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Houston.
The difference in that series was the Rockets had some of the clutchest shooters to ever play the game. The Spurs had Vinny Del Negro.
Series over.
With all this talk about Duncan in the national media now being recognized as one of the greatest ever (Although we already knew that.) I was wondering, what do you think about that series and replacing the Admiral with Duncan. Obviously, with the twin towers together we would have gone all the way, but only going with Duncan instead of Robinson, and given the same obstacles David Robinson had such as less talent around him and some questionable coaching, do you think Duncan still would have pulled it off? That series always was one of my most painful playoff memories until Fisher hit his lucky shot. I can't see Duncan being schooled by Olajuwon as much as Robinson was at times.
Houston.
The difference in that series was the Rockets had some of the clutchest shooters to ever play the game. The Spurs had Vinny Del Negro.
Series over.
I think probably not. Whenever Duncan's shooters miss, the Spurs have trouble winning big games.... and if there's one thing AJ and Del Negro did in the playoffs, it was miss jump shots.
Vinny and AJ should probably thank DRob that they ever had careers to begin with.
In contrast, if you gave David guys like Finley and Bowen, he might have been able to pull that series out.
Wasn't Rodman the reason SA lost...I remember him quitting in game 5 or 6.
It was a lot earlier than that. I don't remember game 1 too well other than Horry's shot and Sean's FTs, but Rodman was an ass in game 2. He shot three threes in the first quarter and let Horry all over him in transition, which got his no hustle ass pulled early.
Who would have horry?
No way, Robinson couldn't do everything himself. Olajuwon was in a zone, simply had a better supporting cast and had the experience.
If Pop had been coach instead of Bob Hill, DRob would have had a better chance. Pop knew at least how to double team. I'm not sure it would have been enough...I also think Rodman and Pop would have had a better relationship which may have made a difference to how much Rodman contributed. Rodman could have played better had he been motivated.
We came closer to beating the Rockets than a lot of people give Robinson credit for.
Yeah...
I was going to ask that...
Would the 94-95 Spurs have won the Championship with Pop as coach?
I'd have loved to see Rodman try pull the he pulled on Hill, with Pop...
That sucker would still be waiting to get off the bench...
Exactly. If Rodman is kept in line - a firmer grip would work - it might have been a different series. Add a defensive mindset rather than whatever the Spurs had back then (the Softness).
If Pop was Coach ? Yeah, I think we would have had a better chance to win. We won 2 road games in that series. It sucked that we didn't take advantage of Sean's advantage over Horry. Horry couldn't guard him and we didn't exploit it. JMO
So are we saying now that Pop>Duncan?
Question.
Yeah thats what I'm thinking. There is no way that Duncan could stop Hakeem with single coverage that year, he was just on another planet. But like someone else said Pop would have more than likely threw different looks at him and not kept one guy on him just because he was the D-Specialist. Not saying for sure that we would had won, but I def feel we wouldn't had lost all those home games.
Best post of thread so far.
Of course the Spurs would have a better chance because Duncan was a better player than David Robinson.
Pop wouldn't have been enough. Maybe Pop and a non-choking Chuck Person and one of the shooters from today and there'd be a decent shot.
Especially because AJ was the fiercest compe or of them all.
Not without a second creator playing alongside TD (Manu or Tony). Elliot's pretty good wing player, but he wasn't a creator. TD won the champ in 99 without another creator because the Spurs were a defensive juggernaut back then -with an allstar C in DRob still playing effectively offensively & defensively.
Just TD with a bunch of shooter and sucking PG like Avery wouldn't get the job done IMHO, not against that clucth Rocket team with onfire Olajuwon in it.
Anyone who saw Hakeem take DRob (himself one of the all time top 50 and a quick defensive all-star) to school and embarass DRob in that series would admit that Tim, a much less athletic and mobile player, would have had even more problems with the Dream's footwork.
Nobody was stopping Hakeem that year in single coverage. Hill just kept Robinson on him the entire time and Hakeem just took him to school the entire time. As Robinson said Hakeem was "phenomenal". But we also had some terrible shooters, Elliott could only drive to one side, AJ couldn't shoot from the outside, Del Negro.... The thing I see maybe with Duncan is that he could probably score a little more consistently than Robinson down in the post and would probably make Hakeem work some on the defensive end. But that being said Rudy T more than likely would have had Horry assume most defensive assignments on Duncan rather than Hakeem to keep him out of foul trouble.
The 1995 team overachieved. I think that's why it broke everyone's heart when they came so close and failed.
And I hate to bust a myth, but it's not like David pulled a Dirk in that series. Didn't he average 23 pts, 9 boards, and ? assists against a solid Rockets team?
We lost because Hakeem was out of his mind, and having Rodman on the team finally caught up with them. And ... they had Mario Elie, Sam Cassell, Kenny the Jet Smith, Vernon Maxwell (dude could shoot), and Big Shot Bob. We had Vinny Del Negro.
Gosh, I loved the 1995 team, though. Should have been our first le. David & co. were good enough to win it. They just ran into a very good team that got hot and were led by a Top 10 player in his prime.
I don't think anyone could stop Hakeem in that series. C'mon, a center that makes fadeaway baseline hooks?
AND, they had clutch 3-point shooters.
I'm not sure we could be them now.
Bingo
The weakness of that team was Bob Hill
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