Roughly 20 years ago Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins engaged in what many people consider the best mono ah mono dual in the history of sports, not just in basketball. The stakes were fairly high. It was Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals and both teams were legitimate title contenders (but not the favorites).
Twenty years later in another high stakes Eastern Conference Semifinals Game 7, Lebron James and Paul Pierce put on a performance that reminded all of us of the Bird/Wilkins epic and had many analysts anointing it the remake of the classic Bird/Wilkins clash. It was a great game, but it was not the recreation the media is selling to you.
For LBJ and Pierce, the stakes were just as for Bird/Wilkins and arguably the duo are about as big of vaunted superstars in their respective era. Still, it was not the same.
Analysis
1. The Match-up
The Bird/Wilkins duo featured the two best small forwards of all-time. The three-time champion, Bird, squared off against the young Wilkins, the 'Human Highlight Reel’. Wilkins never went on to win a championship or make the 50 greatest of all-time. Danny Ainge, who was on the court for the game, downplayed that saying that he was one of the 30 greatest of all-times and that he’d be the one with the rings if he played with Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, who together with Bird make up the undisputed greatest front line of all-time.
Twenty years later, the match-up of Lebron James vs. Paul Pierce is nothing to scoff at. LBJ could be considered the best of all-time when it’s all said and done, though he’ll have a hard time surpassing Jordan, Bird, Magic, Russell, Duncan, Shaq and Kobe. Pierce on the other hand is a perennial All-Star. To parallel Danny Ainge’s line of thinking, had Pierce played with Shaq, maybe he’d be the one with three rings. But Pierce is about a quarter notch below Kobe’s level just as Dominique was about a quarter notch below Bird’s level, so there is room for error there.
LBJ and Dominique were the undisputed kingpins on otherwise mediocre teams. But while Bird was the crown jewel on a team of aging stars (and one diamond in the rough: the young Reggie Lewis), it is not really known who the leader of the Celtics is, KG or Pierce. To their credit, they don’t feel a need to be crowned, but rather equally yoked.
2. Bird’s Post Game 6 Rhetoric
Inexperience would cost the Hawks the chance to close out the series in Game 6 in Hotlanta (Cleveland had to win their game 6 to force a Game 7). Heading back to Boston, a confident Bird proclaimed,
"They had a big chance to beat us. I think now that we're going to come out and play like we did tonight but we're going to be at home and our shots are going to be dropping a little bit better and we're gonna be running a little faster. So I'd say Sunday's going to be a big win for the Celtics.”
Bird had won his three rings and was slightly past his prime, but yet he had put his legacy on the line. Or perhaps more accurately, he did not care what his legacy was. He had immense abilities and the heart of a champion. Bird lived for such gamesmanship. Unlike LBJ and Pierce who nervously awaited Game 7, Bird reveled in the pre Game 7 hoopla.
Bird called the win and when it was all said and done, there was nothing the Hawks could do about it. The Hawks all played with the extra fire of proving Bird wrong and still came up short. Perhaps a Game 7 in the Boston Garden would not have been so close, had Bird not talked his trash.
3. Two unstoppable stars
Bird was splitting double and triple teams, making shots on curls, rainbow fade-away shots out of the post, splitting triple teams, shooting left handed hooks from his ankles, hitting tear drops, slivering between players in the air for shots, nailing jumpers off of screens and making defensive stops on the other end.
Dominique, who was still a raw talent, was able to get in the zone and expand his range. When he jumped he was in the air forever and nobody was usually within a foot of blocking it, before he swished or banked it in. He was still able to throw in a few of his patented tomahawk dunks for good measures.
In the end, the more chiseled Bird, respecting Wilkins explosiveness. He made every shot out of fear that if Dominique had a chance to make the game winning shot, there would be nobody that could stop him. Bird would not miss when Atlanta needed a stop. In the end Bird outscored Wilkins 20-14 in the 4th quarter.
As the clique goes, Bird and Dominique were unstoppable, making shots at will. At the end of the 08 game, we saw LBJ throwing up an ugly shot that could not draw iron. When the Celtics needed a big shot to stem the tide, it was journeyman and little used reserve PJ Brown (4-4) hitting a jumper and putting a nail in the coffin.
4. The supporting casts
It’s important to note how much better the supporting casts were for the ‘88’ teams over the ‘08’ teams.
The Celtics had the best starting line-up in NBA history. In addition to the greatest frontline of all-time (Bird, Parish, McHale), they had a Hall of Fame quality back-court. Ainge was money from the outside. On a lesser team he would have made more all-star teams and had a string of 20 ppg seasons. Before going to the Celtics, Dennis Johnson, who some call the most under-rated PG of all-time was the leader of a Sonics team that won a championship. Though One time at school, I was trying to argue DJ’s greatness to a bunch of Lakers fans and I was stupefied by the response, “He’s the only black guy I’ve ever seen with freckles.” What do you say to that?
Contrary to Ainge’s account that they were all spectators come the 4th quarter. The Celtics starting line-up came to play. All fiver players were in double digits. McHale went 10-14 from the field and was 13-13 from the line, while adding 13 boards. The Chief, DJ and Ainge score 14, 16 and 13 respectively. DJ and Ainge added 18 assists to Bird’s 6 to keep up with Doc Rivers 18 assists. The starting line-up held the fort, allowing Bird to conserve his energy for the 4th quarter, in which he would score 20 of his 34 points.
Even the lesser Hawks had solid weapons. The Hawks had not one, but two dynamite point guards. Doc Rivers relegated the explosive Spud Webb to the bench as he went for 16 points and 18 assists. Randy Wittman was a deadly shooter. He went 11-13 from the field. Kevin Willis was a beast on d and on the boards. He also went for a modest 11 points and 11 rebounds double-double.
The superior quality of the ‘88‘ supporting casts over the ‘08‘ is the reason that the score was 118-116, 20 years prior to the ‘08’ 97-92 game. The teams combine to shoot for 58.8 percent in ‘88’. The ‘08’ teams combined to shoot a mere 46.2 percent. That’s a big discrepancy. The ‘08’ teams are marginally better on defense, but clearly the ‘88’ teams were offensively superior in their Game 7 and in general.
5. Lasting sights and sounds
I can still hear Tommy Heinsohn amazed voice proclaiming “It’s a dual.” Or the other more stoic old school play by play announcer saying “It’s Bird’s turn,” as Bird nailed a curl in a string of consecutive baskets.
Then there was the crowds of ‘88’. Besides the unique fashions, you could just see the amazement on the crowds’ faces. A poster proclaimed, ‘Our Bird can fly higher than any hawk.’ Then there was a waving sheet on a rafter stating that it was ‘Bird’s Nest.’
I’m sure Heinsohn gave a lot of Tommy points to LBJ and Pierce.
The crowd was reacting to the many amazing plays. In 2008, LBJ and James combined to shoot 50 percent on mostly a few impressive in your eye jumpers. The shots were good and the intensity of Game 7 was there. And even Pierce/James outscored Bird/Dominique 86-81. It’s things like that that make the game comparable on paper. But although Pierce and James put on an ‘instant classic’, Bird and Wilkins engaged in a timeless epic.
