The interview session didn’t last one question before Damon Stoudamire stopped things cold with a surprising declaration.
“Hold on,” Stoudamire said. “I’ve got something.”
The man who used to go by Mighty Mouse sat at a dais in front of a throng of cameras and microphones, flanked by Steve Smith, Bonzi Wells and Mike Dunleavy at the Moda Center. The group had gathered for a reunion to commemorate the team that reached the 2000 Western Conference Finals, and was taking part in a question-and-answer session with local reporters.
But the first question was nixed before it could be uttered. Stoudamire interrupted, held the room in suspense for five seconds, then blurted out:
“Both teams played hard.”
Stoudamire smirked and the room erupted into a collective laugh in recognition of Rasheed Wallace’s iconic old postgame refrain.
Wallace wasn’t in Portland on Monday, but eight of his old teammates were as the organization honored a chapter of its storied past during a game against the Detroit Pistons.
Players, coaches and staff arrived Sunday and took part in two days of memories, sharing stories, reliving old games and reconnecting about a snapshot in time that came a quarter century ago.
There was a Sunday dinner. There was a Monday visit to the practice facility in Tualatin, where they chatted with general manager Joe Cronin, All-Star point guard Damian Lillard and acting coach Tiago Splitter, among others. There was a pregame chat with reporters. And there was a halftime gathering near center court at the Moda Center, where each person was announced, honored and serenaded with an ovation.
The biggest cheers were saved for Brian Grant, the heart-and-soul of the team who remains one of the most revered players in franchise history, and Stoudamire, the local boy who blossomed from a Portland Interscholastic League star into an NBA Rookie of the Year.
“Nobody understands how special this group was,” Stoudamire said during a brief halftime address to a sellout crowd. “Obviously we’re missing a couple people, but we’ve been sharing so many stories over the last 24 hours … (reminding) each other how much we meant to each other.”
Few need reminding of that team’s success. The Blazers won 59 regular season games that season, second-most in franchise history, and breezed to the Western Conference finals with dominant series victories over the Minnesota Timberwolves and Utah Jazz, setting up a made-for-television date with the hated Los Angeles Lakers and their stars, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.
The Lakers took a decisive 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series, but the Blazers rallied with victories in Games 5 and 6. Then, in Game 7, they entered the fourth quarter with an improbable 13-point lead, putting them on the doorstep of the NBA Finals.
But everything fell apart.
The Blazers missed 13 shots in a row, going 7 minutes, 30 seconds without scoring. The Lakers pounced, completing the largest comeback even in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals, punctuating the stunning turnaround with a Kobe-to-Shaq alley-oop that still haunts Blazers fans — and the players who starred in the collapse — 25 years later.
It remains so painful, Stoudamire said, he has never rewatched the game. Smith forced himself to do so, but only once, many years ago.
“Bad memories,” he said.
“It’s hard,” Stoudamire added. “Most of the fellas that I’ve talked to, they haven’t watched it. If I see it on television, I turn it.”
Dunleavy, meanwhile, apparently doesn’t need to watch it. The Blazers old coach dissected the worst fourth quarter in franchise history from memory, with vivid detail, recounting gory play after gory play.
“We were up 13 and the first play went to Steve,” Dunleavy said. “He scored down in the post. We were up 15. And then we went through that stretch where we missed 13 straight shots. And of those 13 shots, 11 of them were great. Two of them were good. One of them, when I say good, it was a wide open long-range shot by Scottie (Pippen). He could make one. We had one turnover and we had one missed defensive assignment. When I brought Sheed back in the game, he was late getting down to the post on a rotation to the corner for Brian Shaw. Other than that, we played a great game.
“I’ve got great memories about the team and that series. We felt like (we were) going to the championship.”
But while there was plenty of talk about what ifs, Monday’s reunion was more about reconnecting and reliving the good times for those who attended, which included Stoudamire, Smith, Dunleavy, Wells, Grant, Greg Anthony, Stacey Augmon, Antonio Harvey, Joe Kleine, general manager Bob Whitsitt and athletic trainer Geoff Clark.
The team was part of a complicated period in Blazers history that later became more widely known for its off-the-court transgressions than its on-the-court success.
But as the saying goes, time heals all wounds, and the hope among those that gathered Monday is that time will ultimately look back on the 1999-2000 team favorably.
“I hope it’s good things,” Wells said, when asked what the team should be most remembered for. “I know what the narrative was. But I just hope people understand where our heart was when we (were) here, how hard we wanted to play for the city and how bad we wanted to win. I’m just super excited to be here.”
When someone asked Stoudamire if he realized how much that team was beloved by fans, he demurred.
“I’ve never got that feeling,” Stoudamire said. “Just from me, being here and being a native and seeing the other teams, I think that you can, at times, become a prisoner of the moment of what’s going on. I think the frustrating thing as a basketball player, what I’ve seen over the years … as you go around the country, man, we were revered. But then you come here and it’s like, sometimes you didn’t feel that way. Just being honest.”
Perhaps Monday’s visit will soften some of those old hard feelings.
The Blazers may have fallen one quarter short of reaching the NBA Finals in 2000, but they still delivered one of the best runs in franchise history.
And Stoudamire was happy that it was finally honored.
“It’s great to remember and be recognized,” Stoudamire said. “As a guy from Portland, Oregon, I would say this: I think that it’s long overdue. We did not win a championship. We did not go to the finals. But aside from those couple of Clyde Drexler teams, I think this was the best team. I really do. I think that had we been able to achieve a little bit more, we would have been the best group that this organization’s ever had.
“So for me, I’m happy to be here. I’m glad I came and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”