1981 - Losers, and Winning Losers

and take a look at what some of the worst of the year one was. But here's a twist. We have a really bad worst worst, but then we have worst that turned out to be almost best. If that makes sense, my Carmen, I don't know if it does,

but I think it does. Well. You know what, you've got to talking out sometimes, you know, best laid plans, all of those kind of things, but the the idea being that, yeah, you sometimes you gotta hit absolute depths before you know you can rise like the Phoenix at Arizona. To steal from the late Jerry Steeler, I mean, there's gotta be in that rock bottom. I mean, as a Mets fan, you know, that. No, no, no, there's no rock bottom. You you hit the bottom and you keep

digging going. Nope, I am going through this and I'm gonna get through to the floor. There's gotta be a level of magma, and then under that there's got to be some kind of moving tectonic plates, and then under that maybe then I get to the bottom. But no, no, no, I'm gonna keep digging through the mud and the sludge and go all the way through the center of the Earth. Wow, straight to the Earth's crust. It makes me want to

eat a pizza Earth's crust. Yeah, alcome, no one's ever done that, had a pizza and called it Earth's crust? Or is there a there's somebody out there? Is there a place that's called Earth's Crust pizza? Crust pizza? Hey? Yeah, listen, can I get double anchovies and one with pepperoni? Yeah? You gotta get it out there in a half hour. How hot is your pizza? You know what? I looked at her hand out. It's really fair earth crust pizza. Let's see there there is an Earth's crust pizza in Montana.

Who knew? Seems like we're gonna have to get it said, oh, you can eat pizza buffet, buddy, Yes it is. Well, well, so maybe not anymore than well, but maybe you just have to go sit in the yeah, and I don't think anything in the lot, and then you go walk back in and say more so what we mean? The New Scientist magazine said that the Earth's crust is just like a pizza dough. So there you go. No, I mean there's like a big level of layer of cheese

on it. Cheese. Boy, if I could walk through cheese and just pick up cheese and put in my mouth. It's like Homer in the Land of Chocolate piece up the dog and takes a bite out of it as it runs by it. Chocolate half price, like everything's made of chocolate. It's free eat anything. Uh, the Simpsons. But that's what we have going on today. We have a worst of the worst in one and then we have the worst of the worst that actually becomes nearly the

best of the best. So we'll save that for later on. Uh, let's get into what was possibly and probably the worst single season defense in the history of the National Football League. Now, immediately people want to jump back and go, oh, look at the Saints in two thousand and twelve. I think it over seven thousand yards. It was a horrendous season, but this is an age in the National Football League where everybody is throwing the football and you have inflated

passing statistics. So seven thousand yards, even though it's really really, really really bad, it doesn't compare to this team that gave up sixty hundred yards when teams threw the football about four times a game, so it's not like you were facing all these big offensive juggernauts. We put it into the late two thousands. Everybody's throwing the football, quarterbacks throwing for three no, no, no, this is seven thousand yards. That stinks. This was undred yards back in in one

three yards and a cloud of dust. And even the passes that were thrown up, let's face, and completion percentages were trash. Yeah if you were because you were a good quarterback, right, Because interceptions were not looked at the same way at all, and ball possession, which is kind of funny. Did they just not have the computers to run the stats. It's like the entire room is one computer. Yeah, no, it's It's amazing though that people didn't catch onto this sooner.

You know if we go to the shortened intermediate game, we will be more effective and keep moving the ball. Throw for the downs the night one. Then Baltimore cults worst NFL defense in history. Here's the evidence. Now. First of all, actually they had pretty decent expectations in one. They still led Burt Jones at quarterback, Roger Carr was a pretty good wide receiver. Curtis Dickey was projecting to be a pretty good running back. These are names would

probably remember from the Colts teams. David Schula, former Bengals head coach, was a wide receiver on this team. But things just went absolutely terrible from the jump. They went to out one good name though, you an all name team guy, Okay, go on, what do you got linebacker Joe Federspiel. Yeah, Federspiel is pretty good. It's a tough name to say in the heat of battle. Good play Feederspiel. I can see you messing that up a lot day. And maybe you call him glock in Spiel at some

