That team had two NBA 50 Greats on it, the coach who currently has the most championships, and some of the best supporting players in Fisher and Horry. The Sixers had a heavily injured Iverson, an injured Aaron McKey (sixth man), the starting small forward out with a foot injury, and the starting point guard having returned from an injury a month before the regular season ended.
You missed my point. My point was that the same voters who made the mistake of voting for Iverson as MVP that year also mistakenly chose the NBA Coach of the Year, 6th Man of the Year, and Defensive Player of the Year, from the 6ers, thereby making them look like a "super team". Obviously they weren't any super team as we watched the Lakers brush them aside like gnats.
That Laker team was great.
Undoubtedly. If that Lakers team had been voted those awards, Shaq for MVP, AND DPOY, and Phil Jackson Coach of the Year, no one would have blinked an eye at what they did to the 6ers and the other teams in the playoffs that year. But giving all those awards to the 6ers just made the voters look silly.
They lost one game in the playoffs. But they lost that game because the Sixers played amazingly and Iverson carried the team on his back.
You nearly give the very definition of "fluke win" here. In the Finals, sometimes fluke wins happen and many times when they do, the team that is on the wrong end of one ends up losing the series. In proving that game 1 was a fluke, the 6ers not only didn't win the series, they were unable to duplicate that fluke win even with 3 chances at home! That's because the Lakers had no 7 plus day layoffs again and because the first game was...a fluke.
It wasn't a fluke win (the next two games were arguably fluke wins, since they were very close as well. One of them Shaq made a basket right after the buzzer for halftime that was counted. Before late game fouls, the Lakers were only up by two, so that could have changed the game entirely).
The only reason the 6ers managed that win was because they played out of their minds, but mainly because the Lakers had a long layoff (more than a week) because of sweeping all their previous opponents. Had it not been for the layoff, the 6ers would have been swept also.
Iverson took that many shots because he had Eric Snow to pass to (a point guard who could not hit a 3 point shot if his life depended on it). Still, there was a year where he led the team in assists (I believe seven per game or so). He wasn't a great defensive player because of his height (he'd usually guard point guards for that reason), but he did lead the league in steals several years.
That Iverson took so many shots was part of the 6ers offensive scheme. Did I mention that Larry Brown was also horribly overrated as a coach?
Height really doesn't stop you from being a good defender. Lack of execution of defensive fundamentals stops you from being a good defender. The fact that Iverson led the league in steals was a symptom of Iverson's lack of defensive fundamentals. For Allen, defense was all about shooting the gaps and gambling. Without Mutumbo backing him up, there is no way Allen would have had all those steals. Everyone would have been talking about all those easy baskets he gave up trying to steal the ball.
