24 minutes. Haven't watched it yet. I haven't seen it listed on any TV lineup, so I think it is only online. Looking forward to it.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/writer/ken-berger/24579300/forgotten-finals-why-dont-rockets-consecutive-titles-get-their-due

Not trying to rain on the parade but I think the answer to the question in that link is pretty ****ing obvious

Why, because no Jordan? Eventhough he played the second title season and got beat by the Magic, who Houston swept?

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Eventhough he played the second title season

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You mean played the last month of the season and shot a career low 41%?

I'd like to watch because it contains some gems of interviews I imagine- but I still don't understand why this is still a topic.

the 1999 spurs title gets an asterisk, too with that dumbs logic

I root for the Spurs and Mavs, but all of the chicken-**** comments meant to belittle the Rockets back-to-back titles are both tiresome and inane.

Jordan was playing for the second title. He was there, on the court, and healthy. And he couldn't get his team to the finals.

Hakeem was the best player in the world for those two years, and he might have been even if Jordan had stayed with basketball. For a brief span of time, he was among the greatest to ever play the game. He was unstoppable, and people whose dicks are too small to give he and the Rockets proper credit deserve to be mocked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcae_NBtkb4

[This message has been edited by Bose Ikard (edited 6/3/2014 12:02a).]

Bose, you seem a bit rattled. I'd suggest taking a deep breath and counting to ten.

Maybe the Rockets deserve more credit for the titles, I don't know, I'm only saying that the reason they don't was Jordan's absence. Nothing they can do about that. It is what it is. All that really should matter is that they got them and they did.

Watching that video... Man, Hakeem could score in a lot of ways. In 80% of his shots the Spurs have a hand right in his face. Didn't matter though. He was on fire.

At what point do you double team him? He was shooting like 75%. Make somebody else beat you. Crazy. The score was close throughout the 3rd quarter. Make him pass the ball.

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All that really should matter is that they got them and they did.

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/EOT

Shouldn't the Spurs title in 1999 not count because Jordan had retired then as well?

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Shouldn't the Spurs title in 1999 not count because Jordan had retired then as well?

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But he was retired for real, not suspended for gambling

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Watching that video... Man, Hakeem could score in a lot of ways. In 80% of his shots the Spurs have a hand right in his face. Didn't matter though. He was on fire.

At what point do you double team him? He was shooting like 75%. Make somebody else beat you. Crazy. The score was close throughout the 3rd quarter. Make him pass the ball.

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Further proof that Bob HILL is the worst coach in basketball history.

31 other teams could have won the Finals in Jordan's absence but did not.

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But he was retired for real,

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Not quite.

Story is up now on the site.

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Why, because no Jordan? Eventhough he played the second title season and got beat by the Magic, who Houston swept?

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Jordan was playing for the second title. He was there, on the court, and healthy. And he couldn't get his team to the finals.

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you do realize that Jordan only played in 17 Regular season games after sitting a year and a half out right? If you want to tell your friends that the Rockets won the title WITH Jordan playing that year, well, to each their own I guess.

So 2 weeks after coming back, Jordan dropped 55 on the Knicks. If he hadn't have retired, would he have scored 290 points in that game?

He averaged 31.5 points a game so he wasn't that rusty coming back. Perhaps the team hadn't quite gelled back together yet.

However the Rockets won them and nobody else did. Put an asterisk there in your head if you want. They earned it fair and square.

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He averaged 31.5 points a game so he wasn't that rusty coming back.

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He pretty clearly was rusty coming back. He shot a career low 41% and his PER was lower than any season with the Bulls. He had his lowest TS% and eFG% with the Bulls.

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Perhaps the team hadn't quite gelled back together yet.

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Not perhaps. It was pretty clear that they didn't gel well. Having your team shaken up with a month left in the season gives very little time to gel.

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He pretty clearly was rusty coming back. He shot a career low 41% and his PER was lower than any season with the Bulls. He had his lowest TS% and eFG% with the Bulls.

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His playoff numbers were much better. His FG%, TS%, and eFG% were all higher in '95 than in '96,97,'98.

I wish the Rockets had played the Bulls at full strength at some point. I've always wondered how they'd do. Unfortunately the Jazzholes knocked them out in '97 when they may have had a good chance.