point that was probably his nickname was Yeah. He eventually became an SEC referee, by the way, Oh and they probably called him the glock I metued. I was, Hey, what's up block, but it's okay, I get it. Glocklock to see that as other connotations and now you've gone into a deep dark place. So it's just a nickname like Clock, except it's glock, except it's for glock and spiel. Anyway, uh so the Colts team just to give you the framework before you give you with some stats that you're

gonna go there's no way this happened. They actually went too and fourteen. They won their first game against New England. Hey, congratulations, back, this is when Baltimore is in the a f C East. They then lost fourteen games in a row, and then they beat New England the final week of the regular seat. Hey did. New England also finished two and fourteen in the A f C East, so these were the only wins Baltimore had. They beat New England opened the season, Hey,

we're feeling great. Then they lost fourteen in a row, and then they beat New England to end the season. So at least you can say, well, we started strong, we finished strong, and if we played New England every week, maybe they're sixteen and oh, but they don't, so this is what they wind up. Well. What's funny, though, is just the when you think about, all right, how bad does this team have to be? Right, you hit the bookends where you have these wins, go to tie breakers,

all of that kind of fun stuff. But looking at the Patriots schedule, they had their moments of uh, wealth dominance. They held six opponents to nineteen points or fewer during the season, so uh put themselves in position. But and absolutely anemic offense leads you to the woeful two and four record, fourteen record, I should say, uh, including two losses to these historic Baltimore Colts. Here's how bad the Colts were. Okay, here here's some numbers that it just

blow you away. They allowed five hundred and thirty three points on the season. All right, that's an average of thirty three a game. They scored two hundred and fifty nine. Okay, so they gave up twice as many points as they scored. This isn't a one hundred point differential like you see the worst teams in the NFL. Boy, we got outscored by hundred points. They scored to fifty nine. They gave up five thirty three. They literally gave up twice as many points as they scored. That's how bad of a

defense this was. I mean, it wasn't a great offense, but boy, that's how bad a defense this was. Well, if if you laid some money down on them against the number and you took the over, you really did hardly. Yeah, no, exactly. They took the over every week. How far can we stretching? Guys? Just keep going. Uh, you know, it's just that curiosity, right at some point you would think there'd be some

consistency and something would click. But as you mentioned, it's not like you're walking around with a bunch of household names that even went somewhere else and became pivotal cogs in some other machine. Uh. This is just, you know, not good for anybody. As you're rolling through five hundred thirty three points. They gave up four hundred twenty five yards per game, four football fields per game. Just staggering. This is a season in which the Colts gave up

thirty five points or more in nine games. Nine games they allowed thirty five points and more. They allowed three seven points in the first half of games. That means teams were averaging twenty points in the first half against them. So whatever you have, you're allowing twenty a team is walking in a half time going, boy, we feel great. We scored twenty points. This is this is terrific um. All those early adopter fantasy leagues were having a blast.

I mean this, Look, this Colts defense still had a couple of good players on it, right you know, you had John Dutton who wound up getting traded during the season. You know, uh, you had a couple of Bruce Laird, who was a pretty good strong safety. Nesby Glasgow was a pretty decent cornerback turned into You had a couple of decent players on this team. But this defense was just so bad. And maybe the best most damning statistic is what I'm gonna give you right now. This is

how bad. Okay, they only returned twelve punts all season punt so nobody punted. They returned twelve punts. That's less than one punt return a game you could have gotten by without a punt returner. I can just let the ball at the ground right now, Okay, we'll take over wherever it is. They returned twelve punts, and they had thirteen sacks on the seat in and if full see and sixteen games they had thirteen sacks, So every game they basically were good for almost one punt return and

almost one sack. That's how mad it was for the cults. Think about that, because we we had a good laugh at it here in When a team goes through and dozen't punt, it's like, all right, that guy gotta check and just got to hang out and do his weird ball tricks like he's in the middle of training camp. Uh, and you go through. I mean that that's just amazing. I'm looking at the totals from last year and it's

