NBA to air 'Clutch City' doc on Rockets' title teams during finals
Basketball fans who can't get enough postseason nostalgia will be happy to learn that NBA TV is set to air a documentary on the Houston Rockets' back-to-back championship teams of 1994 and 1995.
Titled "Clutch City," the documentary will air on June 8 and will feature interviews with Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Robert Horry, Kenny Smith, Sam Cassell, Vernon Maxwell and head coach Rudy Tomjanovich, among a host of additional former stars.
According to the league's statement on the upcoming film, Hall of Famers like Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing will also be featured as they discuss going up against those great Rockets teams.
After edging Ewing's New York Knicks in a seven-game finals classic in 1994, the Rockets stumbled to a 47-35 record during the 1994-95 season, entering the playoffs as the Western Conference's No. 6 seed.
That 1995 team defied the odds, however, becoming the lowest-seeded team to ever capture an NBA championship (a record that still stands) when they swept O'Neal's upstart Orlando Magic in the finals, inspiring Tomjanovich's famous "Don't ever underestimate the heart of a champion" proclamation.
Despite the Rockets' back-to-back titles, the team's success is often overshadowed by the fact that their triumphs were book-ended by two separate Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls three-peats. One of their two titles came while Jordan was retired, and the other came in a season where Jordan didn't return until March.
At least part of the documentary, it seems, touches on that aspect of the 1994 and 1995 Rockets.
"It's something that you will never know, but if you just go by the record, we never had a problem with Chicago," Olajuwon says in an outtake from the film, provided by the NBA. "We loved that because we wouldn't just play against Chicago, we would dominate Chicago."
For what it's worth, The Dream's Rockets did go 5-1 against Jordan's Bulls during Chicago's first three championship seasons.