs. Jordan in the regular season, so you may say that the regular season doesn't mean much, but it still means a hell of a lot more than saying "I think Jordan would have beat Hakeem because Jordan never lost". Which is bullshit because Jordan did lose and there was NO ONE on the Bulls team that would have been able to even come close to containing Olajuwon...If Robinson couldn't do it no way in hell would Longley or Cartwright be able to.
Basketball is all about match ups and the Rockets were a bad match up for the Bulls.
yet they beat the patrick ewing knicks every year and the karl malone utah jazz twice in the finals. the bulls won 6 titles with a mediocre front court.
dominated, barely, whatever. they beat the lakers 3 of their 4 regular season meetings and despite that they will more than likely not make it back to LA in this finals series.
all your doing is speculating on what might happen. teams play different in the playoffs. strategies and preparation for opponents are different in the playoffs. so what if the rockets beat them 5 times in the regular season where teams arent devising elaborate strategies to beat one team.
on many occasions a team that lost the regular season series to another team met that same team in the playoffs and won(ie the jazz sweeping the bulls in the '98 regular season).
maybe if the rockets were good enough to make it to the finals in those years the bulls won titles we would find out who would win but they didnt. so all anyone is left with are "shoulda, coulda, wouldas" and speculation.
Last edited by THE W; 06-12-2009 at 11:37 AM.
Christianity = White Supremacy
Neither Patrick Ewing nor Karl Malone are traditional Centers. Ewing loved playing on the perimeter/High Post and Karl Malone wasn't even a Center! It was Rodman who was guarding Malone when they met in the finals.
And you're right, I wish the Rockets could have gotten to the finals when Jordan got there, but he was stuck with a real shitty supporting cast. Hakeem is the only player I can think of that was able to win a title without a legitimate All-Star by his side. That's saying a lot.
tim duncan isnt a center either. so...? those were bigs that the bulls were able to handle.
hakeem didnt have a scotty pippen type sidekick but he did have a host of quality role players with sam cassel, robert horry, vernon maxwell, and kenny smith. he had clyde drexler for his second title. so yeah he had quality support too.
bad supporting cast? dude had charles barkley and clyde drexler in those 3 years the bulls were winning.
Christianity = White Supremacy
Hakeem would be a problem for the Bulls then, but who was going to stop MJ? The Bulls losing 4 out of 7? With MJ in his prime, I doubt it. I also like Phil Jackson over Rudy T. A lot of people say that Phil always has great players to coach but how many other great coaches have won titles with great players? (Jerry Sloan for example) Phil's close to getting his 10th ring as a coach.
the only coach i can think of who won a title without superstar players was larry brown with the pistons. ben wallace was an all-star but he was nowhere near as great as a kobe, lebron, or a Dwade. hell, he was barely better than tracy mcgrady.
the pistons should never have let larry brown leave.
Christianity = White Supremacy
Yeah, I agree with you on this one; the Pistons should've never let Larry go.
Larry Brown helped the likes of Wallace 2x, Billups, RIP & Prince get their rings, something other coaches didn't realise. It was very painfull to see how the Pistons go down this season with Mike "Mr UUUhhhh" Curry as a rookie head coach of the GREAT Pistons. Plus Joe D made a mistake trading Billups to Nuggets, which means we lost a great player and great leader.
I hope something will happen in the summer to get the Pistons to their known style of basketball.
" Wu-Tang Clan ain't nuttin' ta f**k wit "
The Bulls were a fucking machine.
They had a good front court with Horace Grant and then they got fucking Rodman and they always had big physical centers or brawlers who would put people down.
Dont forget Kukoc either.
I just cant see that Bulls team losing. But like I said, t he Rockets would have given them the best match.
Tim Duncan is a Center. He plays the majority of his minutes at Center. The only reason he was a 4 earlier in his career was because the Spurs had 2 legit Centers. I remember when the Spurs and Lakers would meet in the playoffs Duncan would guard Shaq for a majority of the time. And he has always played the majority of his minutes at Center.