just staggering. Thinking thirteen for an entire year, you're low in nineteen was the doll for with twenty three only three more teams finished with fewer than thirty, and then your league leaders Steelers, Panthers, Saints and RAN's all finished with at least fifty. Just by way of contrast. I mean, that's that's just pathetic for a bass rush. That's that's almost like you're not trying. Uh. Mike McCormick was the head coach and he only made it through this year

and then he got fired. Uh. And and as if all those stats all remember how bad this defense was losing games the way they did. Look, they beat the Patriots. Then they lost thirty five, three, thirty seventeen, No, then forty one, nineteen. Then they give up forty three, then forty two, then twenty seven, then forty one, then thirty eight, then thirty five. It was just a pummeling all season long. Right,

But this is okay, it's historically bad. They got a really bad Dave and maybe one of the worst defenses ever. They couldn't stop anybody. But this story about the Colts season may give you everything you need to know outside of the fact that, boy, this defense was bad. All right, check this out. So I told you you know, Burt Jones was still a pretty decent quarterback and things got so bad at one point. This is then Colts owner

Bob er Say, who players hated. Right. John Dutton, who got traded in the middle of the season, said I'll do anything Dallas wants me to do right now except shoot someone. He was so happy to get off the Baltimore Colts. That was his That was his big quote after he got traded, right, all of these things. They couldn't stand back Burt Jones, Oh it was, it was. It was just one of those seasons where you couldn't

believe what the owner did. Bob Er say. At one point, during a loss to Philadelphia in November, they lost, the owner got so mad he jumped into the booth and started calling plays from the coaches booth. He started calling offensive plays from the booth. So Burt Jones said he just ignored them. Like every time the play call came in to go left, he would go right. If it was a run, he would call a pass. But Bob

ar say calling plays from the coaches booth. In fact, he says that he called one of Burt Jones's touchdown passes in this game. Burt Jones says, no, I just went and did my own thing. The players couldn't stand or say. But not even Jerry Jones, Mike and I, I know he's probably been tempted to. I could just get the headphones off of Jason and uh just start calling plays because I know the names of some of them. You know there's that red ride eighty eight or did

I see that on the NFL films? Uh? What about that sixty five toss power trap Let's run? Now, No, that's NFL films. Not even Jerry Jones on his worst day says, you know sorry, slide over, I'm gonna start calling plays. But this was the NFL where the owner comes in and starts calling plays in How fantastic would that be? Though? Jerry Jones finally, just you know, before Jason Garrett was dismissed, saying, you know what I got,

I got something for Dak. I got I got something special I cooked up on this here napkin, and he's got some weird ass alignment still legal, uh in terms of formations, but just crazy town. I mean there's several owners that you know, you would not be surprised if they actually did it. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if er, say, Jim Ursay would do while playing guitar. I always wanted to do that, you know that. I was always jealous

that he did that. I really would like to death He's playing Jimmy Hendricks's guitar while calling plays and sending it down to Philip Rivers. Maybe you just have to wait. That's why Andrew Luck retired. I couldn't. I couldn't take it because you know, all the year says they all want to call plays that I just had to walk out. It was just too much for me. I was done absolutely amazing. This was the season that was for the one Waltimore Colts looking at being the worst defense in

NFL history. Coming up next, Uh, two things that were really bad and then they met together and things got really it. I'll explait trust me, I'll explain it all. Coming up next right here on special teams from the worst of the NFL. And boy, the Cults were really that bad to the NBA and the nineteen eighty one Western Conference playoffs because in one things really got weird in something that we have never seen anything even close

to this since this happened. Now, we had the Knicks make it to the NBA Finals in the in the lockout year. They were an eight seed and they pulled a bunch of upsets. We watched the Golden State Wars, an eight seed, pull a few upsets a few years ago, knocking out the Mavericks. They were the number one seed. But normally the bottom seed doesn't make it to the NBA finals. Also, normally the bottom two seeds don't make it to the conference finals. But this is what happened

in one. The NBA regular season ended with the Sons at the top best record in the Western Conference. The Suns were loaded, followed by the Spurs. The Lakers were third. Remember this is the early days of Magic Johnson. The Blazers were fourth and in fifth and sixth place because it was the top six teams that made the NBA playoffs back then were the Kings and the Rockets. The Kansas City Kings, who was before they moved to Sacramento.

