Larry Bird Greatest Games: 43 Points in 29 Minutes vs Cavaliers (1986)

[Round Mound]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvItrKX9-4k

Bird in his prime playing on the greatest team ever, 1986 Celtics. 43 points in 29 minutes of basketball greatness, 17/24 FG, 5/6 FG

[StrongLurk]

Honestly, I can't believe how terrible that defense is. Like, I know people exaggerate how bad defense was in the '80s..but that seriously is the laziest defense I've seen in awhile. It seemed like the other team didn't care AT ALL about guarding someone.

[SHAQisGOAT]

Honestly, I can't believe how terrible that defense is. Like, I know people exaggerate how bad defense was in the '80s..but that seriously is the laziest defense I've seen in awhile. It seemed like the other team didn't care AT ALL about guarding someone.

One of the worst teams, that season, going up against what many call the GOAT team (Cavs got absolutely destroyed on both ends, just quickly check the boxscore) and you're only watching highlights/best-plays/made FG's... I can show you worse from this year for example, but anyways...

[J Shuttlesworth]

Wow, that's Harden-esque

[ArbitraryWater]

Wow, that's Harden-esque

haha you ****er I was waiting for him to hit 43+ and be like "almost as good as Harden"

[J Shuttlesworth]

haha you ****er I was waiting for him to hit 43+ and be like "almost as good as Harden"

I doubt Larry had 5 steals and 7 assists

Harden > Bird [COLOR="White"]ayy lmao[/COLOR]

[Round Mound]

I doubt Larry had 5 steals and 7 assists

Harden > Bird [COLOR="White"]ayy lmao[/COLOR]

[Milbuck]

Honestly, I can't believe how terrible that defense is. Like, I know people exaggerate how bad defense was in the '80s..but that seriously is the laziest defense I've seen in awhile. It seemed like the other team didn't care AT ALL about guarding someone.

It's like a high school defense guarding an NBA team. Just atrocious.

[ArbitraryWater]

the defense is pretty bad..

I love how fatal loved Bird, but he kept it real about 80's defense.

[Milbuck]

the defense is pretty bad..

I love how fatal loved Bird, but he kept it real about 80's defense.

I love how anyone who questions the 80s gets torn to shreds by older bball fans, any criticism you bring up gets dismissed completely and you get labeled "ignorant, too young to appreciate it, don't know what you're talking about, etc etc etc"...When there's visible evidence behind a lot of it, like the defense being garbage, like in the video in the OP.

And if we're going to call the 86 Cavs a garbage team, not indicative of 80s defense..why hype up this performance then? What makes this performance any greater than Kevin Love putting up 51 points, making huge clutch plays and carrying his (bad) team to double OT, just coming up short against the finals-level Thunder with Durant, Westbrook, and Harden combining for 110?

[kuniva_dAMiGhTy]

Honestly that defense wasn't any worse than the Raptor "defense" Kobe dropped 81 deuces on.

There was a Bird video posted by me a couple days ago, against Rodman and the Pistons, where dude made some ridiculous and heavily contested shots. Is what it is.

[DCL]

so effortless like he was just practicing by himself in the gym

[3ball]

being guarded by roy hinson, a super-athletic wing that routinely amassed over 100 dunks per season (since the data was first tracked in the 80's, only 10-15 guys each season get over 100 dunks)...

hinson also had a few season with over 2 blocks per game... bird drops 43 on him and it couldn't look or be any easier... most skilled player ever.

[SHAQisGOAT]

I love how anyone who questions the 80s gets torn to shreds by older bball fans, any criticism you bring up gets dismissed completely and you get labeled "ignorant, too young to appreciate it, don't know what you're talking about, etc etc etc"...When there's visible evidence behind a lot of it, like the defense being garbage, like in the video in the OP.

And if we're going to call the 86 Cavs a garbage team, not indicative of 80s defense..why hype up this performance then? What makes this performance any greater than Kevin Love putting up 51 points, making huge clutch plays and carrying his (bad) team to double OT, just coming up short against the finals-level Thunder with Durant, Westbrook, and Harden combining for 110?

When it comes to people like you, who don't really know what they're talking about, and many times just blindly hate... Criticism and dismissiveness is totally justified.

Visible evidence? Defense being garbage (in the era)? What, again, judging by this one video? Video where you only see FG's-made and highlight plays, where you got one of the GOAT teams against one of the worst teams that season?

Goddamn, you people are so dumb... I can show you plenty of worse stuff/defense from just this year, and much better from back then, plus a type of (physical) defense that would have some stars from today "shooked".
Like others have said here, not even all that bad as you make it seem, seen plenty worse.

I don't get why DRtg has remained pretty much the same since the 1980's with this so called advanced defenses, oh and going by that, the 60's/70's are easily the best defensive era... or just worse offense?
And teams in the 80's, on average, employed better team ball, better ball movement, better use of mismatches, less "dumb" shots; stuff that you see the Spurs get lot of praise for nowadays, while they've won it all without top5 players, doing just that... Tougher to defend against that "type" of basketball/offense.

You look at last years Finals and you check one finalist just completely destroying the other, going all wild on offense to the point where it got embarrassing, setting records and shit... must be the worst defensive era

Hype up this performance? In what way? It's just "another" Bird performance, always cool to see because footage from that era is not nearly as much as nowadays, uploader had some work to find and edit it all... nobody is acting like it's one of the GOAT performances, not remotely close to one of Larry's best, just another good performance from him and always cool to see if you're a basketball fan, Larry was a bball savant.
Nobody is comparing it to any other performance... Although I can name some of Bird's best performances, and what he has done throughout his career, just "shitting" on the players you've mentioned, but let's talk about Kevin Love or whoever here

And Bird + the Celtics did what was expected against a team of that caliber... completely demolished them.
Oh, and if this was your favorite team/players, you'd be drooling and hyping the shit out of it

being guarded by roy hinson, a super-athletic wing that routinely amassed over 100 dunks per season (since the data was first tracked in the 80's, only 10-15 guys each season get over 100 dunks)...

hinson also had a few season with over 2 blocks per game... bird drops 43 on him and it couldn't look or be any easier... most skilled player ever.

True.

[Audio One]

The greatest team ever my ass, they're not even the best Celtics club ever, let alone the fact they didn't repeat. The '67 Sixers and those early 70's Knicks teams would've CRUSHED this team, and I'd put good money on the '83 Sixers and '01 Lakers as well