dice wrote:dougthonus wrote:HomoSapien wrote:I sort of forgot how good Malone really was. I think he’s become pretty underrated historically.
Each possession feels like it’s a move in a chess match. Everything is more methodical.
Yeah, I think you could make a case that Malone is the best PF of all time, but you never hear about him.
i hear/see him mentioned as one of the GOAT PFs a fair amount. but part of the reason he's not in the GOAT conversation is that both he and stockton are amongst the worst decliners in league history when it comes to playoff performance vs regular season. per 36:
24/10,
58%ts malone reg
22/9
53%ts malone playoffs
15/12
61%ts stockton reg
14/10
57%ts stockton playoffs
also the jazz had 3 WCF losses prior to '97. they also were upset 3 times in the first round...
-SWEPT a 2 seed by run-TMC in the first round of the '89 playoffs after taking the eventual champion lakers to 7 the prior season
-in deciding game the following year they were taken out in the first round by the suns. at home. skip to 1:42:26 for final 2 minutes (jazz up 4 w/ ball):
-same result in '95 against defending champ rockets, blowing a 7 point lead midway through 4th. skip to 7:15 for rockets up 1 w/ 2 min remaining:
and, of course, their eventual breakthrough was terrible timing. the rockets averaged 49 wins from '89-'98. the jazz averaged 56. how do the legacies of malone and olajuwon differ if it is the jazz that happen to make the finals in '94 and '95 and the rockets in '97 and '98?
Malone entered the 98 finals with nice numbers but he only played well in games 3, 5 and 6... and even in game 6 he had 20 points at halftime (if I'm not mistaken) and then... puff... only jumpshots when he made a fantastic first half.
dumbell78 wrote:That Dick Bavetta call waving off the 3 would be huge in this game.
That wasn't the only bad call:
- Ron Harper buried a 2 pointer later that could have been a shot clock violation
- Rodman catching a ball and not being able to get position (offensive foul wrongly called against the Bulls)
- The wrestling sequence between Rodman and Malone is something that still bothers me today on how it was a Rodman foul only... at least a doube foul. But when they called the foul, Rodman was on the floor. It should have been a double technical or a double foul but not a foul on Rodman when Malone wasn't inocent in that.
Then there are other things that I still have some doubts (lack of quality of my video or knowledge):
- Stocktons final 3... It seems that his foot is slightly on the line
- Kerr offensive foul where he has the ball and actually being used as a screen (the portuguese commentator didn't agree with the call... but Doug Collins agreed)
And let's not forget of all people saying that Jordan pushed Russel.