Former Portland Trail Blazers All-Star Rasheed Wallace finally took the time to unpack what he considers to be the team’s worst loss during his tenure with the team.
On February 27, 1998, after a victory over the mighty Chicago Bulls, Wallace’s Blazers let their guard down against the Indiana Pacers of future Hall of Fame shooting guard Reggie Miller.
First, Wallace recalls how Portland was on top of its game after beating the near-unbeatable Chicago Bulls in the “last dance” season of their Michael Jordan/Scottie Pippen/Dennis Rodman heyday. The Trail Blazers beat Chicago at the United Center on Feb. 25, 1998.
“Here we are, we’re all hood boys, we’re the underdogs, nobody gives us a chance, but… we had dogs, we ended up beating them by three or four points in Chicago,” Wallace said. “We were excited [and] everything that was in the plane, we took some pictures.
The actual margin was five points, 106-101. In 42 minutes and 36 seconds of play, Wallace scored 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting (1-of-1 from three-point range), and also had five rebounds and four assists.
“We got to Indiana and had a great time. The next day we woke up and felt great,” Wallace noted.[We lost the game by] 65. Everyone makes shots. Dale Davis makes shots from 12 and 15 feet. Antonio Davis makes shots from 12 and 15 feet.
The final margin was brutal, 124-59. While that aging Bulls team eventually took over first place in the Eastern Conference with a 62-20 record, that Pacers team was younger, deeper, and more athletic. Coached by Larry Bird, that Pacers team went 58-24, finishing second in the Eastern Conference. When Indiana met Chicago in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Pacers gave the Bulls all they could reasonably handle, pushing the defending champions to seven games. It took a miraculous drive from Jordan and Pippen to lead Chicago to its third straight NBA Finals appearance and sixth overall title since 1991.
That year, the Blazers, coached by Mike Dunleavy, finished with a solid 46-36 record and lost to the Los Angeles Lakers led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant 3-1 in a best-of-five first-round series. With Pippen in Portland two years later, the Blazers suffered what I consider to be the worst loss of that team under Wallace, a fourth-quarter collapse in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against those same Lakers, now coached by former Bulls head coach Phil Jackson. The Blazers led by 15 points, but ended up giving it all back late in the game.
More Trail Blazers: Damian Lillard Thinks Blazers Could Have Won Title If Free Agent Hadn’t Left
