the greatest choke: 1969

[Asukal]

That 4th quarter video had Russell hiding for much of the period, letting Wilt score on Chamberlain's one pass into the post, grabbing two rebounds, brutalized by Wilt on the glass in Chamberlain's six minutes of play, outplayed by stumblebum Counts in the last four minutes, and overall watched helplessly as the Lakers cut a 17 point down to one in the last nine minutes of the game (and 10 of it in the three minutes before Wilt went down with his injury).

THAT was the kind of player Russell was in the last quarter.

BTW, we now KNOW that Wilt had 10 blocked shots in that game, which probably accounted for the fact that the Boston players did not challenge the offensive lane the entire 4th period, even with Chamberlain playing with five fouls.

You are the expert.

I'm pretty sure you never played basketball. You think one made layup is all that makes a player overrated defensively.

BTW here's the GOAT choker in action:

[DatAsh]

For real, thank God there's more footage and a lot more knowledge on Russell, because this is embarrassing. Who would believe Russell is a GOAT candidate by watching this? If anything, it might help establish some stupid anti-Wilt-like kind of myth, like "Russell stopped playing defense when he picked 5 fouls" (look how he lets Wilt score and how he tries to protect himself defensively). Good stuff to create a few nice little myths here, right?

Sarcasm? You're a good poster but it can be hard to convey online. Russell played great defense in that footage. To me it speaks much more as a testament for his defense than it does against it. This was Russell in his last year playing with 4-5 fouls, yet he was able to eliminate 7-9 points in one quarter. Offense and rebounding was lacking it that footage, but defense wasn't.