With a record of 52-30, the 1980-81 San Antonio Spurs won the NBA’s Midwest Division and were the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference. By comparison, the No. 6 Houston Rockets (40-42) limped into the playoffs with a losing record and didn’t seem to pose much of a threat.
But led by two future Hall of Famers in guard Calvin Murphy and center Moses Malone, Houston won when it mattered most on April 17, 1981.
The Rockets defeated the Spurs in seven games in their second-round series, punctuated by a 105-100 Game 7 victory (box score) in San Antonio. Houston outscored the hosts by 14 points in the second half.
Murphy scored a game-high 42 points on 19-of-28 shooting (67.9%), while Malone had 21 points and 16 rebounds. The Spurs were led by 21 points from future Hall of Fame guard George Gervin, but the Rockets limited him to just 8-of-22 shooting (36.4%) from the field.
The Rockets went on to defeat the Kansas City Kings in the ensuing 1981 Western Conference Finals, four games to one, and advanced to the first NBA Finals in franchise history. (In the championship round, they lost in six games to Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics.)
For Murphy, it was the third-to-last season of his storied 13-year NBA career. Though his game had begun showing some signs of aging, he was able to dig deep in the playoffs and recapture his peak form.
Meanwhile, Malone departed in free agency after the 1981-82 season. That effectively ended that iteration of the franchise and led to two losing seasons in 1982-83 and 1983-84, which resulted in Houston winning the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft in consecutive years. With those, they selected big men Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon — cornerstones of the next generation. By 1986, they returned to the NBA Finals.
Less than a decade later, Olajuwon finally led the Rockets to the promised land for the first time with a pair of NBA titles in 1993-94 and 1994-95.
In their era, Murphy and Malone never took the Rockets to those heights. Nonetheless, they were a critical part of the foundation for what remains one of the league’s best franchises to this day.
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