Two of eighteen

Michael Jordan retired in October 1993.

For New York that was the opening they had waited four years for. The Bulls had knocked the Knicks out in 1991, 1992 and 1993, the last time on the sequence of four Charles Smith attempts blocked under the rim.

In 1994 the door is finally open. New York eliminate Chicago in seven, then Indiana in seven, and reach the Finals against Houston.

The series goes to Game 7. Both teams have a dominant centre and a suffocating defense, and neither will pass 93 points in the last three games.

This Game 7 is not beautiful.

New York score 84, Houston 90. The third quarter ends 18-17. These are two teams that know exactly how to stop the other from playing.

Hakeem Olajuwon is the best player on the floor, as he has been all series: 25 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists, while guarding Patrick Ewing at the other end.

And there is John Starks.

He takes 18 shots and makes 2. Eleven three-point attempts, none made. This is not a player hiding: it is a player who keeps taking the shot because his coach lets him and because it had been going in all series.

Pat Riley did not take him out. He spent twenty years explaining that.

That stat line followed John Starks for the rest of his life, and it is an injustice of memory.

He was the one who scored 27 in Game 6 to bring the series back to Houston. He was the one carrying the offense when Ewing was doubled. A 2-of-18 night after six weeks of playoffs has a name, and it is not cowardice.

For New York it is the highest point this team ever reached. It would return to the Finals in 1999, without Ewing on the floor, and lose in five.

For Houston it is the first of two straight titles, won while Jordan was away, which they were reproached for at length and wrongly: Olajuwon beat Ewing, Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley, David Robinson and Karl Malone across two years.

The nineties Knicks remain the best team of their decade never to win anything. Six points separated them from it.