The Houston Rockets won their first championship back in 1995. But something unpredictable happened at the same time, which essentially stole the spotlight from them. The NBA Finals were cut short to show news about OJ Simpson, who was running from the police. And a former Rockets player addresses how significant this was.

It was game 5 of the 1995 Finals. The series was all tied, and this was a pivotal game. It was the second quarter of the game and it was a close one. The Rockets fans were cheering for their team, but then something happened. Something which had never happened during an NBA Finals. NBC decided to cut the game and show the chase of OJ Simpson, who was running from the police and had a gun to his head.

The NBA Finals is arguably one of the most watched events on TV. And NBC decided to cut the game and show the chase. But they eventually cut back to the game in less than a minute. What happened next was still remarkable.

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NBC stuck to basketball for a while but then decided to split screen and show both the game and the chase. They muted Marvin Albert and provided audio only from the chase. This went on for the remainder of the game and Rockets fans were scrambling to listen to updates about the game.

Former NBA player addressed how OJ Simpson took away their moment to shine

Kenny Smith, who was part of the Rockets squad at the time, talked about the whole scenario. He said that the team was in a huddle during a timeout and he said that OJ was on the run. But then his head coach Rudy Tomjanovich joined and stopped him.

He added,” ‘OJ?s on the run!’.” His coach adds, “What are you doing? We?re in the middle of the NBA Finals!”. Kenny later added, “He draws a play up, we start walking out, and he pulls me back, ‘Is he really on the run?”

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The Rockets ended up losing game 5, but they won the series in 7 games in Houston. But still, OJ stole the spotlight from the most important series of the NBA. His story has been very well documented and was one of the talking points of the century.

But the NBA stars still feel that he took the spotlight away from them during the most important series of their career.