Watching John Starks #3 I couldn’t help but feel bad for the guy. A career filled with uncanny achievement, defying all odds to become a starting guard for the Knicks and help lead the Knicks to the playoffs year after year. And then to be blamed for the Knicks 1994 because he went 2-18 in game seven.

The contributing factor in the Knicks loss in the series, another important factor in the Rockets series win was Olajuwon's performance. Olajuwon Ewing. Olajuwon outscored Ewing in all 7 games of the series and put up significantly better numbers overall:

1994 NBA Finals Gm 1 Gm 2 Gm 3 Gm 4 Gm 5 Gm 6 Gm 7 Totals
Hakeem Olajuwon 28 25 21 32 27 30 25 26.9 ppg 50.0% fg

Patrick Ewing 23 16 18 15 25 19 17 18.9 ppg 36.4% fg

Ewing had a good defensive series blocking shots, but he needed to do more offensively, but I think riley should have pulled starks and put in rolando Blackmon who just rotted on the bench!

You dont just give someone run in the Finals just to see what they can do. That's the wrong time for that. Riley's mistake was in dropping Blackman from the regular rotation in the first place. Especially when Starks went down toward the end of the regular season.

Olajuwon was just a flat out better player than Ewing, whether that's Ewing's "fault" or not is up to you. Just as it is with Jordan being a better player than Ewing. The better player won that series' deciding matchup, but, I dont think there's any shame in that for Ewing. Hakeem is the 4th or 5th best center ever behing Russell, Wilt, Kareem and maybe Shaq.

If that story about the hooker coming to Starks' room and getting him coked up and awake all night before Game 7 is true then the fault for Game 7 is entirely on Starks.

Riley was notorious for his short rotations in the playoffs. If he went deeper with that team, and put Doc Rivers on the playoff roster instead of Corey Gains, we may have had a better chance. Doc says he could've played late in the playoffs.

Posted by MS:

Watching John Starks #3 I couldn’t help but feel bad for the guy. A career filled with uncanny achievement, defying all odds to become a starting guard for the Knicks and help lead the Knicks to the playoffs year after year. And then to be blamed for the Knicks 1994 because he went 2-18 in game seven.

Forget about the 2-18. The number one contributing factor to his failure is the fact that he took the last shot in game six, when Ewing was pounding it hard on the inside, scoring at will. 'That ball should have been fed to Ewing, just like it was for the whole game. He should have gotten the last shot! But he took it himself and he didn't even hit the rim. A defender got in his face. It was a poor decision and Ewing I still believe to this day would have scored the winning basket. He was simply hot that night and scoring clutch points. Starks blew it. Plain and simple. It was a pinnacle moment to open the door to a championship and he took responsibility when he attempted that shot. It was ill-advised! I still remember the deflated feeling I felt when I saw him go for it and the way my heart dropped the moment it missed. That was the moment! That was the play that was going to win it all for us and he blew it. If Ewing blew it, then Ewing as our best scorer should have been the one to do so. We'll never know what Ewing would have done, but we know what Starks did. I still remember. I never forgave him for that. It doesn't matter if there was a game seven or even a game eight and nine. That was the game, game six and that was the shot that was suppose to end our drought! Please don't defend his decision, because it was a very poor one. He has to live with that.

[Edited by - 4949 on 08-31-2007 9:07 PM]

The fault was Riley who kept calling plays for Starks to shoot when he was cold.

I blame it all on Riley. He had the bodies. Starks usually responded better after being pull out of a game for bad play. Tony Campbell and blackman were on the roster. Its a damn shame.

I tell you what, there wouldn't have been a game 7 if starks didn't take the game over in game 6. Can't be hot everynight. Riley miss managed that series. He was only playing 5 guys plus mason.

Ewing was hurt anyway. He was wearing those stockings cuz of a leg injury. If ewing wasn't hurt the knicks win the series. Its a painful series to talk about but what can you do? It didn't happen and I don't think it was meant to be.

Same with 99' cuz ewing was hurt then too. If ewing was healthy, the knicks beat the spurs hands down.

Just wasn't OUR time. We'll get it one day, and it will be freakin beautiful.