Why the Rockets would have beaten Michael Jordan’s Bulls in 1994

Lachard Binkley

Michael Jordan (Photo by BRIAN BAHR / AFP) (Photo credit should read BRIAN BAHR/AFP via Getty Images)

While there have been doubters, there wasn’t a team in the league that could’ve stopped the Houston Rockets in 1994, including Michael Jordan’s Bulls.

With Michael Jordans’ highly-anticipated documentary, “The Last Dance”, set to air on ESPN on Sunday at 9 pm ET, several quotes and stories have emerged. While it will mainly focus on the 1997-98 Bulls team, one storyline surrounding Jordan’s time in the league is about if the Houston Rockets would have won either of their championships if he had stuck around.

Quotes from soon-to-be Hall of Famer Rudy Tomjanovich as well as Robert Horry, Vernon Maxwell and Kenny Smith suggest that 1994 would have ended the exact same way as it did, regardless of whether or not Jordan was in the mix.

The Houston Rockets and their fans have heard chatter for over two decades about the legitimacy of their titles. But if you look closer at the matchup, the Rockets were the best team, and no one, not even a Jordan-led Bulls team, would have stopped them.

Let’s take a look at why the 1994 Rockets would still have hoisted the Larry O’ Brien trophy, even if a certain Bulls legend didn’t decide to try his luck at playing baseball that year.

No Answer for The Dream

This goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. At no point in 1994, or any other year for that matter, did the Bulls have a player that could hang with Hakeem Olajuwon. The overwhelming pressure that he would have put on the Bulls defense cannot be overstated.

Bill Cartwright, Stacey King and Horace Grant were good post defenders, but let’s face it: they would have had to run double teams constantly at Olajuwon.

In the two games the Rockets squared off against the Bulls in the season before Jordan retired, Olajuwon averaged 23 points, five blocks, 15 rebounds and five assists. Houston won both games by double-digits.

The Rockets, at the time, were one of the best 3-point shooting teams of that era and double-teaming Olajuwon would have given the Rockets open shots all series long against the Bulls. It’s safe to say the biggest advantage in a series against Chicago was Olajuwon against the Bulls’ platoon at the center position.

Next: The Players Weigh in

From the Players’ Perspectives

Several Rockets players from the 1994 team have spoken on what they believed would have happened if a series against the Bulls would have taken place.

I reached out to Vernon Maxwell on Twitter to ask him how he felt a Rockets and Bulls Finals would have played out:

“5-1, that’s all that needs to be said. I’m not sure who else had a winning record against them but I’m sure no one else was better against them than us.”

Maxwell has a point. From the time Olajuwon entered the league through their second championship run, Houston won 14 of 22 against the Bulls.

Robert Horry spoke to Scoop B on his podcast a couple of years ago and gave his opinion on the matter.

“I played for Phil [Jackson] and he doesn’t like to double team. You had to double Hakeem or he would have had 50 on you,” Horry said.

“So, I think we would have won. It would have been a good game. I know everybody thinks that Michael Jordan is the greatest to ever play the game, but Dream isn’t too shabby.”

One year before, Kenny Smith also joined the Scoop B podcast and made similar claims.

“We would’ve beaten the Bulls without a question, they didn’t match up well with us and during those years that they were actually winning championships, which wasn’t the playoffs. We were 8-2 against them during those years. We matched up well with them. We wouldn’t have been scared,” Smith said.

Of course, the Bulls had other ideas and Scottie Pippen spoke to this in an interview on ESPN’s The Jump.

“He forgot what my role was: I cut the head off of snakes; and I’m calling him the snake of that team,” Pippen said about Kenny Smith.

One thing is for sure: the Rockets’ players were extremely confident and believe they would have beaten Jordan and the Bulls, even at their peak.

Next: Defending Michael Jordan

Houston had one of the Best Jordan Defenders in the League

Let me start here: no one could stop Jordan. He is one of the greatest, if not the greatest players of all time. Still, the Rockets had Vernon Maxwell, the Rockets shooting guard that probably played Jordan tougher than any other defender in the league.

Maxwell also commented on his battle with Jordan and how the series would have gone in 1994 during the Rockets championship reunion (starting at the six-minute mark).

“Google it,” started Maxwell. That’s what I tell everybody. They couldn’t beat us.” If we could have gotten past Seattle, we would have knocked Chicago off. We were a team they couldn’t match up with.”

“I hear what he’s saying,” continued Maxwell. “I hear what everybody is saying. But I just don’t believe it. Just Google it and the numbers don’t lie.”

Robert Horry also spoke on the matchup between Michael Jordan and Vernon Maxwell. “Dream must go against who they had at center and Mike would have had to go against Vernon Maxwell, who is a good defender,” Horry said. “So, I think in that sense, we would have had the edge.”

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Maxwell lived for moments like matching up against the all-time greats. Going up against Jordan on such a big stage, he wouldn’t have been able to stop him but was probably the most equipped out of any defender in the league to at least make Jordan’s’ life difficult.

Jordan was, of course, the Bulls’ main weapon while Olajuwon was that for the Rockets. The difference is the Bulls didn’t have a player like Maxwell to match up with Olajuwon.

We all know the history. In the end, the Bulls finished the 1990s with six championships and the Rockets finished with two. Rockets fans never hear the end of it when it comes to the legitimacy of their titles.

One thing that can’t be denied is that the Rockets were 6-2 against the Bulls from 1990 to 1995 (excluding the 1993-94 season in which Jordan was away). The Rockets had one of the best winning percentages of any team in the league against the Jordan era Bulls.

No one knows for sure what would have happened and it is one of the NBA greatest mysteries, but looking at the numbers and the matchups, the Rockets were a team of destiny that couldn’t have been denied.

Lachard Binkley