The Kansas City Kings and the Houston Rockets, the five and six seeds, the two lowest seeds, both make the playoffs with records of forty and forty two. Who do you think winds up playing in the Western Conference Finals? The Kings and the Rockets. Again that this is a journey that no one could. This is never gonna happen in the NBA. You're never gonna see seven eight seeds pull these big upsets and saying, hey, we're playing here in the in the conference finals. But it happened here

in one. Both teams finished seventeen games out of first place. They were under five hundred on the road. They were just an average team, couldn't even finish even five. But the Kings and the Rockets make it to the Western Conference Finals, bolstered by the fact that the Dallas Mavericks

were an absolute train wreck. The Utah Jazz, with twenty eight wins, allowed you to get fat a little bit and overcome the other members of the Pacific Division, which had several teams in the mid thirties in terms of wins, like, thank you very much, we're under five. Like nowadays, think about all the ink that gets slung and when it happens. Remember the Seahawks when they were seven and nine and you would have thought the world was ending, Like everything

we knew about sports was going into some wormhole. Uh, and the pundits were out for blood. No, they should just not be a playoff team. The playoffs should go a team Short's like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But folks advocated for so many random tweaks to playoff rules, and you know what they're they're an emalies. And this one sure stands out all these years later. Only time two teams with losing records met in the conference finals. Right,

So how did they get there? Well, let's do the Kansas City Kings. First. Kansas City was led by Otis bird Song, who had a terrific NBA career. The guy scored twenty five points a game. You know, late seventies, early eighties. Otis bird Song was fantastic. Phil Ford was terrific NBA Rookie of the Year in seventy nine. They

both were All Star players alright. Scott Wedman before he settled into being a rotation piece for the Celtics throughout most of the mid eighties when everybody watched Lakers Celtics on TV, he was pretty decent. And so Kansas City had some time, I mean some talent because they finished five hundred. They worked really great. Well, there's just just a game. One game decided it, right sure, uh you

know who. And also but they also missed making the playoffs by a game because the Warriors almost snuck in a thirty nine and forty three, so they were that close to being out to uh now, their first round they played Portland, who wasn't that much better. They won two out of three. They won a couple of games in overtime. But then their rewards they get the Phoenix Suns. All right, the number one seed in the West. This is gonna be pretty easy. They knock off the Suns

in seven games. They had a three games to one lead. Kansas City jumped out and the Sons, who like to play a lot of players, they were loaded, Dennis Johnson, Walter Davis, Truck, Robinson, they were all stars. They were so deep and they just kept running players out there, you know, their rotations going through. They were so good. But they couldn't beat the Kings. But they come back to tie at three three before the Kings win games

seven on the road. But check this out. Not only do the Kings win game seven in Phoenix, where you think, okay, there's a lot of silliness here. Now the Suns are gonna straight and up and win. The King's won without birds Song and Ford, who were both hurt. Bird Song played a little bit with a sprained ankle, but but Ford was out. He got he got hit in the eye, and somehow they were able to win that game. So the so the worst team in the West is able to beat the best team in the East without their

two best players. Okay, so this is like looking at a team like this is like if if the Portland Trailblazers beat the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs this year, and they and they won Game seven without Lillard and McCollum. I mean, that's that's the equivalent of what the Kansas City Kings did to beat the Suns and move on to the Western Conference Finals. I'm just gonna put it in its most blunt terms, that

would have been. So yes, it would have been, because it's be something forever that you'd be looking back going that really can't be right, can it? Can it? No? It is? It's uh yeah, it's It's strange when you watch teams that are that are well put together, that

have some depth to them, and guys assuming roles. Right, we watched it a couple of years ago what the Celtics were trying to do with all that young nucleus, and then you you're you're missing Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward and all those guys grew into roles really fast. So when the veterans came back, it's like, all right, no, we don't got room for you. We got problems and

what did you have? Dysfunction? And you know, dude had to leave uh in Kyrie uh and Jayson Tatum and all the young guys, you know, building off of that, I guess here you looked at some veteran leadership, not that he played a ton of games for them, but I mean you did have Jojo White finishing up his career there, motivational speaker. Some commercials to Jojoe White if I remember, sure, I I think I think he did.

