Rockets Are Road Models

“Never underestimate the heart of a champion.”

-- Houston Rocket Coach Rudy Tomjanovich during the trophy presentation after the 1995 NBA Finals

“It shows that the heart of a champion still beats within us.”

Laker guard Kobe Bryant after a 30-point comeback against the Dallas Mavericks on Dec. 6, 2002

If the Lakers are going to follow the 1960s Boston Celtics into the elite club of NBA dynasties, they’ll first need to retrace the steps of the 1995 Houston Rockets.

The Lakers’ quest to become only the second team to win at least four consecutive championships will begin at Minnesota. If the Lakers, the fifth-seeded team in the Western Conference, advance in the playoffs and meet San Antonio and/or Sacramento, they will be the road team in the first two games in those series as well.

The ’95 Rockets were the last team to start the playoffs on the road and win a championship. The Rockets were seeded sixth and did not have home-court advantage in any of the subsequent rounds.

“You really don’t believe that winning at home or winning on the road makes a difference,” said Kenny Smith, the point guard on the Rockets’ 1995 squad. “The Lakers have that mind-set. They don’t look at it as ‘We’re at home, we’re on the road.’ It’s: ‘We’ve got Minnesota. Period.’

“We would say, ‘I don’t think there’s a team that could beat us four out of seven games, even if we played on the moon.’ ”

“I hear them say that. That’s what we used to always say.”

It helps that Kobe Bryant loves road playoff games. He’s usually more dominant than Shaquille O’Neal when the Lakers wear the purple jerseys.

“There’s something about silencing the crowd,” Bryant said. “Everybody expects you to lose.”

Said Laker Coach Phil Jackson: “We’ve got to have strong, resilient players. And we have to have a team with great confidence in its ability to win on the road.”

Like the Lakers, the Rockets were the defending champions.

They kept digging more holes than a graveyard worker, falling behind to the brink of elimination in their first two series. They fell behind Utah, two games to one in the best-of-five first round. (Beginning this year the first round will be a best-of-seven format). In the conference semifinals, they dropped the first two games and three of the first four to the Phoenix Suns. But they won Game 5 in overtime and won Game 7, 115-114. Both of those games were at Phoenix. In the first game of the NBA Finals, they overcame a 20-point deficit and eventually won in overtime, which set them on their way to a four-game sweep of the Orlando Magic.

Without their experience in the 1994 playoffs, the Rockets couldn’t have done it.

“You have to have been there before,” said Smith, a studio analyst for TNT. “That’s what the Lakers had the advantage of. You have to know how everyone’s going to react in an adverse situation. There’s going to be an adverse situation.

“We had been through being down in a series, having to win on the road. What it takes to win on the road, it’s all mental focus. You have to believe that you can win.

“You have to believe that. Not only believe, you have to have done it.”

The Lakers have three championship runs’ worth of experience on their side as they begin the 2003 playoffs. During that stretch they have triumphed in four elimination games. They came back from a 15-point deficit to win Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference finals. They won a Game 7 on the road, amid the clanging cowbells of Arco Arena in last year’s conference finals.

There’s a chance that Bryant and O’Neal will have to look on as Minnesota’s Kevin Garnett or San Antonio’s Tim Duncan wins the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award.

A pivotal point of the 1995 playoffs was the MVP award presentation to David Robinson of the Spurs before the first game of the conference finals. Rocket center Hakeem Olajuwon watched as Robinson received the Maurice Podoloff trophy. Robinson’s biggest mistake during the ceremony might have been neglecting to mention Olajuwon when he talked about the other great players he beat out for the award.

“I looked at Hakeem,” Smith said. “I said, ‘Are you a little upset?’

“He said, ‘No, he deserves it.’ Then I could see his temper steaming a little bit.”

The Rockets took the opening game of the series, and Olajuwon absolutely destroyed Robinson in the low post throughout the series.

“After the game, [Olajuwon] comes over and says, ‘I’m going to his house and getting my trophy,’ ” Smith said.

One weakness of the Lakers is that they haven’t made a significant addition to the team since they won their first championship in 2000. The ’95 Rockets made a midseason trade for Clyde Drexler.

Although he was on the downside of his career, he still was a future Hall of Famer only three years removed from the original Dream Team and the 1992 Olympics. It was a dramatic trade, highly questioned at the time and even more dubious after the Rockets went 17-18 in their final 35 games.

“When we first had the trade, we didn’t reap the benefits,” Smith said. “A lot of us were apprehensive about Clyde being part of the mix anyway. The last 10 games, we started saying, ‘You know what? We’re back.’

“What Clyde brought was a different hunger. He instilled that in us.

“That’s the only thing that’s different. We had a spark.”

Deep inside, though, that same muscle beats.

Oh, and one more thing about that “heart-of-a-champion” line.

“That’s Mario Elie’s,” Smith said, referring to a Rocket teammate. “He came up with that. Rudy stole it.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Low Riders

*--* The Lakers, in their quest for a fourth consecuti ve NBA champions hip, finished fifth in the Western Conferenc e this season with a 50-32 record. Here are the lowest-se eded teams to win NBA champions hips since 1968-69: Season Team Reg. Season Record Conf. Finish/ Where Seeded 2001-02 Lakers 58-24 Third 1994-95 Houston 47-35 Sixth 1977-78 Washington 44-38 Third 1976-77 Portland 49-33 Third 1968-69 Boston 48-34 Fourth Note: The 1974-75 Golden State Warriors (Western Conferenc e champions with a 48-34 record) are one of five teams that have won an NBA champions hip since 1968-69 with less than 50 victories in a full season

*--*