re: Would Shaq have taken the Magic to the Finals if Jordan hadn't retired?

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Correct me if I am wrong but the Rockets won their titles in 94 and 95. The Rockets were 2-2 against the Bulls. Not exactly having their way. Especially if you consider this was without Jordan.

Also, from 92-99 they were 8-8 against the bulls.

If anything, you could argue they were evenly matched.

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It’s a view of many that the Bulls could have won eight straight titles if Michael Jordan hadn’t retired in 1993. Not Vernon Maxwell, and it would have been interesting to watch. The Rockets had a 20th anniversary title celebration last week, titles some said had asterisks because Jordan wasn’t playing. But in that era, no team played the Bulls tougher. The Rockets swept the Bulls in the Bulls’ 1991 and 1993 title seasons (Jordan played in all the games) and split with them in 1991-92. In Jordan’s nine seasons through 1992-93, the Bulls were 1-8 in Houston and 6-12 overall against the Rockets, Jordan’s poorest record against any NBA opponent. One reason was the erratic Maxwell, who played Jordan like no one else, often screaming in his face and challenging him to fights. At last week’s reunion, Maxwell told the Houston Chronicle he longed for a playoff with the Bulls: “I wanted to fight him. Michael Jordan saying we wouldn’t have won the championships the time he was out and tried to play baseball. I say just Google the times we played them. They couldn’t beat us. Like we couldn’t beat Seattle. If we could’ve beat Seattle, we’d have got a championship against Chicago because they couldn’t match up against us. I wish I could have got in a seven-game series. That would have been a dream to me. I loved playing against Michael. People back in my era didn’t want to play against Mike. He used to talk to me all the time during games. ‘Max, this is what the media wants to see. Let’s not do this. You don’t have to do this. Why you doing this?’ I know I got under his skin.”

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