I remember that after the '81 ("Moses eats sh*t") title, three years prior to the '84 ("Hop on my back") one, Bird had expected to continuously win championships. It didn't happen.
Remember in '82, the Celts had the best regular season record in the league, 63-19. The Sixers made sure that they didn't choke away that game 7 that year.
And then in '83, it was a full sweep by Milwaukee. The C's never even have a chance to make Mose's Fo' Fi' Fo' into a Fo' Sev' Fo', which would have removed that insignia from Philly's rings.
I realize that the train has left the station on this thread, but I haven't been on here in a couple of months.
Anyway, even though I wasn't around, I've read and watched a fair amount of games from that era to contribute a little something (hopefully). What really hurt the Celtics from 81-84 was the draft, imo, in addition to Tiny getting hurt in the 82 ECF. Seeing as how they once again rallied from 3-1 WITHOUT TINY just to get to game 7, I tend to believe that they would have won that series against the 76ers with him, and the Finals would have been great, and not just for the players, but the coaches. Pat Riley in his first year vs. Bill Fitch? Now that's a matchup -wow. Unlike during KC Jones' turn at the helm from 84-88 where there was a HUGE mismatch on the sidelines in favor of the lakers, which was a huge factor in those 3 finals, Riley vs Fitch would have been awesome, just for the in-game adjustments, alone. I mean, look at what Fitch did in 86 against that Lakers team, despite not having the homecourt advantage. He was a hell of a coach. Controlling and ridiculous? Yes, but Bird loved him. I realize that the team had tuned him out by the time the playoffs started in 83, and Larry missed one of the first two games of the series against the Bucks because of the flu, iirc, and if Bird is missing a playoff game, you know that there had to be something seriously wrong, haha.
That being said, what hurt Boston the most in 83 wasn't really Fitch, imo. What ruined the chemistry of that club was the beyond stupid trade for Quinn Buckner, who the Celtics came to find out wasn't nearly as good as they thought he was, according to Peter May in The Big Three, iirc. I understand that Toney killed them in 82, but management overreacted by trading for Buckner. I know that they were obviously looking for a guard who could at least make things more difficult for Andrew, but in doing so, Fitch put him in the starting lineup instead of Tiny, which caused Archibald to become moody and obviously unhappy with his role, and I think that was the start of the whole thing, chemistry-wise. The smarter move would have been to just get Milwaukee's first rounder in 1983 for Cowens. Why? Well, because Red really wanted Roy Hinson, who happened to be picked one spot ahead of us by the Cavs (ugh), so if we had just gotten the first for Cowens we would have taken Roy Hinson and been left to choose between Mitchell Wiggins, who would have been great in green, imo, Mark West, who later could have been picked up off of waivers in the first month or so, iirc, of the 1984-85 season, or Doc Rivers, who still should have gone to the Hawks, lol. Those 3 guys would have been HUGE off of the bench from 83-84 and on.
Finally, the other drafts (81 and 82) hurt us, as well. In 1981, we had the final pick of the first round (23), 25, and 31, which became Danny Ainge, but what sucks is that we took Charles Bradley and Tracy Jackson *facepalm* instead of Eddie Johnson, Jay Vincent, or Gene Banks. Even if we had just come away with Ainge and EJ, that would have been incredible, and in 1982, again with the 23rd pick, we took the immortal Darren Tillis (ugh), when Derek Smith was available, and he was an awesome player - probably an all star if he didn't hurt his knee, but he was also a tenacious defender, which would have negated the need to get someone like Buckner. We should probably throw Robey into the mix, as well, in terms of having a negative impact on Bird, but in the end, all of my proposed moves might have meant nothing if Paul Westhead, and not Jerry West (wow), took Larry Nance instead of Mike McGee (who also would have looked great in green, imo. A tenacious defender who could guard 1-3, a great shooter and athlete. He was like a slightly shorter Michael Cooper in terms of defense and shooting, imo, although he couldn't run the point like Coop could, but who knows, perhaps he would have become even better playing with Bird). You want to know why the Lakers took Larry Nance jr in this past draft? It was all to acknowledge their epic fail 34 years ago. Is that stupid? Yes, but I read an article about it a few months back.
Even today, that one still eats at Jerry West, and it's not hard to see why. As chronicled in Jeff Pearlman's
Showtime, West had brought Nance in for a workout and thought he was perfect for the Lakers, and I agree. Talk about a nightmare. Bird, McHale, and Parish would probably still be considered the best front line of all time, but an LA trio of Worthy, Nance, and Kareem would have at least been a close second. Remember, in 84 and 85, Boston had Bird guarding Rambis and McHale guarding Worthy (most of the time), and in 87 the same strategy was employed against AC Green. Now substitute Nance for those guys - who is Bird going to guard - Nance? Ugh. That's even more speed and shot-blocking being added to the Lakers' starting five, and I don't think we even could have beaten them once. I don't know a ton about Nance except that he was a great athlete, excellent midrange shooter, which probably would have helped even more with their spacing if he's out there with Kareem and Worthy instead of Rambis, and a great shot-blocker who won the dunk contest and made 3 all star teams, and should have, and likely would have had he played in LA instead of Phoenix, made more of them. My only question with Nance is his toughness and rebounding prowess. Yes, he could pass, as well, but in the limited clips I've seen of him, the guy doesn't look like he did any of the dirty work and shies away from playing inside, but people on here who watched the league back then would have to weigh in on this one because I really don't know. The most he ever averaged for a season was 9.1 rpg, and that is excellent, but numbers never tell the whole story. Does anyone really think that we could have beaten a Laker team of Magic, Scott, Worthy, Nance, Kareem, Cooper, Wilkes, McAdoo, Rambis, Kupchak, and Swen Nater, who obviously retired after 83-84, because I don't, lol, especially if KC Jones was our coach. *facepalm* We couldn't have hired Del Harris or Doug Collins, instead? Ugh.
Okay, dissertation complete, lol
. Sorry.
Topic: Between '81 and '84, was it a bit disappointing? (Read 5830 times)