He also had a team more built around having him as the alpha dog in those years than in 95.

I don't take anything away from the Rockets. They played great that playoffs. They peaked at the right time. But I also don't like pretending the Bulls were 100% that year because Jordan came back over Spring Break. I remember watching that Bulls-Pacers game while skiing in Durango while in HS.

Looking back at rosters I had almost completely forgot that Rodman was on the Spurs in '95. That guy is one crazy dude but man could he suck up rebounds.

He was a huge reason the Spurs lost. Other than Bob Hill. He was suspended a game against the Rockets. And Bob Hill is seriously the worst coach ever.

This is a guy who was fired from the Spurs (which pissed off a ton of Spurs fans), couldn't get a job for a couple years and then settled on a job at Fordham University, where he won just 31% of his games, then got fired there. A couple years later, the Sonics hired him as head coach in an effort to tank for Greg Oden, nearly succeeding. He hasn't coached since.

Seriously, I have crusty tube socks that know more about basketball than he does.

Tell us how you really feel about Hill GS.

The Rockets were 5-1 against Chicago during their first three peat. Jordan called Vernon Maxwell the best defender in the game and admitted that Hakeem overtook him as the best player in the game in 95. I think Chicago wins, but Houston would have been their biggest challenge by far and would take them to a full seven games.

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The Rockets were 5-1 against Chicago during their first three peat.

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And Oklahoma City swept the Spurs this year in the regular season.

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Jordan called Vernon Maxwell the best defender in the game and admitted that Hakeem overtook him as the best player in the game in 95.

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Source?

Sorry, can't source a clip that I saw years ago, but I promise I'm not lying.

Jordan also picked Kwame Brown with the first pick in the draft.

I just haven't seen Jordan lavish praise on anyone pretty much ever. Especially saying things like that about competitors/rivals.

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I wish the Rockets had played the Bulls at full strength at some point.

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This. The '93 Suns were the only legitimate elite team that the Bulls played in their 6 title seasons. It is too bad that they didn't have a "Celtics" to challenge their "Lakers" dominance. Majerle, KJ, and Barkley were the only team that looked on paper to be good enough. In fact, Phoenix was good enough, and the '93 Finals were by far the most entertaining of the 6 title series. Remember that Phoenix lost the first 2 at home, then won 2 of 3 on the road (including the epic triple(?) OT game), and was seconds from forcing game 7. A Rockets/Bulls series would have been great, and it's too bad it didn't happen. AT the time, I remember being happy that Orlando won, but for the long term, looking back it is too bad it never happened.

The Bulls clearly did not look right when Jordan returned, that much I remember. A lot of standing around and looking awkward while trying to adjust back to having a player who hadn't been there in almost two full seasons, all right before the playoffs started.

That shouldn't take away anything from what the Rockets did. There are no asterisks in winning anything in any sport. The Rockets beat the competition that was thrown in front of them. They played in the same conditions that everyone else played in that year, and they came out on top. A championship is a championship.

[This message has been edited by aggie_2001_2005 (edited 6/4/2014 10:19p).]

considering maxwell quit/got canned from the '95 rockets, he wouldn't have really mattered against the bulls.

here's the only thing i could find where jordan's talking about mad max. Not exactly exalting him.

In the early ’90s, Jordan shared his thoughts on Maxwell:

"Vernon is a very competitive guy. He’s a physical defender and he’s trying to earn respect around the league.Against Vernon, you’ve got to get inside his head. I’ve got to outthink him when he’s guarding me. I’ve got to use my mental knowledge against him. "It’s true that I wake up every day expecting that sort of challenge, but it’s still a challenge. When I feel like a guy is trying to take some of the respect away that I’ve earned in seven or eight years in the league, then that’s a challenge."

It was from an interview I saw, probably on ESPN, where Jordan was asked who was the toughest defender to score against, and he said Maxwell.

The Bulls, without Jordan, took the Knicks to seven games in '94. The Knicks took the Rockets to 7 in the Finals.

I think that most basketball fans would agree that adding the greatest player ever to the '94 Bulls, would have been worth one extra victory over the Knicks.

That victorious Bulls team would likely have crushed the Rockets.

'95 would have been interesting.