Clyde Drexler: "I've never seen anyone on this planet play like this guy did"
The Houston Rockets won the 1995 Western Conference finals four games to 2 against the San Antonio Spurs. Before the matchup, nobody expected this kind of outcome because the Spurs had ten more wins in the regular season, and they had the league's MVP, David Robinson, aka The Admiral.
"It's amazing, isn't it?" Houston guard Sam Cassell said. "During the regular season, everyone counted us out. We proved all the doubters wrong."
"We played the team with the best record in the league (62-20), and we have so much respect for them," Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. "But, you just can't beat the heart fo the champion."
Hakeem Olajuwon was the deciding factor in this series. The Dream averaged 35.3 points in the series; he added 12.5 rebounds, five assists, and 4.2 blocks per game.
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In comparison, David Robinson, the most valuable player that year averaged 23.8 points in the series, added 11.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 2.2 blocks. It doesn't come as a surprise that San Antonio lost the series. Olajuwon dominated The Admiral in every single statistical category.
"I've never seen anyone on this planet play like this guy did. He is so phenomenal. He does it a night in and night out, and we've all come to expect it."
Here's what David Robinson had to say about Olajuwon's lifetime performance.
He was very, very good. He hit tough shots. I don't know how I can say it with a straight face, but I think most of the time, I defended him very well. The man played as well as anyone I've seen play in a long time. But him scoring 40 isn't what beat us. It's when other guys on their team step up and have great games."
An interesting fact about the series is, if you go back and watch the game tape, you'll see that the Rockets doubled Robinson pretty much every time he caught it, and the Spurs didn't double Olajuwon. Hakeem ended up in a lot of isolation situations while Robinson didn't.
Ultimately, it is safe to say that there was no way the Spurs could stop the Nigerian nightmare. The 1995 WCF was his.
