Chris Webber, and the rest of the Sacramento Kings’ fanbase, still hold grudges for that 2002 Western Conference Finals series against the Los Angeles Lakers, a team that had won two championships in a row and was looking to win their three-peat that season.
Webber was part of the best Kings team of all time, leading that squad to compete in the playoffs and getting really close to making it to the Finals. They developed a very interesting rivalry with the purple and gold and that series was probably the hottest point of it. Webber recently joined Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles on The Players’ Tribune’s Knuckleheads’ to discuss a variety of topics.
One of the most important, of course, was the Kings’ great stretch in the early 2000s, where they were very close to play in the Finals but the Lakers stopped them. He said it was an honor going against those Lakers and he was confident the Kings were going to win that series (1:09:53 mark).
“L.A., they were real, man. If we remember those earlier duels with Portland, that alley-oop pass by Kobe for Shaq that changed the history of the league. Kobe was a killer … I mean, look at that series where Shaq is averaging 27, 13, and 11, Kobe 32 and 8. What do you do? You got a great coach on the side in Phil Jackson so all this could be cool but you’re tired and you know, three minutes left to go and you still got Kobe and Shaq, you still got double-teamed, you still got guys hitting incredible shots, you got veterans like Horry, Fisher, players that are so smart and don’t ever get the credit, Rick Fox. (…) We knew we were on a rivalry, we knew we were the underdog, and me personally, from Michigan and other places, I liked that role. I thought God put me on this earth to be the underdog and to win that champion.”
Talking about that infamous Game 6 in 2002, the former Michigan Wolverine claimed that he knew something was odd about the referees and that didn’t sit well with him.
“You gotta remember the whole game so, we got cheated that game. I don’t even know how many fouls were called in the fourth. I know it was three times that I dribbled backward and the charge was called. I said ‘these motherf***ers are cheat us tonight’. I know I got a technical for saying that. Just look at the game. People in the media come at me now and be like ‘man, that game,’ I don’t even respect them because it was a different day and none of them said nothing then. They just said it was a bad game, it was a bad call. It’s no doubt, it’s been documented, it’s the truth and we should have won that Game 6,” Webber said.
The next game, the Kings looked so out of focus and couldn’t make the shots to get past the Lakers, who won that series and went to beat the New Jersey Nets to win their third consecutive NBA championship. A lot has been said about that game and many people believed the Kings were actually robbed. They had a very good team that did things the right way against those Lakers but bigger factors prevented them from playing in the biggest series of all.
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