(670 The Score) As you might expect from a proud, decorated seven-time NBA champion forward, Robert Horry has the utmost confidence in what he and his teams accomplished.
That includes his belief that both the 1994 and 1995 Houston Rockets championship teams would’ve beaten the dynasty Chicago Bulls had they squared off in the NBA Finals at full strength. The Bulls had a pair of championship three-peats that bookended the 1993-'94 and 1994-‘95 seasons, when the legendary Michael Jordan took a hiatus to play baseball. Jordan missed all of the 1993-’94 season and much of the next season, returning to the NBA in March 1995. As Jordan worked his way back into top form, the Bulls lost to the eventual Eastern Conference champion Magic in six games in the second round in 1995.
“I’m contractually obligated to tell you as a Houston Rocket, we kicked their ass more times than they kicked our ass when we played them in the regular season,” Horry said on the Parkins & Spiegel Show on Tuesday. “I think you should go back and look at that and understand that I know MJ is the GOAT and I played for Phil and I know how Phil coaches. There’s no way the Chicago Bulls would’ve beat the ’94 or the ’95 Rockets. So take that.
“Because I get it all the time. I get it from guys who I grew up with. I think, sometimes, people realize Michael Jordan is the GOAT, but the GOATs can be beat. You forget in ’95, he was back … He wasn’t in shape? You just dropped a double nickel (55 points) in New York and you’re trying to say you wasn’t ready? Your team wasn’t (as) good in ’95. You got beat by a younger Orlando team that shut you down because Horace Grant wasn’t there to help you out. He was with the Magic. And then the Magic ran into a buzz saw in the Houston Rockets, where we just destroyed them. I don’t want to hear that crap that Jordan wasn’t around, because he was there in ’95.”
The Bulls and Rockets split their two games in the 1993-’94 season and then did the same in the 1994-’95 campaign, both contests of which were played before Jordan returned. The Bulls lost both games to the Rockets – by 14 points and by 11 points – in the 1992-’93 season, when Horry was a rookie.