Background
In a midseason trade with Portland, the Rockets obtained guard Clyde Drexler, who had played alongside Hakeem Olajuwon at the University of Houston. Houston struggled in the regular season, and they consequently entered the playoffs as a sixth seed in the Western Conference. They were not expected to defeat the 60-22 Utah Jazz in the first round, the 59-23 Phoenix Suns in the second round, then the 62-20 San Antonio Spurs (led by regular season Most Valuable Player David Robinson) in the Conference Finals. In fact, the Suns led the second-round series 2 games to 0, (just as they did in the same round the year before). The Suns also led the series 3 games to 1. However, Houston came back to win the next 3 games of the series (Games 5 and 7 were in Phoenix), and then got past San Antonio in 6 games after blowing a 2-0 series lead to reach the Finals, where they were matched up with the Orlando Magic. With Shaquille O'Neal and Penny Hardaway, the Magic (with a 50-32 regular season record in the 1993-94 season) were expected to win the championship. In the 1994-95 season, the Magic's 6th season, after acquiring rebounder Horace Grant as a free agent from Chicago, Orlando compiled a 57-25 record, which was the best in the East. On their way to the Finals, the Magic defeated the Boston Celtics, the Chicago Bulls, and the Indiana Pacers.
Read more about this topic: 1995 NBA Finals
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“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
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