Latrinsorm
03-13-2014, 05:25 PM
I recently compared Paul George to Sidney Moncrief, who played for the Bucks in the 1980s. While researching another project, I found this (http://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/NBA_1987_ECS.html#BOS-MIL) incredible outlier of a playoff series. In a 7 game series with 3 overtimes, the Celtics and Bucks will score 850 and 848 points respectively. In all the days from that day to this, there will be 1 team out of 540 participants in 7 game series that cracks 800 points: the 2003 Mavericks will put up 802 points to the Kings' 777. In the past four years, only 1 team out of 120 has even broken 700: the 2011 Thunder over the Grizzlies, and they needed 4 overtimes to do it.
The Celtics are on their way to a fourth straight Finals appearance, which will also be their last for 20 years. In two years, KC Jones will retire and Bird will miss 76 games due to injury, and the Celtics won't reach the Conference Finals again for 15 years.
The Bucks will fire Don Nelson (coach and GM) a week after the series. After 5 years of aggregate 20.5 PER and .212 WS/48, Sidney Moncrief has suffered his first extended injury and will put up only 14.9 and .126 in 229 games over the next 5 years. By 1990 Moncrief and Cummings are gone, and the Bucks won't win a playoff series again until 2001.
The parallels are pretty obvious. The Heat are the Celtics, an aging nucleus that has dominated the conference over the last three years. The Pacers are the Bucks, a scrappy Midwestern team built around deep draft picks, a goofy center (Sikma), tenacious defense, and an emerging star wing player (Moncrief). All told they have enjoyed postseason success but never really broken through against the big city teams. (This also makes Lance Stephenson = Paul Pressey, a second round prototype point forward who led the Bucks in assists for five years. Lance is only 6'5", but was a second round pick who leads the Pacers in assists. It works.)
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But this isn't even the most famous Eastern Conference series the Celtics were involved in that year. In the Eastern Conference Finals, they will be outscored by the Pistons to the tune of 26 points over 7 games... but there's a steal by Bird, underneath to DJ and he lays it in, and the Celtics steal Game 5 in the very last second to go up 3-2. That's what clutch is all about. The Pistons only had the ball to in-bound in the first place because Bird tries to go 1-on-4 the previous play and is soundly rejected before flopping on the floor and sliding a good 10 feet, but that has nothing to do with anything, so shut up.
And the Bucks will only reach the EC Semis after the 76ers take them to 5 games (in a 5 game series), winning by a mere 8 points. It is Charles Barkley's first year as an All-Star, and it is Julius Erving's last year as an NBA player.
And the best team in the East is none of these, but the Atlanta Hawks: as good as the Celtics on offense, better than the Pistons on defense. Despite this they will not get out of the second round, and as of yet have not done so since 1970. This year they lose at the hands of the Detroit Pistons, and it is the 3 seed Pistons who will become the premier East team, reaching 3 straight Finals and winning 2. (Extending the analogy gives us the Raptors for the Pistons and I guess John Wall for Jordan, but you could talk me into Kyrie. That would make Otto Porter = Scottie Pippen, which seems like a stretch until you look at Pippen's stats his rookie year: 0 starts, 20 minutes / game, 58% FT%(!!!), 12.9 PER, .066 WS/48, and he was 22 to Porter's 20.)
And while the Celtics are limping through this minefield the Lakers are waltzing through the Western Conference, putting up what is at the time the 6th best regular season margin of victory in NBA history (before Jordan wrecked the curve for everyone) and going 11-1 in the West bracket by an average margin of 15 points. So the next time someone tells you how the NBA was so much better in the 80s because of parity, remind them that the Lakers reached the Finals in 8 out of 10 years from 1982 to 1991, and went 94 and 29 against other Western teams in the playoffs over that span (76%).
The Celtics are on their way to a fourth straight Finals appearance, which will also be their last for 20 years. In two years, KC Jones will retire and Bird will miss 76 games due to injury, and the Celtics won't reach the Conference Finals again for 15 years.
The Bucks will fire Don Nelson (coach and GM) a week after the series. After 5 years of aggregate 20.5 PER and .212 WS/48, Sidney Moncrief has suffered his first extended injury and will put up only 14.9 and .126 in 229 games over the next 5 years. By 1990 Moncrief and Cummings are gone, and the Bucks won't win a playoff series again until 2001.
The parallels are pretty obvious. The Heat are the Celtics, an aging nucleus that has dominated the conference over the last three years. The Pacers are the Bucks, a scrappy Midwestern team built around deep draft picks, a goofy center (Sikma), tenacious defense, and an emerging star wing player (Moncrief). All told they have enjoyed postseason success but never really broken through against the big city teams. (This also makes Lance Stephenson = Paul Pressey, a second round prototype point forward who led the Bucks in assists for five years. Lance is only 6'5", but was a second round pick who leads the Pacers in assists. It works.)
.
But this isn't even the most famous Eastern Conference series the Celtics were involved in that year. In the Eastern Conference Finals, they will be outscored by the Pistons to the tune of 26 points over 7 games... but there's a steal by Bird, underneath to DJ and he lays it in, and the Celtics steal Game 5 in the very last second to go up 3-2. That's what clutch is all about. The Pistons only had the ball to in-bound in the first place because Bird tries to go 1-on-4 the previous play and is soundly rejected before flopping on the floor and sliding a good 10 feet, but that has nothing to do with anything, so shut up.
And the Bucks will only reach the EC Semis after the 76ers take them to 5 games (in a 5 game series), winning by a mere 8 points. It is Charles Barkley's first year as an All-Star, and it is Julius Erving's last year as an NBA player.
And the best team in the East is none of these, but the Atlanta Hawks: as good as the Celtics on offense, better than the Pistons on defense. Despite this they will not get out of the second round, and as of yet have not done so since 1970. This year they lose at the hands of the Detroit Pistons, and it is the 3 seed Pistons who will become the premier East team, reaching 3 straight Finals and winning 2. (Extending the analogy gives us the Raptors for the Pistons and I guess John Wall for Jordan, but you could talk me into Kyrie. That would make Otto Porter = Scottie Pippen, which seems like a stretch until you look at Pippen's stats his rookie year: 0 starts, 20 minutes / game, 58% FT%(!!!), 12.9 PER, .066 WS/48, and he was 22 to Porter's 20.)
And while the Celtics are limping through this minefield the Lakers are waltzing through the Western Conference, putting up what is at the time the 6th best regular season margin of victory in NBA history (before Jordan wrecked the curve for everyone) and going 11-1 in the West bracket by an average margin of 15 points. So the next time someone tells you how the NBA was so much better in the 80s because of parity, remind them that the Lakers reached the Finals in 8 out of 10 years from 1982 to 1991, and went 94 and 29 against other Western teams in the playoffs over that span (76%).