1981 NBA Eastern Conference Finals Game 7 Celtics Vs. 76ers

For Christmas, I got a “Boston Celtics: The Complete History” box set. It features 5 discs / 1,141 minutues of Celtics basketball with highlights of their championship seasons and even entire games. Now, I'm a recent convert to Celtics basketball so this box set is an excellent training ground. My favorite part of the box set is the entire-length games. While you can definitely get a feel for the game by watching montages or documentaries, its just a whole other experience to actually get to see a full length game from 30 or so years ago. I recently watched the seventh game of the 1981 Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers. With the series tied 3 to 3, the 7^th game was played at the Boston Garden. Larry Bird's a newbie in the NBA (his 2^nd season) and Dr. J is leading the 76ers who are trying desperately to win a title. It's been a fierce series up to this point and this game goes down to the final seconds.

As a basketball lover, I enjoyed watching this game on many levels. It was a chance to see Larry Bird and Julius Erving in action. It was a chance to see Robert Parrish (Celtics center) actually in his prime (when I last remember seeing him - in 1992 or 1993, while at a Celtics game - he was running out of steam). Most importantly, it was a chance to see the game played in a different way than it is today.

The speed of the game was intense. It felt more like a college game than the NBA basketball you see today. There were almost no dunks; it was a lot of jump shots and a lot of fast breaks. Both Bird and Erving were somehow in the background throughout the game. They managed to quietly lead their teams in scoring and most other stats for the first half but they weren't the obvious stars of the game. I was expecting to see Dr. J's tomahawk dunks and Bird's 3 point shots and wild passes. I don't think Julius dunked once. Bird was most prominent on the offensive boards, working like a mad man. It wasn't til the very end that Bird cranked out a nasty spin move on his defender and wound up for a dunk (which missed because of a foul). I was also surprised at the play of the point guards. I'm used to seeing guards cross half court and walk up, sizing up the defense face-on. In this game, however, I noticed Celtics guard “Tiny” Nate Archibald “posting up” on his defender at around the 3 point line – this seemed very bizarre, but I guess it did give him some leverage. A refreshing thing I noticed was the conspicuous lack of complaining. No matter which way the ref's calls went, there was rarely any bickering from the players (at least not televised bickering). ***RANT ALERT*** It's pretty obscene how often you see players whining about calls now. The crossover between athletics and entertainment is way too murky now and for this we have a lot of primadona players. I mean, in 1981, for this Celtics / 76ers game, you could still find a lot of empty seats in the stands and even during a finals game there was patchy attendance. Really not the case now. The NBA in 1981 wasn't the guaranteed primetime entertainment it currently is. Bird and Magic Johnson, then Michael Jordan, did much to bring in the current era with players getting crazy endorsements and basketball games getting a lot of play on television...BUT...that's another article.

Some interesting elements to the game: the lack of any kind of game clock displayed on the screen. Only when it got down to the last minute(s) of a given “period” (not quarters yet), did you see how much time was left. It was funny to hear the announcer say: “that looked like 'offensive goaltending'.” Offensive goaltending? The player had tipped in a missed shot that was rolling off the rim. This is pretty standard procedure now and makes for some righteous put-back dunks. I guess it was cause for debate in 1981. Before the commercial breaks, you'd hear brief snippets of either Heart's “Crazy on You” or Kool and the Gang's “Celebration” which was pretty great. The players were sporting moustaches, very short shorts and very high socks. Suffice to say, NBA basketball was quite different in 1981.