The Jazz Record And The 1997 Season
Since the arrival of Stockton to Salt Lake City in 1984 the Jazz never missed the playoffs.
On the other hand ,this exact thing prevent them from going to the NBA lottery and picking good
college players.
The result :a very good and stable team but without a good bench and enough stars to bring a ring
to Stockton and Malone.
But 1997 was a different year :it's looked like it was going to be the year of the Jazz.
They won a massive 64 games (club record) ,Karl Malone was the MVP of the regular season and Stockton and Hornacek were once again one of the best backcourts in the NBA.
The playoff started good with a sweep over the Clippers -3:0 and a 4:1 victory over the other team of
LA - the Lakers with Shaq.
In the next round waited the Houston Rockets with the trio of Barkley ,Olajuwon and Drexler.
A great performance by the Jazz gave them a 3:2 lead in the series and in the 6th game in Houston
Stockton seal the deal with an amazing 3 pointer in the last second .
This three gave the Jazz their 1st ever appearance in the NBA finals against the great Chicago Bulls.
Utah came back from a last second defeat in the 1st game and a 0:2 disadvantage to win the next 2 games at home but it was the end. Another super-human performance by Michael Jordan in game 5
and an almost last second defeat in game 6 gave the series to Chicago 4:2.
This is the Utah Jazz regular season and Playoff record since 1984-5 - Stockton's rookie year:
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