He was in a like in the early eighties when certain guys to do commercials and they were all like the stars of the seventies and like X A B A stars and they were the ones that were in the big commercials in the early eighties, and I'm like, who's that? I remember? It was just one of those weird things where certain guys were in commercials and I'm like, well, I don't know who that is. I don't. I don't know. I am I supposed to know who that is. I don't.

I don't know who that is. Well, you were trying to pick out all the characters from the uh what was it? The Miller light adde right right? Well, because it's great, less filling, it's like, who's that guy in the back? Yeah? And also you didn't know who anybody was because when when did I see the Kansas City Kings play? In one fair point, I saw the Knicks play. Unfortunately,

I saw the Nicks play on the Knicks. Actually, I saw the Knicks play and then you saw whatever, like the game of the week was or what you know, what you saw on a Saturday or a Sunday, and you would see those teams once and how many times for the change with you know, forty wins. They weren't showing them no there, and you didn't have these packages. And hell, those finals were on tape delay, so wasn't like you were seeing it live anyway. Here it is so well we edited out some parts where it really

didn't matter. But this Son's team that that could have gone to the NBA finals. Look, they had those three great player, Alvin Adams had a really good season. I mean this team was loaded and they wind up going home and the Kings go to the Western Conference finals. Now, how did the Rockets get there? Well, the Rockets a little bit of a different story. It's their first year in the Western Conference because they've been in the Eastern

Conference for so long. But now the Mavericks were in the league and and and they put some they reconfigured everything, and so the Rockets are in the Western Conference. Now. They're led by Moses Malone who was in his peak as a dominant player. I mean most of Malone was average twenty seven and fifteen. I mean he was one of the greatest centers in NBA history. And this he let you know it to. Oh yeah, No, he was

never shy about it. Moses Malone would always tell you how good he was and how bad the players he was playing against us. He almost was kind of like and almost as fun Shock, you know, like most of the Malone was great and he was outspoken, but he wasn't as much fun as Shock was. Like he would say things that we'll get this a couple of things he said that he probably shouldn't have. But he was always a but he was never the you know, the fun side that Shack had with him. But he would

always say what was on his mind. He would he would give bulletin board material to other team. Moses Malone just didn't care. But then again, when you're that big and that talented, I I don't I don't think it mattered to Moses Malone. Well, I mean the fact that you didn't have any better nickname than Chairman of the boards. It was it was the early eighties. There weren't that many nicknames come on that was coming out a disco

and all that nonsense. There should have been some really creative fools up in there trying to make their ownecial since everybody was buying posters for four ninety nine to put on their walls. Oh, I know, they could have called him Moses because he was good down low. They could have called him post Malone would have done. I really thought you were going to go for a dominating in the low post in the lane, partying like the

Red Sea. Oh, come on, Moses, that's too easy. I mean that was Charlton Heston right, Moses, he was two, wee go, You're absolutely right. Let my guards get on the fast break. So Malone is in his peak as a dominant player. Calvin Murphy also a terrific year. This is the year in which he made seventy eight straight free throws at an NBA record seventy eight straight free throws Rudy tom Janovic before he became a big time

head coach in the NBA. Don Mike dun Levi Sr. People think Mike dun Levy Jr. Played back in Yes, Mike Dunlevy Jr. Was playing back in anyone. Well, he's he's actually um like Admiral Hucks when he was in about time and he could time travel. You got an Admiral Hucks very nice. Well, you know it's you gotta get Donald Gleason in where he can. So this was actually a big first round series because the Rockets had

