Larry Bird - Greatest Clutch Player Ever - Top 3-5 GOAT

[gengiskhan]

Greatest Clutch Player Ever in NBA History freaking Half court Game Winner Buzzer Beater


"Bird Tells X-Man exactly what buzzer beater he's going to shoot in his face" & does exactly that with double team on him"


Bird hits turn around fade away Buzzer beater in Magic's face to even NBA Finals series


"Bird Tells X-man exactly from the spot he will shoot game winner."

Bird Schools Jordan with Fade away Buzzer Beater

Not just 3 MVPs, Finals MVPs, Bird's whole career is Clutch game winners, buzzer beaters. Gets only better in POs. "Legend" gets bigger & Better.

Defensive specialist Dennis Rodman got so jealous of Bird destroying Pistons in POs every year, he used a Race card to insult Bird.

[Friday]

sorry but the greatest clutch player ever is michael jordan

[RRR3]

Genghispauk is like the NBA Forum version of drunk Gundress

Genghiskhan is not Pauk. At least Pauk can be a good poster when he actually tries (which is sadly only about 1% of the time, but hey....). Genghis is just insane (we get it, Genghis you like MJ and hate Kobe)

[L8kersfan222]

larry legend

[Inception28]

Greatest White Player Ever.

[OldSchoolBBall]

Bird Schools Jordan with Fade away Buzzer Beater

You mean schools Pippen, who was Bird's defender - MJ was the help defender there and missed the block by half a second. Regardless, Bird is a top 2 clutch player ever imo along with Jordan, and peak-wise, he's right there in the top 4-5 imo (with KAJ, MJ, Shaq being the only 3 definitely above him and you can also make cases for Wilt and Hakeem, though I disagree).

[Duncan21formvp]

Bird was good, but I disagree with his clutch play.

Poster by the name "Colts18" put together the info here.

Just look at Bird's long list of playoff failures while Dirk improves his play in the postseason:

1980- Averaged a .511 TS% in the postseason. In game 5 vs. the Sixers, he shot poorly, 5-19 with just 12 points, as the Celtics lost the game. His man (Dr. J) averaged 25 PPG in this series. His team loses in 5 games despite having HCA and winning 61 games. Had a 18.3 PER in the postseason

1981- Has a .532 TS% in the postseason. He had a bad finals where he averaged just 15 PPG on .419 shooting and .460 TS%.

1982- PPG average dropped from 22.9 PPG to 17.8 PPG. He has an embarrassing .474 TS% in the playoffs. He averaged a pedestrian 18.3 PPG against the Sixers. Averages 17 PPG in the final 2 games of the series. The Celtics lose again with HCA. The Celtics won 63 games and had the #1 SRS in the league. Has a 17.9 PER in the postseason.

1983- The Celtics get swept by the Bucks. The Celtics win 56 games and had the #2 SRS in the league and lose again with HCA. Bird plays awful again. .478 TS%. His PPG average drops 2 PPG in the playoffs. Bird missed a game in the series but that game happened to be the closest one (Celtics lose by 4). In the 3 other games, the Celtics lose by 14.3 PPG with Bird on the court.

1984- Great playoffs. Averaged 27-14-4 in the Finals and had a .607 TS% in the playoffs. First great playoff of his career. Celtics win the title over the Lakers.

1985- Celtics make the finals, but Bird's numbers drop in the playoffs. His PPG drops by 2.8 PPG, Reb by 1.2 Reb, and AST by 0.7 AST. Had an average .536 TS% in the postseason. Bird plays even worse in the finals. His PPG dropped 4.9 PPG, his Reb 1.7 Reb, and AST by 1.6 AST in the finals compared to his regular season average. His Finals TS% is just .527. Not only that, but Celtics finish with 63 wins and lose once again with HCA a constant theme in Bird's career. This is the first time in Celtics history they lost in the finals with HCA.

1986- Great year. His best year ever. Wins the title. .615 TS% in the postseason and amazing finals.

