Other great Game 7 playoff duels

[Roy Hobbs]

Only eight times in history has a Game 7 had two opposing players score 35 points or more.  The Celtics have been involved in four of those games.  Pretty impressive.

Here they are:

April 10, 1963:  Sam Jones 47, Oscar Robertson 43 (Celts 142, Royals 131)

May 18, 2008:  Paul Pierce 41, Lebron James 45 (Celts 97, Cavs 92)

April 13, 1957:  Tommy Heinsohn 37, Bob Petit 39 (Celts 125, Hawks 123)

May 30, 1987:  Larry Bird 37, Joe Dumars 35. (Celts 117, Pistons 114)

Honorable mention:

May 22, 1988: Larry Bird 34, Dominique Wilkins 47. (Celts 118, Hawks 116)

The best part?  Boston won all of those games.

[RebusRankin]

Great topic. TP for you.

[Andy Jick]

i am disappointed in lebron james' comment i saw from his post-game interview on espnews last night...

he said (and i'm paraphrasing here): "maybe now the fans can start to forget a little bit about larry bird and dominique wilkins..."  okay, i'll cut him a little slack because he's not a paid public speaker, but this was a horrible choice of words.

"forget...?"  why should we?

does lebron "forget" that it was larry bird who sat there in a round table discussion, promoting lebron and carmelo anthony as the next big thing in the nba (and larry is a SMART man...you know it was a lot of PR hot air that larry was spewing out when he was comparing these two to the potential of what he and magic shared).  for lebron to make this comment is ludicrous.

why is it that the nba players of today try so hard to distance themselves from the past?  afterall, did anyone actually enjoy watching a playoff game with the final score of 74-69 the other day?  hardly...

lebron should have showed a little more respect.  the culture of the nba has changed over the last 10-15 years, but these guys better not "forget" that it was larry himself that saved the nba when it could have faded out like, say, a professional lacrosse league...