to play the Lakers. Now, the Lakers are coming off winning the NBA title the year before, but things just were different for them, you know, seeing what the Lakers had to say. Magic Johnson was very outspoken about the Lakers following their loss here. Uh, it was it was very difficult, difficult here for the Lakers, but they go down to defeat and this is a Rocket scene that sometimes played with four big men, and it was, you know, you think about playing small ball now here the Rockets

they were put four big men out there. They wound up winning in five games, and it was probably Magic Johnson's worst playoff game ever. He was two out of fourteen from the floor, six out of seven from the free throw line. He missed two free throws that could have won the game with thirty seconds left. This was the worst playoff game of Magic Johnson's career. Right game five, the Lakers were in a series they didn't expect to be in. He goes two out of four teen from

the floor, six out of eleven from the free throw line. Right, Magic mss two free throws with thirty seconds left that could have changed the outcome of the game. Rocket lead eight s eighty five. This is after Magic shooting terribly missing the free throws. Magic goes into the lane, kind of hesitates and puts up an air ball. Magic Johnson puts up an airball from the middle of the lane. Malone gets the rebound, hits two free throws. The Rockets

win and they knocked the Lakers out. I actually remember watching this specific game as a kid because it was Game five and the Lakers. Look, the Lakers and the and the Celtics were basketball royalty, right. There was the rivalry with Burden. Magic was just getting going when the Lakers and Celtic this is what you watched for. And I remember in my basement watching this game, going, oh, Magic Johnson is gonna hit this and he's gonna win.

And he put up an air ball, and the whole next week, every single kid I knew in school would like take up like crumple up a piece of paper and throw it and miss, like throwing in the in the in the in the garbage, going Magic Johnson, Magic Johnson, because you know on the East Coast, you if you even even though you know you grew up a Knicks fan, you were a Celtics fan when they played the Lakers, right because you were. It was East Coast versus West Coast,

and everybody just made fun of Matchic. Everybody in school that week missing stuff. You try to throw something to somebody and they would miss it and and they all look at Magic. I mean it was that miss was horrendous for Magic. I can't believe he actually had a playoff

game that way. And as I mentioned, he got into after the game was over that it wasn't the best year for them and maybe there were certain things that went on that he didn't really go into details on that shouldn't went on, and maybe they needed to take things more seriously and clearly losing in the first round of the Rockets, you can say, Okay, Magic, I get where you're coming from. Yeah, you look at that game, uh, in the final, but he goes two of fourteen from

the field, right Uh. And then you get into the next year and it's eleven games into the season when pat Riley takes over and the rest of his history. Hey, guess what, I think we need a new head coach. Who do we need? Riles me and I'm gonna go bring We're gonna call it showtime. Oh that's a good idea. Hey, there go the Lake probably trademarked at too that crafty. So they beat the Lakers, and they beat the Spurs

in seven games to make it to the Western Conference Finals. Murphy, who was the shortest player in the league uh scored forty two points in Game seven. So now you have the Kansas City Kings and the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference Finals coming up next. We'll tell you how it shook out and why Boses Malone really should have kept his mouth shut. This is special teams. So the series, everybody thought we were getting the Kansas City Kings and the Houston Rockets to go to the NBA Finals to

take on the Boston Celtics. Otis bird Song, you know, the star for the Kancity Kings, didn't play in Game one and game two. He was still hurt and didn't play until Game three, and he had limited minutes. And that was a crusher for the Kings. I mean in the Western Conference Finals, they just couldn't stop Moses Malone. Malone was twenty nine and twelve in Game one, forty two and twenty three in Game four, thirty six and

eleven in Game five. I mean, maybe the series is different if birds Song is healthy and he plays, But this wasn't even close. Like, you know, Okay, we're gonna get this seven games of blood on the floor and hair on the walls, and it was just Houston said, we have the best player. It's Moses Malone, and they rode him all the way through, just like the Lakers or or an Orlando Magic team would do with Shack

