1994 NBA Finals
 |
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
| Dates | June 8–22 | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MVP |
Hakeem Olajuwon (Houston Rockets) |
||||||||||||||
| Television | NBC (U.S.) | ||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Marv Albert and Matt Guokas | ||||||||||||||
| Referees | |||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
| Hall of Famers |
Knicks: Patrick Ewing (2008) Rockets: Hakeem Olajuwon (2008) Coaches: Pat Riley (2008) Officials: Dick Bavetta (2015) Darell Garretson (2016) |
||||||||||||||
| Eastern Finals | Knicks defeat Pacers, 4–3 | ||||||||||||||
| Western Finals | Rockets defeat Jazz, 4–1 | ||||||||||||||
| Game 1: | Joe Crawford, Jack Madden, Dick Bavetta |
|---|---|
| Game 2: | Darell Garretson, Ed T. Rush, Hue Hollins |
| Game 3: | Jake O'Donnell, Jess Kersey, Bill Oakes |
| Game 4: | Hugh Evans, Joe Crawford, Mike Mathis |
| Game 5: | Darell Garretson, Ed T. Rush, Dick Bavetta |
| Game 6: | Jake O'Donnell, Jess Kersey, Jack Madden |
| Game 7 | Hugh Evans, Joe Crawford, Ed T. Rush |
The 1994 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1993–94 National Basketball Association (NBA) season, featuring the Western Conference's Houston Rockets defeating the Eastern Conference's New York Knicks.
This matchup was Hakeem Olajuwon's second NBA Finals appearance, his other being in 1986, where Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics defeated the Houston Rockets four games to two. The series was Patrick Ewing's first NBA Finals appearance. The Rockets came in with strong determination to win not only the franchise's first NBA championship, but the city's first championship in a league that still existed, while the Knicks were looking to add a third NBA championship trophy, as the Knicks' last trophy came from the 1973 NBA Finals. The Knicks also hoped to impress their new owners Viacom, who had just bought Paramount Communications (formerly Gulf+Western), their longtime owners (after the series however, Viacom sold the Knicks and the rest of the Madison Square Garden properties).
The series was hailed as a meeting of the two great centers who had previously played for a championship in college. In 1984 while Olajuwon was with the University of Houston and Ewing was with Georgetown University, Georgetown had beaten Houston 84–75 in the 1984 NCAA Championship game. In this series, however, Olajuwon outperformed Ewing, outscoring him in every game of the series and posting numbers of 26.9 ppg on 50.0% shooting compared to Ewing's 18.9 ppg on 36.3% shooting. However, Ewing set an NBA finals record in the series with a total of 30 blocks, and he tied the single-game record of 8 blocks in Game 5.Tim Duncan would later set the record for most blocks in a Finals series (2003) with 32 blocks in six games while Dwight Howard would set the record for most blocked shots in a Finals game with 9 blocked shots in Game 4 of the 2009 Finals while with the Orlando Magic.
...
Wikipedia