Maxwell says that the Rockets would have beaten the Bulls in the 1994 and 1995 NBA Finals.
The Houston Rockets won back-to-back championships in 1994 and 1995, or during the years when Michael Jordan took a hiatus to play baseball.
Many debate what would have happened if MJ hadn’t retired. Chicago Bulls fans say that MJ and company could have easily won eight straight NBA championships if that was the case. However, former Houston Rockets guard Vernon Maxwell disagrees.
According to Mad Max, the Rockets had the Bulls’ number back then and would have beaten them if they faced off in the NBA Finals.
“If go back and look at the numbers, when we played them in my 9 years in Houston, sh** the boy beat me twice,” claimed Maxwell on Gil’s Arena. “And we play them twice a year. So we up to Chicago Stadium and beat the sh** out of them, and then we come to Houston, we beat the sh** out of them. I mean, you got to understand now, we got goddamn Dream down there, they got Bill Cartwright. What are we talking about?”
The Rockets ‘owned’ the Bulls from 1991 to 1993
While Jordan beat Maxwell 11-6 in their all-time head-to-head matchup, he was correct that the Rockets had Mike’s number during that period. In 1991, the Rockets swept the Bulls, beating them by double digits in both games. The following season, the teams split their regular-season meetings, with the home team winning each time. During the 1993 season, the Rockets also swept Jordan’s Bulls. Again, both victories were by double digits.
Not only did the Rockets own the Bulls during that period, but they also contained Michael. In their four games played during the 1991-92 and 1992-93 NBA seasons, Jordan shot a cumulative 44-103 against the Rockets, including a 9-26 shooting game on January 30, 1992.
Hakeem Olajuwon also peaked during the 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons. Dream won MVP and DPOY honors in ’94 and averaged a career-high 27.8 PPG, 10.8 rebounds, and 3.4 blocks per game. With Chicago’s best big man during this time being Bill Cartwright, the Bulls would have no one to stop The Dream in the paint.
Kenny Smith said the Bulls were too small
Mad Max’s point that the Bulls did not have anyone to match up with Hakeem was the same sentiment of Maxwell’s backcourt partner, Kenny Smith. Smith also believes that the Bulls would’ve never won eight straight titles. The Jet said that Chicago would have been too small for Olajuwon.
“People forget that in those two years, there was no Dennis Rodman and no Horace Grant,” explained Smith. “That’s why they lost to Shaquille and Orlando. They were too small. It wasn’t that Jordan wasn’t the greatest basketball player we still had seen. They were too small. They would have no one big enough and good enough to guard Hakeem for those two years, and I think we would have won because of that, not because of the lack of Jordan’s greatness.”
The Bulls also had Luc Longley and Bill Wennington during those two years. But we know how good The Dream was during that stretch. Without anybody to limit Olajuwon and with Maxwell doing his thing on defense against Jordan, it does sound like Max’s claim isn’t a mad one. And as Kenny said, it’s good that they didn’t meet the Bulls those two years because it would have hurt MJ’s legacy and perhaps his standing as the GOAT.
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