In the mid-1990s the Los Angeles Lakers were in a transition between the ‘Showtime’ era of the 1980s to the Kobe-Shaq era of the early 2000s. Young players like Nick Van Exel, Eddie Jones, and Cedric Ceballos led the way along with veterans like Sedale Threatt and Vlade Divac.
During this time, one of their biggest rivals was the Seattle Supersonics. Both teams were in the Pacific Division, so they saw plenty of each other during the regular season, and both were led by young, exciting point guards in Van Exel and the SuperSonics’ Gary Payton.
Van Exel and Payton were both major trash-talkers so things often got heated between the two, making for extremely intense matchups and that would only increase when the two sides met in the first round of the 1995 playoffs.