Magic in '81 First Round facing a 40-42 Houston Rockets team. The Lakers were the FAR better team winning 54 games despite Magic only participating in 37 regular season games. Magic averaged 17 points on 38% FG in the series.
Some NY Times quotes from the series...
"Johnson seemed hesitant and ineffective, far from the confident and joyous youth who took apart Philadelphia as a center last year when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was injured in the championship series."
"Johnson turned in a dreadful performance, making two of 14 fieldgoal attempts and six of 11 foul shots, including two missed free throws with 30 seconds left that would have greatly affected the outcome. Fifteen seconds later, Mike Dunleavy hit a 15-foot jump shot that gave the Rockets the lead for good."
After the Dunleavy jumper, Magic took one of the worst game tying shot attempts ever a pathetic air ball leaner from midrange. He divided the team by calling out teammates saying they were jealous of his success.
Magic is the guy they called Tragic Johnson after once again choking away the '84 Finals
Wilt Chamberlain in his day was known as a choker...
1973 NBA Finals
Lakers had HCA but lost the series in 5 games. Lakers lost by 4 points in Game 2 in which Wilt shot 1-9 from the freethrow line. Wilt put up 5 points in Game 3 which the Lakers lost by 4 points again. In Game 5 Wilt shot 5-14 from the freethrow line. This capped off Wilt's 5th series loss with HCA to end his career.
1962 Division Finals
Coming off his 50.4 ppg season, his PPG in the Playoffs dropped down by 15 points. In Game 7, Wilt was the 4th leading scorer with 22 points in a loss.
Wilt's FT shooting for the series: 22-48 (45.8%)
1961 Division Semifinals
Wilt's Warriors had HCA and were facing the 38-41 Nationals. The result? The sub .500 Nationals swept Wilt's team 3-0. In an elimination Game 3 Wilt shot 7-14 from the freethrow line in a 3-point loss.
Wilt FT shooting for the series: 21-38 (55.3%)
In '81, Boston won the title and Cedric Maxwell not Bird won Finals MVP. Why? Because Bird averaged 15 points on 42% FG and even had an 8 point game and this was against a sub-.500 Houston team one of the worst to make a Finals.
Kobe in '04. The Pistons purposely gameplanned to let Shaq get his and get in Kobe's head so he could shoot them out of games with inefficient perimeter shots.
It worked as Kobe averaged 22 points, 2.8 rebounds, 4.4 assists on 38% from the field and 17% from 3.
Truth.....but most these fools don't understand this. Most these clowns ain't been watching basketball for more than 7 or 8 years.