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Scott Brooks Claims The Chicago Bulls Wouldn’t Have Beaten The Houston Rockets In 1994 Even With Michael Jordan

Without a Michael Jordan-led team in 1994, the Houston Rockets took advantage and were able to win their first-ever championship against the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals.

Even with Jordan coming back the following year, it didn’t impede Houston’s quest to repeat as champions, as the Bulls were eliminated early in the second round against the Orlando Magic.

Still, debates continue to surface about a potential Finals matchup between the Rockets and the Bulls, particularly in 1994, if Jordan hadn’t retired. Interestingly, a good portion of the answers are leaning towards the Bulls winning the hypothetical series.

But Washington Wizards head coach Scott Brooks, who was a player of Houston’s 1994 championship team, thinks otherwise. Making an appearance on the ‘Wizards Talk’ podcast, Brooks revealed that he believes the Bulls would have had no answer for their best player, Hakeem Olajuwon.

“[The Bulls] had no answer for [Olajuwon]. It’s easy for me to say this now because it’s all hypothetical, but I don’t think they would have beat us in ’94,” Scott Brooks said on the Wizards Talk podcast, via NBC Sports Washington.

“Now, the next year it could have been a different story. But that ’94 team, ‘Dream’ was, it was like destiny. He was locked in. I’ve never seen a guy up close every fourth quarter, I don’t even think he missed a shot, let alone make a mistake. He had both ends just covered.”

After the Bulls completed their first three-peat in 1993, they had become the first team to win three consecutive titles since the Boston Celtics in the 1960s. With a good chance to go for a fourth championship run, the Bulls saw a sudden decline due to Jordan’s first retirement. 

Some may argue that the Jordan-led Bulls hypothetically winning in 1994 has something to do with momentum and conditioning – something that the Bulls, especially Jordan, may have lacked in 1995. But it’s also important to remember the mental and physical fatigue a fourth run would’ve caused to the Bulls as a whole, as opposed to the Rockets.

Even so, Olajuwon was just all over the place that year. In the regular season, he averaged 27.3 points, 11.9 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 3.7 blocks per game on 52.8% shooting. In the playoffs, ‘The Dream’ averaged a whopping 28.9 points, 11.0 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 4.0 blocks per game on 51.9% shooting against the likes of Karl Malone, Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing.

The Olajuwon-led Rockets continued their dominance for a second year, but it wasn’t too long for Jordan and the Bulls to reclaim their throne.