when they didn't have a lot or enough behind. It was okay, this is the guy that's gonna get us through. And whereas you know, the Lakers were able to figure out the team around Shack and get it to a championship, but the Rockets that just weren't able to do it. And and like I said, this is the best Moses Malone that you had over the course of his career. Twenty seven point four points per game in this series. Uh dominant in low po So I mean, it's just

when the big men reigns supreme. Right, we watched Bullyball as teams are in you know, two thousand, nineteen, two thousand and twenty. The game changes, but that's still the elemental piece. If you've got a guy that can dominate in the low post and can be remotely functional at the line. Moses was thirty fifty two in this series. But if you're remotely functional, you know that you're not

just gonna play the hack a shack game. But even doing that, I mean, the opportunities are immense to to rack up points and opportunities filed trouble, all of that things, you know, changing the rotations, forcing some of the lesser players in and and Moses, you go back and watch some of that film. He's a man among boys in a lot of cases, just in terms of body structure.

He was. He was a guy that I remember because you know, right around I started watching basketball, right around Bird Magic, right that that was my exposure to it. I remember watching the National Championship game. My uncle was such a big Larry Bird fan, and he was all, let's watch, and I watched, and that was like my birth of basketball. So still I'm learning about a lot of players at this point when I'm this young, and as remember remember Mos and Malone going, this guy is

so great, this guy is so great. And then you know, you see Bird and you see magic play. But Malone, because he's so big and he's so dominant and he could do whatever he wanted to. It was, I don't understand why he doesn't win a championship every single year because he's just that big. But then we watched Malone really get a little bit too big for himself. See what I did there. Yeah, so I get paid that

broadcast professional, my friend, I get that. So the Rockets win and look at like I said, it wasn't a great or a very close series. The Rockets win this and clearly they were the better the team. And like I said, maybe if Otis burn Song played a little bit more, if he was back to being himself, it could have gone a little bit further. But the Rockets go to the finals. They're huge underdogs to the Boston Celtics. Right, the Celtics are walking in here going, oh my god,

we're gonna crush them and win this year. You had, you had the bottom seat in the West. Make it all. We have to worry about the Lakers. The Sun's anybody, and Moses Malone trash talks Boston, who had a tough time keeping up with all the bulletin board material they had to write down all Malone said. He called the Celtics chumps. He said they ain't that good. At one point, he said, I could get four guys off the street in my hometown and we can beat them. I mean

they like it's wrong. Why don't why it? Look if you're gonna go down, go down. Swinging in with a good press headline. He he must have had a great hometown. I mean, that's a great hometown team, I'm telling you. Is it like was it like space jam? We had all the other best players and they were Oh, I got Bernard King, I got a bunch of guys. We're all gonna come and play. Well, we'll beat you. Guys will be great. I like the way that I like

the way you talk. Um. So, while from alone, it probably wasn't the smartest thing to take on the Celtics and and continue to give them material the way they did, he wasn't really wrong because the Celtics, look, they should have won this series going away, but instead the Rockets gave him a tough time with the series was tied to two before the Celtics win the last two games. And one of the reasons why is because this was not a great NBA Finals for Larry Bird. Larry Bird

really struggled many times throughout this. He wasn't the NBA Finals m v P. It was Cedric Maxwell, a big game five he had with eight and fifteen, but Bird didn't play well. If you had a normal NBA Finals from Larry Bird, well maybe then this is a sweep or it's four one. But the Rockets, they hung in a lot longer than people expected, and it took the Celtics at the end to put them away. And I think probably Boston was like, boy, that was tougher than

we thought it was gonna be. But we didn't. We won, but boy, it was tougher than we thought. Well, I mean, they did a great job defending on Bird. Shot was off the entire entire series. The only shot from the field all right, rounded up to forty two. To make him feel better, but just I think he needs that. He needs to feel better. Yeah, well you know what you got to do that off the bricks across the beam through the skylight and score, you know when he's

battling Michael Jordan's for fries uh and McDonald's series. But thirty nine of nine three in the series, only one of three from three point range. That's fine. It barely got to the file line. And when you're shooting that poorly, right,

putting pressure on the other guys to step up. And look, you got a loaded lineup right, all the names, you know, Cedric Maxwell, Robert Parrish, You've got Kevin McHale, mL car like all of these guys playing big roles, and of course Tiny Archibald, everybody's favorite, Chris Ford playing heavy minutes. Those those are all your principles. And even at this point Kevin McHale, you know, played only eighty three minutes in the series, but you're just expecting a walk go over.

