Greatest Team To Never Win a Ring Tournament: '81 Bucks vs '94 Knicks

[pandrade83]

This is a voting based tournament to determine who was the GOAT team to not win a title. The original thread for this is

here

Each matchup will utilize the rules, refs, & equipment of the older team in this tournament. This hopefully will eliminate a bit of the recency bias. Health is as it was at the close of the Regular Season; perhaps a team didn't win because of injury.

One last thing. Voting without any reason listed at all will not be counted. Each thread will be open until it slips to page 2 of the board.

'81 Bucks (have HCA) 60-22, lost 2nd rd to Sixers in 7, SRS +7.1, Offense +3.2, Defense -3.7
Lanier
Mickey Johnson
Marques Johnson
S. Moncrief
Q. Buckner

J. Bridgeman
B. Winters
H. Catchings

'94 Knicks 57-25, lost to Rockets in Finals in 7, SRS +6.5, Offense -0.6, Defense -8.1

Ewing
Oakley
Smith
Starks
Harper

Mason
Bonner
Davis
Anthony

[pandrade83]

I might be biased here, but I'm taking the Knicks.

Looking at the common elements of teams who beat the Knicks during this era, there are two common factors:

1) An elite level interior defense (Olajuwon) who really shuts Ewing down offensively. I don't see that from Milwaukee.
2) An elite level offensive weapon (Jordan) who is so powerful, that they are relatively immune to a GOAT Level defense.

If you have one of those two things, you can beat the Knicks of this era in a playoff series. The Bucks don't have it. They're a nice team, they have a lot of good players, they have a swarming perimeter defense. They're just not equipped properly to beat the Knicks.

[Senior]

first instinct is that whoever controls the pace will win. knicks were a grindy halfcourt team while the bucks liked to run run run and had the athletes to do so. problem is that the bucks were an exceptional defensive team too. devastating athletic wings like marques and squid that could force turnovers. they played an annoying zone that knicks would have trouble with because they don't have strong guard play. lanier's not the best defensive center but he was only playing 26 mpg and catchings was okay. not sure if ewing could exploit lanier even though he wasn't that mobile, lanier was smart and it's not like ewing was hakeem anyway

i don't think you need an all-time talent on interior defense/offense to beat the 94 knicks, they went 7 with the pacers and bulls and they didn't have an all-time anything

[Owly]

I might be biased here, but I'm taking the Knicks.

Looking at the common elements of teams who beat the Knicks during this era, there are two common factors:

1) An elite level interior defense (Olajuwon) who really shuts Ewing down offensively. I don't see that from Milwaukee.
2) An elite level offensive weapon (Jordan) who is so powerful, that they are relatively immune to a GOAT Level defense.

If you have one of those two things, you can beat the Knicks of this era in a playoff series. The Bucks don't have it. They're a nice team, they have a lot of good players, they have a swarming perimeter defense. They're just not equipped properly to beat the Knicks.

Is there enough of a sample to tease out the conclusions you're making (how many teams eliminating the Knicks are you considering)? Further to that point is the teams that won even the best sample: what about alternate routes not tried (or not tried by a sufficiently good team - the primary thing that really helped was to be really good at basketball, don't you need to control for that when finding optimal routes to beating the Knicks)?
Was '92 Jordan immune to the Knicks' defense?
Is an "elite interior defense" really necessary to stop Ewing (fairly pedestrian in '95 defeat, matched up against Smits and the Pacers)?

[penbeast0]

I loved the Bucks and hated the Knicks so I'm looking for a reason for Milwaukee to win this. They certainly could, it's a reasonably even matchup. But I don't like the matchups for Milwaukee much. Moncrief can shut Starks down but the Knicks don't need him and Starks is a ferocious, aggressive player who is tough to drive on; strong enough to body Moncrief though not long enough to bother his shot inside. Harper is smarter than Buckner, though Quinn has probably surpassed him in athleticism by this late in Harper's career. Charles Smith is an excellent matchup for Marques Johnson; if they can get Smith in foul trouble, Oakley and Mason aren't quick enough to stay with him so that's one possibility. But Ewing is appreciably better than Lanier and will take advantage of Lanier's weak defense (or freelance v. Catching's non-existent offense). Milwaukee, as always, has the best bench mob but I'm leaning Knicks here unless someone can talk me down from this ledge.

[pandrade83]

I might be biased here, but I'm taking the Knicks.

Looking at the common elements of teams who beat the Knicks during this era, there are two common factors:

1) An elite level interior defense (Olajuwon) who really shuts Ewing down offensively. I don't see that from Milwaukee.
2) An elite level offensive weapon (Jordan) who is so powerful, that they are relatively immune to a GOAT Level defense.

If you have one of those two things, you can beat the Knicks of this era in a playoff series. The Bucks don't have it. They're a nice team, they have a lot of good players, they have a swarming perimeter defense. They're just not equipped properly to beat the Knicks.

Is there enough of a sample to tease out the conclusions you're making (how many teams eliminating the Knicks are you considering)? Further to that point is the teams that won even the best sample: what about alternate routes not tried (or not tried by a sufficiently good team - the primary thing that really helped was to be really good at basketball, don't you need to control for that when finding optimal routes to beating the Knicks)?
Was '92 Jordan immune to the Knicks' defense?
Is an "elite interior defense" really necessary to stop Ewing (fairly pedestrian in '95 defeat, matched up against Smits and the Pacers)?

Well thought out, as usual. Thanks for keeping me honest.

Because I’m VERY familiar with the 90s Knicks, and less familiar with the early 80s Bucks, I started thinking about the features that the Knicks were vulnerable too. That’s not necessarily the best way to think about it though.

I dont think Milwaukee has a great way to slow down Ewing - their perimeter defense is excellent - they can be had on the interior though and I think that’s a problem against the Knicks.

And while they have a diverse array of weapons, I’m not seeing anyone who was resilient to getting shut down by a goat caliber defense.

They do have some elements that could hurt New York - mj/pippen really hurt us in transition off turnovers and I could see the bucks getting some of that - but sid and Johnson are a big step down from mj and pippen and Milwaukee doesn’t have anyone on the interior who’s even as strong as Horace grant defensively.

This just doesn’t seem like a great matchup for the bucks.