The NBA was apparently so distraught by the end of the Michael Jordan era following the 1998 NBA Finals that they didn’t want to play anymore. The owners locked out the players, the start of the season was delayed and a 50-game schedule was put in place upon their return. It turned out a new dynasty, albeit one of a different kind, would be starting with the 1999 San Antonio Spurs.
The Los Angeles Lakers dominated the early ‘00s, winning three straight NBA championships from 2000-02 behind Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. The playoff losses to the San Antonio Spurs in 2003 and the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals signaled the end of the era, as the band broke up and Shaq left for the Miami Heat. It wasn’t until the 2009 Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA title that Bryant’s vindication was complete.
Over the last several years, LeBron James has become the NBA’s signature star, the consensus “greatest player in the world.” In that same timeframe, Dwight Howard has become synonymous with the word “diva”. But it wasn’t always so—in the 2009 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, “Superman”, as Howard modestly dubbed himself, trumped “King James” when Dwight’s Orlando Magic ousted LeBron’s Cleveland Cavaliers.
Jordan, now a 15-year veteran, and sidekick Scottie Pippen, had just enough gas in the tank to survive strong challenges from the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals and the Utah Jazz in the NBA Finals.
“Don’t ever underestimate the heart of a champion.” Those were the words of Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich in the post-Finals celebration, a quote that lives on in NBA championship montages. It was a second straight title that marked the Rockets as the team that owned the “interim” period in the Michael Jordan era of NBA history.
The 1994 NBA playoffs haven’t taken a fabled place in the game’s lore. There was no dominant team building a legacy, even though the Rockets would win a second straight title a year later. But there was a lot of very competitive basketball, and one wild night of a White Bronco driving down the freeway in the midst of an NBA Finals game that these playoffs leave as their legacy.