And I think we do this every year where there there's always a team that suddenly either plays defense or plays defense just enough to kind of mess things up, right, We've seen that men your Houston Rockets in the season. Well, but just the idea that at least for Bursts, James Harden was playing defense. So you're looking around, going what's

going on? Here again bizarro world, But the same thing here is a guy who is seemingly unstoppable, became mortal for a series and you know, tied to two and then eventually to blow out wins to to finish the finish off the the Houston Rockets. But you look at Moses Malone did everything he could single handedly to try to keep them in it and try to will them towards victory. So he at least backed up the talk.

And you know, you can't fall to good strategy. We say it on the show on Fox Sports Radio all the time. You may not agree with it. It may seem a little wrong headed, poking the bear, but in the end, you know, and then anytime you can get a bunch of press off it and it becomes the stuff of legend where we're talking about it thirty years ago. Of wow, that was interesting. Imagine that in the social media air era. Right, Hey, what did he do? He went on a podcast because he was in the bubble,

he uh started tweeting on it. I mean, what would Moses Malone's burner accounty? Oh no, you know, hey, how about this, I'll tell you exactly what will be said about the Rockets in the Celtics coming off this series ready ahead, Malone had no help twenty two and fifteen in the NBA Finals, Robert Reid, Billy Pulse, nobody was good enough. The guy was trying to do it all by himself when Robert Reid was too busy with three

young boys of his own. And then for Larry Bird, they would say, oh, yeah, you look, he had the stats. You know, it would be like what we would say about Lebron. He only scored fifteen points. Well, he also averaged fifteen rebounds and seven assists. So even though Bird wasn't shooting well, he found other ways to impact the game because he was the leading rebounder and the leading assist maker throughout the entire series. But it would be yeah,

but that's not birds supposed to lead the team. And it was a bad time. Look. He shot horrendously and it kept it kept the Rockets in in in games because he didn't score more than more than fifteen in a game, but he still pulled down fifteen rebounds. I mean, he had fifteen. This is this is him and Moses Malone.

Fifteen rebounds per game and seven assists for Bird, it was a great all around, but it would be, oh, yeah, Lebron, Lebron couldn't win the m v P. Cedric Maxwell won the m v P. Lebron couldn't win the m v P. Alex Caruso won the m v P. This is not a real title for Lebron, That's exact. That's what would be said about Lebron now. Would be the same thing being said about the Celtics back then. Larry Bird isn't

that good, He's overrated. He would have done he would have scored, We should have scored at least twenty five a game. That's exactly what people would say. System player, what do you want? Well, I mean, look, as we go through the annals of NBA history, I mean there are certain periods where it's like, all right, where was the competition? And I look squarely at the earlies, earlier Celtics. No disrespect to the great Bill Russell and his teammates.

You know, they were running circles around the rest of the league. Uh as you roll through. Likewise, this Celtics squad was in the midst of another monster run, right, a huge decade plus run atop the Eastern Conference. So for Larry Bird, yeah, I mean you want to go all around? Right? Was he taken the big shot at the end? Was he and all of the things that you ascribe to Lebron James or in in certain superstar here that it'd be just fun to watch how the

series would get broken down as they played out. So now you see what I mean when I say two teams that weren't really good, that we're the worst and turned into potentially the best. This is the upside down year that was Jason Smith, Mike Harmon. Our show is heard. Our radio show has heard, five nights a week on Fox Sports Radio, Monday through Friday, ten pm two two am on the East coast, seven to eleven on the West coast. Hit us up on Twitter at how about

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