24 year old Larry Bird with back 2 back 8 point games in the NBA Finals

[Nick Young]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/...105100HOU.html

http://www.basketball-reference.com/...105090HOU.html

and people say he's better than Kobe
Larry Legend? If he's a legend is Kobe a deity?

[PTB Fan]

Magic is better, I was just having fun using PER
According to PER, Kobe's '09 Finals is better than any of Magic's, Kareem's, Bird's, Hakeem's, Dr. J's best Finals performance

Gotta use that PER...

[Leviathon1121]

and people say he's better than Kobe
Larry Legend? If he's a legend is Kobe a deity?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm2XO28YRYU.

[AirTupac]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm2XO28YRYU.

As if Kobe was guarding him the entire game... idiot

[Leviathon1121]

As if Kobe was guarding him the entire game... idiot

Sorry, we are using singular games to prove useless points in this thread. Or did you simply not read the op or the following pages?

[TheFrozenOne]

better question.
would have Boston or LA made it to the finals without Bird or Kobe respectively?

nope.

[pauk]

*bump*

Thanks for the info guys...

Does anybody maybe know where i can watch one of those Rockets-Celtics NBA Finals games? Torrent maybe? Cant find anything on Youtube except this:

1980-81 Boston Celtics: The Dynasty Renewed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck1z4FVWsJg

better than nothing

[DMAVS41]

Saying 8 point game doesnt make it actually bad. Its one shot from a triple double in a blowout finals win. nobody would hate on that. Why would he have shot more? Not like he was 4 of 21 or something. Bird has actually bad playoff games. Not a lot. but they exist. These arent worthy of mention really. Could have brought up some of the games vs the Bucks. The 81 finals was nothing to hate on.

Meh. Depends on the definition of "hate"....

Today? It absolutely would be. If a Lebron, Durant, Kobe, Dirk...etc. did that in the NBA finals....people would absolutely rail on them for a long time.

Bird did not play awful in 81, but he also didn't play great. I'd actually argue that his stats were better than his true impact. Comparing it to Lebron's performance last year in the finals is silly. Bird was far better and anyone that saw both would agree.

However, Maxwell was pretty clearly the finals MVP in my opinion and Bird had an ok series at best. He did enough to help his team win...and that always counts for something, but he didn't play great.

And if that happened today...it would get a lot of "hate"...no doubt about it.

And it does bring up a point about Bird or any player that played pre 1990 really. They get a pass for a lot of their transgressions over their careers. Bird lost a lot as the favorite with HCA throughout his career in the playoffs. Just a fact.

People, especially those that didn't get a chance to see them all play, tend to put players that played years ago on a pedestal and act like they could do no wrong. While Bird was definitely one of the best players of all time, he was far from perfect, and would be thought of a little differently if he played in the era of constant examination of today.

[Kblaze8855]

[/b]

Meh. Depends on the definition of "hate"....

Today? It absolutely would be. If a Lebron, Durant, Kobe, Dirk...etc. did that in the NBA finals....people would absolutely rail on them for a long time.

Of course they would. People cant wait to hate. Especially on the internet where you can act an ass without fear.

[DMAVS41]

Of course they would. People cant wait to hate. Especially on the internet where you can act an ass without fear.

Yep. Exactly.

Which is why picking on the few negative things these great players do over the course of their careers is the absolute wrong way to go about debating where a player should rank.

I'm guilty of it as well. Its almost as if we should just throw out the two worst playoff series of a career and then compare them. Because using an aberration as evidence of the worth of a player just seems flawed.

[pauk]

[/B]

Meh. Depends on the definition of "hate"....

Today? It absolutely would be. If a Lebron, Durant, Kobe, Dirk...etc. did that in the NBA finals....people would absolutely rail on them for a long time.

Bird did not play awful in 81, but he also didn't play great. I'd actually argue that his stats were better than his true impact. Comparing it to Lebron's performance last year in the finals is silly. Bird was far better and anyone that saw both would agree.

However, Maxwell was pretty clearly the finals MVP in my opinion and Bird had an ok series at best. He did enough to help his team win...and that always counts for something, but he didn't play great.

And if that happened today...it would get a lot of "hate"...no doubt about it.

And it does bring up a point about Bird or any player that played pre 1990 really. They get a pass for a lot of their transgressions over their careers. Bird lost a lot as the favorite with HCA throughout his career in the playoffs. Just a fact.

People, especially those that didn't get a chance to see them all play, tend to put players that played years ago on a pedestal and act like they could do no wrong. While Bird was definitely one of the best players of all time, he was far from perfect, and would be thought of a little differently if he played in the era of constant examination of today.

Well said

[jlip]

I thought it was common knowledge that Bird only avg. 15ppg in the '81 Finals but dominated the boards. Struggling to score efficiently in some of the games, he sought to challenge Moses Malone's impact on the glass. He outrebounded Malone in 3 of the 6 games having 21 in each of the first two. Bird actually spoke about this very thing in this article. Plus the full box score of each game has been available for years here.

Regarding two 8 point games by Bird supposedly justifying Maxwell as MVP, how do we ignore Maxwell's performances mentioned in this post?

Looking at just the box scores, Maxwell had
10 pts on 4-12 shooting in game 1
6 pts on 3-8 shooting in game 2

Considering the fact that in those games Maxwell didn't have nearly the all around impact with rebounds, assists, and steals that Bird had, I would have to conclude that his "bad" games were worse than Bird's "bad" games.

[chips93]

Of course they would. People cant wait to hate. Especially on the internet where you can act an ass without fear.

why did you lock that other thread instead of just deleting it?

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=260309

[D-Wade316]

and people say he's better than Kobe
Larry Legend? If he's a legend is Kobe a deity?