Hakeem Olajuwon assumed he’d return to in the NBA Finals soon enough after a loss to Larry Bird and the mighty Boston Celtics in 1986. The then 23-year-old big man was a bit naive in his assessment.
Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets endured a period of extended frustration in the interceding years between their ’86 Finals appearance and the franchise’s first championship in 1994. Olajuwon stood as the leading big man in basketball as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar exited his prime. Houston reached the playoffs in six of seven years, but regular-season success preceded a slew of painful playoff exits. One defeat is especially notable to Olajuwon.
“There were times it was difficult to not have a team that can really get to the top. That was very frustrating to me,” Olajuwon told Chron. “But 1993, that year we lost to Seattle, we truly believed we missed an opportunity. We should have been in the Finals.
“I remember flying back home, on the plane after Game 7, everybody was quiet, everybody was so disappointed.”
Houston’s seven-game series loss to the Seattle SuperSonics in the 1993 Western Conference semifinals still pains Olajuwon, but the Hall of Fame center, his former coach and his former teammates each tab the defeat as a driver of the Houston’s subsequent championship season. So, with the 30th anniversary of the Rockets’ first championship now on the immediate horizon, let’s take a trip in the time machine back one year further, remembering a frantic finish and a Game 7 contest now somewhat lost to history.
A different group
Even sniffing the NBA Finals felt like something of a distant dream for the Rockets one year before their ’93 loss to Seattle. Houston finished 42-40 in 1991-92, a middling record that was downright disastrous for a club sporting a perennial MVP candidate in Olajuwon. The ugly season led to a franchise-altering hire. Houston’s then-assistant, Rudy Tomjanovich, was elevated into the interim head coach role to replace Don Chaney with 30 games remaining, and he was given the full-time gig at the end of Houston’s bench before the 1992-93 season. Olajuwon was thrilled with the move.
“[Tomjanovich] let the players have a lot of influence in our decisions,” Olajuwon said. “He quickly gained everybody’s respect. He was a coach, but he was a player also, so I think he could know what we needed in each game.”
Tomjanovich demurred from taking credit for Houston’s rise back over 50 wins, telling Chron “most of it was easy because we had a tremendously talented player in Hakeem.” Regardless, an empowered Olajuwon was an effective Olajuwon, a dominant scorer and ace defender who crept above three assists per game for the first time in his career in 1992-93. One new teammate deserves a share of credit for the jump.
Unexpected hero
Long before he delivered the dagger for the San Antonio Spurs in the 2005 Finals, and preceeding his heroics for the Los Angeles Lakers the 2001 Western Conference finals, Robert Horry was a fresh-faced rookie with the Rockets as a late-lottery pick out of Alabama. While Horry wasn’t an emerging superstar in 1992-93, his smooth stroke was evident from his first months as a professional. Horry shot nearly 50 percent from the field as a rookie. He drained multiple triples in two of his first three playoff games (a rarity given the era). And as Houston crossed halfcourt tied 91-91 with under a minute remaining in Game 7, Horry knew he might be called upon in the game’s biggest moment.
“Early in my rookie year, a lot of the time, Dream would catch it and make a move and shoot over two or three people,” Horry said. “As the year went on, he really started trusting us, trusting us other guys. He started kicking it out. He trusted us to make the right decision.”
The tape matches Horry’s memory in the final minute of Game 7. Olajuwon received a pass on the left block with 43 seconds left in regulation, and a swarm of Seattle defenders converged on him with the two teams tied at 91-91. The Olajuwon of prior years was inclined to rise up over double coverage. Not this year. Olajuwon whipped a one-handed pass across the left wing, and Horry—comfortable in a matchup against fellow Alabama product Derrick McKey—subsequently drilled the mid-range jumper.
Tomjanovich remembers the Seattle Center Coliseum as “one of the hardest places to win” across his entire near-four-decade journey as an NBA player and coach. Thanks to Olajuwon’s trust and Horry’s clutch shooting, Houston came agonizingly close to a franchise-altering victory 30 years ago Wednesday. The Sonics dashed those plans.
Seattle guard Rickey Pierce buried a corner jumper upon regaining possession down 93-91, and after a missed Kenny Smith jumper at the end of regulation, the Sonics surged to a 103-100 overtime victory. Olajuwon’s Finals drought continued. Horry’s dream rookie season was over.
“That was a tough locker room to be in,” Horry said. “I was upset, and really, the guys that had been there for a few years, who kept, you know, falling short, that was hard. … That was hard for them.”
Failure as fuel
Game 7 in Seattle ended Houston’s ’93 season. It also marked turning points on both a personal and team level. For Horry, his rookie-year heroics laid the groundwork for one of the great careers in NBA history. Horry isn’t just a seven-time champion (tallying two rings in Houston, three in Los Angeles and two in San Antonio). He’s renowned as one of the great clutch shooters in NBA history, a player with a quick trigger and cool head in key situations. Olajuwon trusted Horry in playoff moments in the 1990s. Shaquille O’Neal and Tim Duncan did the same in the 2000s, continuing the lineage of Horry paired with the game’s great big men.
Horry points to Game 7 as validation of his belonging at the NBA level. Olajuwon cites the loss as fuel for the next year’s sprint through the Western Conference. When the Rockets gathered for training camp in Galveston in the summer of ’93, their minds weren’t clear from an extended break. The pain lingered, especially for the franchise’s leading man.
“That time was hard for us,” Olajuwon said. “We came close, we fought back, and again, we didn’t get it done.”
Houston’s slugfest Finals with the New York Knicks is a lasting memory of the Olajuwon era. The same can be said for his obliteration of David Robinson in the Western Conference finals one year later. But Olajuwon endured serious basketball pain before becoming both a champion and the best player in the world. Before the glory of ’94 and ’95, Olajuwon endured a devastating defeat on a May night in Seattle. Houston’s championship drive the next season stands as a direct result.
“It was a bitter taste going into the summer,” Olajuwon said. “And when everybody came back [for] that season, the focus was different. From the start of training camp, you could see we wouldn’t forget Seattle. We didn’t forget all season long.”
