Clyde Drexler admitted his Rockets were lucky to win 1995 NBA title: "We were a good team, but everything went right"

The defending champions, the Houston Rockets, swept the highly-touted Orlando Magic 4-0 in the 1995 Finals to win back-to-back NBA titles. But as impressive as their dominance over the Magic was in the championship series, former Rockets star Clyde Drexler admitted it wasn’t just talent or championship experience that led them to victory.

According to Drexler, the basketball gods also smiled on the Rockets. With good fortune going their way all postseason long, they overcame odds and the lack of homecourt advantage to win the Larry O’Brien trophy for the second straight season.

“We got lucky, to be honest,” said Drexler. “We were a good team, but everything went right. We made free throws when we were down. Other teams missed them. We made long 3-point shots when we were behind. Other teams were missing layups.”

Anderson’s Game 1 free-throw woes

The Rockets ranked just seventh among 16 playoff teams in free-throw shooting percentage (75.4 percent) and 3-point shooting percentage ( 39.1 percent) during the 1994 playoffs. However, when they needed it most, they made their free throws and 3-pointers when their opponents couldn’t.

The best example of the luck Drexler mentioned might be Game 1, when Nick Anderson, a 70.4 percent free-throw shooter that season, missed four straight shots from the charity stripe with the Magic leading 110-107 in the closing seconds.

Anderson needed only one free throw to seal the win for the Magic, but instead, Kenny Smith hit a game-tying 3-pointer after his fourth miss to send the game to overtime, where the young Magic team not only blew the game but the series. Orlando lost its confidence in the next games, and Houston continued their red-hot 3-point and clutch shooting to sweep the series.

“Everything has to go right, that’s why I’ve always maintained that it’s a team game. If you’re lucky enough and good enough to win one, boy, that’s a great feeling. And it really is a great feeling,” added Drexler.

Overconfidence + the heart of a champion

Not only did the Rockets get all the breaks — or luck, as Drexler called it — former Orlando All-NBA guard Penny Hardaway also admitted that they became overconfident after beating the Rockets by double digits in each of their two regular season meetings that season. And then when the Rockets stunned them in Game 1 of the Finals, they never recovered.

“We were overconfident,” Hardaway said in a GQ interview. “We had beaten them in the regular season, and we thought San Antonio would have been the harder matchup. We felt like the favorites, even though they had a veteran team. The regular season was different from the playoffs, but we felt like we owned the Rockets.”

Then there is Rudy Tomjanovich, former Rockets head coach, who explained his team’s triumph with the legendary, “Never underestimate the heart of a champion.”

Sure, the Rockets needed a lot of things to go their way to go from the sixth seed to win the title. But they could not have done everything if they had not worked hard and put themselves in a position to win.

They believed in themselves when nobody else did, and it paid off — big time.

This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Aug 30, 2025, where it first appeared in the Old School section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Clyde Drexler admitted his Rockets were lucky to win 1995 NBA title: “We were a good team, but everything went right”

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