Again, though this doesn't really matter because none of those players were nearly as quick as Hakeem in his prime. Even if the Bulls were physical they wouldn't be able to stop him...He was too quick for any Bulls defender.
But how many players have been able to win titles with just "quality" players? Most superstars have to play with atleast another All-Star(Bird, Magic, and Jordan all had other TOP 50 PLAYERS ALL-TIME as sidekicks). The Closest All-Star on that Rockets team was Otis Thorpe who was able to average a whole 11 ppg and 10 rpg in the '94 playoffs. Vernon Maxwell was the second leading scorer for the Rockets in those playoffs and he was averaging 14 PPG on 37% shooting! That's a shitty supporting cast.
Hakeem didn't get to play with the 33 year old Barkley until the '97 season and Barkley was over the hill by then. His scoring dipped to below 20 PPG that year. That was the first time since Barkley's rookie year that he couldn't average 20 ppg.
Drexler was past his prime, but still good in '95 when the Rockets got him, but by '97 he was also a shell of his former self.
And Hakeem was in his mid 30's when the Bulls had there second 3-peat. Centers like Hakeem, Duncan, Shaq, Etc. ALWAYS decline after about 32...The only real exception to that rule is Kareem Abdul-Jabaar.
you have no way to prove that they wouldnt be able to devise a strategy to stop hakeem. again, you're just speculating. the pistons were able to nutralize both shaq and kobe in the 04 finals and ben didnt gaurd shaq all by himself, that would've been impossible. the bulls wouldnt use one defender to guard hakeem. its called help defense.
clyde drexler was the same age as jordan and was on that team with hakeem during the bulls 3peat run. hakeem got 1, jordan got 3, plus the 3 he got before. so he won without another superstar but to say he was playing with bunch of scrubs is rediculous. its not all about stats. its guys around you being able to play a role. clutch shooting, rebounding, defense. thats what those guys did. i remember robert horry hitting that clutch 3 to send game 1 into OT after those missed FTs by the magic.
michaels jordan was 33 when the bulls started their "repeat 3peat" so age is no excuse. if Kareem and jordan could still be effective in their older age why couldnt barkley, hakeem, and drexler do the same? karl malone and john stockston went to the finals back to back times in their mid 30s with malone being league MVP in '97 and again in 99.
i guess hakeem didnt want to win as badly as jordan in his older age.
Christianity = White Supremacy
That would have been a solid team that season when Hakeem, Barkley, and Pippen were together, if Barkley wasn't battling injuries.
^ Hakeem wasn't much help either at that point, if I remember. Was that not his last season?
The team I wanted to see Pippen do well with was Portland. Game 7 against the Lakers is still a huge upset.
Again, if a PRIME Robinson or Ewing couldn't stop him how would the Bulls front court be able to? It's damn near impossible to devise an effective scheme to stop a Center with an actual post game. Especially when that team doesn't have the right players to stop a Center like Hakeem.
If you re-read my post you can see that I was talking strictly CENTERS. Everyone knows a PG can play for a real long time and Power Fowards who have a PG to give them the ball can do the same. Center's who rely on a post game to get their points usually burn out by the time their 32...When you're body begins to break down physically. Losing a step or two is fine if you can shoot mid-range jumpers or if you're a distributor, but playing in the low post is a different story.
BTW during the second 3-peat of the Bulls the Rockets were not the same team. In '96 Drexler was injured constantly ( he missed 30 games) and past his prime(he couldn't average 20 PPG that year and his FG% dropped to 43%)
They didn't get barkley till '97 and he missed 30+ games that same year and Drexler missed 20...
and in '98 Hakeem missed half the season and he was never the same after that.
It's not that Hakeem didn't wanna win, he just never got the chance to win in his older age because of injuries to him and his supporting cast.
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