During the 1993-1994 season, several teams eagerly ascended the ladder to try and sit on the NBA’s mountaintop, which was vacated by Michael Jordan, who abruptly retired to pursue a career in professional baseball.
Of those squads, none possessed a better chance of ascending to the top than the Seattle Supersonics , who had finished with the best regular season record in the league at 63-19
Led by All-Stars Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton and head coach George Karl , the Sonics were primed for a deep playoff run. However, their postseason was cut short in dramatic fashion, as the eighth-seeded Denver Nuggets ousted them in a jaw-dropping result that still resonates as one of the greatest playoff upsets in NBA history.
An argument that set the Sonics up for a historic upset
The Sonics were a dominant force that season, defeating their opponents by an impressive average margin of 9.09 points. So, many expected them to breeze past the Nuggets. Judging from how Seattle won the series’ first two contests, that certainly seemed to be the case. However, a monkey wrench was suddenly thrown into their plans when Payton and ace reserve Ricky Pierce got into it at halftime of Game 2…