- Ray Allen fans will recall that he did not have to wait until 2008 to compete for and win an NBA championship.
- The Sixers and Bucks picked up where they left off in the series finale.
- Allen was also perplexed by the NBA’s decision to punish the Bucks.
- Allen still had a promising NBA career ahead of him.
Ray Allen fans will recall that he did not have to wait until 2008 to compete for and win an NBA championship. It should have happened in 2001 when Allen and the Milwaukee Bucks faced off against Allen Iverson and the Philadelphia 76ers.
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The Sixers were more powerful
Iverson and the Sixers were the most famous team in the East at the time, while Allen and the Bucks were underappreciated but equally good.
With a 56-26 record, Philadelphia finished first in the East, while the Bucks ended second with a 52-30 record.
The two clubs faced in the Eastern Conference Finals, as expected. So to speak, it was a dogfight.
Iverson and Allen fought every time they were on the court, sending the series to a seventh game.
The Sixers and Bucks picked up where they left off in the series finale.
When the referees began making calls in favor of the Sixers, Allen became suspicious.
Though it’s difficult to accept Ray’s assertions, Ray Milwaukee’s 12 technical and five flagrant fouls compared to Philly’s three technical and zero flagrant fouls may help.
The Sixers eventually defeated the Bucks and headed to the NBA Finals. Allen is still confident the game was rigged seventeen years later, and he knows why.
“I’m not sure whether they were manipulating things, but it just didn’t appear to be going in our favor,” Allen told Sporting News in 2018.
“It’s difficult to remember what the tone was like now because it was so long ago.”
They did, however, have the Sixth Man of the Year [Aaron McKie], the MVP [Iverson], and the Defensive Player of the Year [Dikembe Mutombo].”
“We were the pitiful Milwaukee Bucks,” he recalled. “In a small market, everyone was always talking about ratings, which we didn’t get a lot of.”
The fans desired Kobe vs. Iverson
Allen was also perplexed by the NBA’s decision to punish the Bucks‘ then-starting center Scott Williams, who was a reliable frontcourt defender.
In Game 6, Williams elbowed Iverson as he drove to the hoop, and the refs called a flagrant foul.
Williams was not expelled, but he was suspended for the next game, the most critical game of the series, much to Allen’s astonishment.
For Allen, the answer was clear in front of them – everyone wanted Iverson vs. Kobe in the Finals. That’s exactly what occurred.
“You suspend one of our key players for a game that determines whether we go to the NBA Finals?” Allen inquired. “That is beyond my comprehension.”
How do you tamper so much with a game? People all over the world, as well as in the NBA, were eager to watch AI Kobe.
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That was the feeling… But let us decide for ourselves, let us fight it out. He elbowed him, but it wasn’t enough to warrant suspending him the next game.”
After all, Allen still had a promising NBA career ahead of him.
He won two NBA championships, one with each of the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics.
We can understand Allen’s displeasure at not winning a championship with his first squad, especially after losing in such a contentious manner when you were only one game away from reaching the Finals.
