The Denver Nuggets’ shocking finish against the ’94 Sonics needs a deep rewind

The Denver Nuggets’ shocking finish against the ’94 Sonics needs a deep rewind

– [Narrator] This can’t be happening. It’s May 7th, 1994. We’re in Seattle for the deciding game five of a first-round series between the heavily favored Supersonics and the very young, not very good Denver Nuggets. And the Nuggets are winning by four with just seconds remaining. Unless the Sonics come up with a miracle here, they’re about to blow a huge opportunity in defeat while the Nuggets make history in victory. We’ll see what happens, but first, let’s meet the two sides of this unlikely situation. Let’s rewind. (dramatic music) The stakes here are simple. (tape rewinding) Seattle is the top seed in the west. Denver’s the bottommost eighth seed. Eight seeds don’t win. Literally, this playoff format has existed for 10 years and a one seed has never lost in the first round. And it’s not like the Sonics’ place in the standings needs an asterisk. This is an extremely talented, mostly healthy team. The best, hottest squad in the NBA. It starts with Shawn Kemp, the Reign Man. The Sonics picked him in the middle of the 1989 draft. Kemp was a risky choice, super young and mysterious since he couldn’t play during his one year at Kentucky. Now half the league looks dumb for passing on him. Kemp is as electric an offensive talent as exists in this league. He is big and fierce and quick, and he will humiliate you. Last year, Kemp made his first all-star team. This year you can seriously count him among the best big guys in the NBA. And Gary Payton has made the leap as Kemp’s perfect compliment, a shifty, nasty point guard who picks pockets and throws perfect lobs. These guys are like Stockton and Malone, except cool. They are the tandem of the future, and also the present. Management realized that last season when the Sonics battled all the way to game seven of the Western Conference finals falling just short of a boss battle with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. And well, the boss is gone. If you wanna steal a championship ring, the time is right now. Seattle executive Bob Whitsitt recognized that and beefed up with an award-winning offseason haul. The Sonics traded for Kendall Gill and Detlef Schrempf, starlike talents for tertiary lineup spots. So far, so good. 63 wins, best in the league. Coach George Karl joined Kemp and Payton in the all-star game. Seattle finished hot too with a 10-2 April. The Nuggets were supposed to be roadkill on Seattle’s runway to glory, and they looked like it in games one and two of this series. Honestly, even after Seattle lost games three and four, you could excuse some overconfidence. The Nuggets, one might argue, are altitude merchants. They were a genuinely bad road team this year, but in Denver, elevation 5,280 feet, the Nuggets went 28-13. Opponents aren’t accustomed to that thin air. And that goes for the Sonics who made no effort to acclimate, returning to Seattle for practice between games three and four. The Nuggets said that was foolish and then proved as much by evening the series. But yeah, heading into this fifth and final game back here around sea level in Seattle where the Sonics were this season’s best home team by a long shot, everyone expected a return to form. Four quarters and most of an overtime later, all of that is forgotten. Now we’re remembering some little warnings we may have overlooked because Seattle was so heavily favored. The night of game two, Payton got into a fight with teammate Ricky Pierce and then Pierce got benched in the second half of game three and didn’t exactly take it well. One has to wonder if these guys are mentally ready for this. And then there’s the performance of the stars. Kemp’s numbers have been down and he blew his best chance to put all that behind him at the end of game four two days ago. In the final minute of regulation with Seattle up three, just one of these Kemp free throws could have basically ended the series. Brick. Brick. Denver tied it up, then they won it in OT. At the end of regulation today, the Sonics needed two points to stay alive. Gary Payton’s best effort was this contested air ball that thankfully for Seattle, Kendall Gill cleaned up before time expired. Gill has come through not only in the clutch, but overall as the Sonics’ leading scorer in this game five. And actually Seattle’s not alone in being carried by role players today. (tape rewinding) This game’s leading rebounder, a Nuggets bench player, Brian Williams. Three years ago, Williams was a lottery pick of the Orlando Magic, but Williams never found a steady role in Orlando and struggled with a slew of medical issues, including serious clinical depression. He sat out most of last season and in the summer, just two years after drafting Williams, Orlando traded him away to Denver, where he’s become one of the league’s most improved players. The big lefty’s been a powerful interior presence off the bench in almost every game this season, none bigger than today. Wearing sneakers paying tribute to the legendary Ayrton Senna who died tragically just a few days ago, Williams pulled down a career high 19 rebounds. Six of those came on the offensive glass, which is huge for a Denver team that has shot just as poorly as the ice cold Sonics. Their back court of Bryant Stith and the typically deadly Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf hasn’t hit anything today. This game’s leading scorer? Yep, a Nuggets bench player, Robert Pack. Pack went undrafted in 1991, but the point guard proved undeniable in Portland Trailblazers training camp. He, like Williams, came to Denver in a little deck shuffling trade and quickly made himself known. Robert Pack is a killer. He’s kinda like Shawn Kemp if you hit him with a shrink ray, which is why you saw Pack competing with Kemp in this year’s dunk contest. Pack didn’t win, but a 6-2 guard throwing down a backhanded 360 is pretty special. Pack actually spiked one right on Kemp’s head in game three earlier this week. Perfect punctuation for that series-turning blowout. If the Nuggets pull this off, Pack will be known for a lot more than poster dunks. Weirdly, it all began with an injury. In the third quarter with Denver down nine points, Pack fell quite hard from quite high up right on his hip, the kind of tumble that could end your night. It did the opposite to Robert Pack. Immediately out of the timeout, he threw this absolute dime to Williams. Pushing off a miss, Pack had no problem finishing through traffic. At the end of the quarter, Pack showed that hang time to draw an and-one. And Pack wasn’t done. Denver’s first points of the fourth quarter, cash. Give and go, smash. Outta nowhere, Denver had the lead thanks to an undrafted bench warmer. Improbable, but there’s more. Across three regular seasons, Pack is a horrendous seven of 47 from downtown. It’s not his thing. And yet here he was in the fourth quarter of the biggest game of his career, connecting from the corner off of a Brian Williams O-bound. Williams found him again just a few plays later. Two cast off bench players being so instrumental tells you something about Denver’s makeup and about their style. This is the youngest team in the NBA and a bottom tier offense. They are not gonna beat you with veteran know-how, and they’re not gonna outgun you. The Nuggets are here to ruin things, to suffocate your offense figuratively, even if they can’t do so literally. Which reminds me, there’s someone we haven’t mentioned. (tape rewinding) Denver does have a star, he’s just a different kind of star. Dikembe Mutombo is the first NBA player to come from the nation that here in 1994 is still known as Zaire. A decade ago, his brother told him, dude, you’re really tall. You must come play basketball. Dikembe did and promptly broke his face, but kept playing anyway. Scouts noticed the towering Mutombo brothers, but it was a government employee who started Dikembe on a path to the NBA. United States diplomat Herman Henning helped the Mutombos arrange for Dikembe to attend college in the US, and directed him to Georgetown where he would study on a US AID scholarship, originally intending to pursue medicine. Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson wasn’t interested at the outset, but that changed once he saw some film. Dikembe spent his freshman year settling in, focusing on academics and learning English, and then debuted for the Hoyas as a sophomore. A scouting report typo informed the press that Georgetown had a new 5-10 point guard. They did not. They had a seven foot interior monster. Another one in fact. Playing with star center Alonzo Mourning, Mutombo distinguished himself on defense right outta the gates. The kid said, gimme some more minutes and I’ll break the school blocks record. They did, and he did, off the bench. Mutombo established himself as a special shot blocker with the grace and timing to weaponize his length. Dikembe no longer planned to become a doctor, but he still wasn’t sure he could hang in the NBA. For all his size and defensive prowess, he was way behind the competition on offense. Coach Thompson brought in his old teammate, the legendary Bill Russell, to say, hey, you can actually dominate the NBA without scoring much. Believe me. Bill was right. In the 1991 draft, Denver selected Mutombo fourth overall. The Nuggets immediately relied on Mutombo to score a lot, and the rookie did his darnedest, enough to be named the lone all-star on a very bad Nuggets team. But in the years since, Denver has deepened their rotation. Mutombo hasn’t been an all-star these last couple years, probably because he’s relied on much, much less for scoring. Dik is playing his game. It seems that we’re looking at a true defense-oriented centerpiece. The rare player who can sell sneakers with his shot blocking and an incredible catchphrase. – Man does not fly. (drums beating) In the house of Mutombo. – [Narrator] This season, Mutombo led the league in blocks with over four a game, and he’s up near the top in rebounds as well. These are the statistics to look at if you wanna understand how the Nuggets compete, this season and tonight. Of Denver’s usual top scorers, only LaPhonso Ellis has been effective tonight. It’s just him and those bench guys. But Denver doesn’t need much offense as long as they can drag you down with them, and that’s what they’ve done to Seattle. Before game four, Dikembe had a dream, literally that Denver would steal this series, and he’s nearly made it come true. Mutombo has eight blocks tonight, which gives him 31 overall in this five game series. That’s a record. What’s fascinating there is that the Sonics rarely play a true center. For most of this game, Mutombo has had to mismatch with Kemp, a quicker, better shooting opponent than he’s used to. And Dikembe has still held his own, especially in critical moments. Mutombo actually could have already made this game’s winning play if this shot didn’t arrive just after the regulation buzzer. This clutch moment was much more appropriate. With 30 seconds left in OT, the Sonics still had a chance to retake control. Seattle came out of timeout down just two points and drew up a play for Kemp who crossed up the slower Mutombo, got a step and swap. Nuggets’ ball, Sonics forced to foul. And now it’s a four point game. This should not be the case. These star stuffed beefed up Sonics should be on their way to title contention. These middling, offensively inept Nuggets shouldn’t be winning in an oxygen rich environment. But then again, a playoff team shouldn’t star a shot blocker from Kinshasa and some nobody’s playing hero off the bench. Either Seattle will find a miracle or the Denver Nuggets will pull off the impossible. Welcome to a moment in history. – [Commentator] The ball. That’s all they want is possession of the basketball. They don’t want. (crowd cheering) And Perkins shoots the two blocked by Brian Williams. Eight seconds, Perkins. Another three, way short. (crowd cheering) That’s it. Mutombo embraces the ball in thee unlikely upset. One of the great upsets in NBA playoff history. (tape clicking)

In the final seconds of the 1994 playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Seattle Supersonics, there were only two possibilities: a miracle or a miracle. Either the Sonics would pull off a miraculous, last-second comeback, or the Nuggets would pull off a miraculous upset unprecedented in NBA playoff history. Before we see which miracle won the day, we should meet this western conference superpower and this scrappy underdog, and all the characters therein. Let’s rewind.

Written and produced by Seth Rosenthal
Directed and edited by Charlotte Atkinson

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