1987- I think this is his most admirable playoffs up until the finals. The Celtics were quite banged up this year. Averaged 27-10-7 in the postseason with .577 TS%. Though his numbers in the finals dropped off once again. His PPG was 3.9 PPG down from the regular season, AST down by 2.1 AST and his TS% was just .534. In game 6, Bird scored just 16 points on 6-16 (.375) shooting. In the final 3 games of this series, Bird averaged just 20 PPG on .377 shooting and .492 TS% with 3.7 TOV. This is the first time Bird has played without HCA in the playoffs and his team loses.

1988- Bird's PPG drops by 5.4 PPG, Reb by 0.5 Reb. Bird shoots an awful 40-114 (.351) against the Pistons. Has a mediocre .538 TS% and 20.2 PER in the playoffs. The Celtics had HCA and the #1 SRS in the league and you probably guessed what happened next, Larry Bird loses with HCA once again.

1989- Injured doesn't play in the postseason.

1990- Bird shoots .539 TS% and has 3.6 TOV as the Celtics once again you guessed it, lose with HCA.

1991- In the first round, his team needs to go 5 vs. the 41 win Pacers. His PPG drop by 2.3 PPG and his Rebounds and Assists also drop quite a bit. Has a .490 TS% 15.8 PER in the playoffs. Against the Pistons Bird averages 13.4 PPG on .446 TS%. His 56 win team played with you guessed it HCA and loses with it.

1992- Doesn't play in the first round as the Celtics sweep the Pacers. In round 2, his team goes 7 against the Cavs, but Bird plays in 4 games and his team was 1-3 in those games. Averages a pathetic 11.3 PPG and 4.5 Reb which are 8.4 PPG and 5.2 Reb down from his regular season average. He has a .514 TS% and 16.4 PER in the postseason.


So out of 12 years, you get 9 years under .540 TS%, 5 under .520 TS%, and 3 under .500 TS%. From 80-83, he had a 19.9 playoff PER. In that span, Johnny Moore, Franklin Edwards, Gus Williams, and Bob Lanier all had better playoff PER and WS/48. Teammates Parish, McHale, Tiny Archibald, and Cedric Maxwell had better TS% in that span. From 88-92, he had a 18.8 PER which is 25th among players with 10 playoff games played. Players who had better playoff PER's in that span include Fat Lever, Terry Cummings, Roy Tarpley, Cedric Ceballos, and Sarunas Marciulionis. His teammates Reggie Lewis and Kevin McHale had better playoff PER's in that span.

With Bird you get a nice 4 year run that had 4 straight finals appearances but outside of that you get a 4 year span of .505 TS% (80-83) and a .525 TS% span (88-92). In 12 years, you get 7 losses with HCA. Basically out of Bird's 13 year career, you have 1 injury season and 3 non-descript postseasons at the end of his plus some playoff disappointments early in his career.

[PTB Fan]

Larry Bird is the greatest clutch shooter ever and arguably greatest clutch player ever as well.

[97 bulls]

Bird was good, but I disagree with his clutch play.

Poster by the name "Colts18" put together the info here.

Great post. Larry Bird is the only player on ish that has never been had his career questioned or attacked. And while he was great, he obviouusly had flaws like everybody else.

[Jacks3]

Bird was good, but I disagree with his clutch play.

Poster by the name "Colts18" put together the info here.

Hilarious how his post-season failings are never discussed compared to other guys....

[DMAVS41]

Great post. Larry Bird is the only player on ish that has never been had his career questioned or attacked. And while he was great, he obviouusly had flaws like everybody else.

Because most posters here did not see Bird play. I've talked quite a bit about Bird and his playoff play....same with JLAUBER

Bird was great, but he was far from perfect....

[Duncan21formvp]

Larry Bird is the greatest clutch shooter ever and arguably greatest clutch player ever as well.

disagree. how can you be the greatest clutch player ever when you lost more series with HCA than any other star in NBA History and never won a series without HCA?

[97 bulls]

Because most posters here did not see Bird play. I've talked quite a bit about Bird and his playoff play....same with JLAUBER

Bird was great, but he was far from perfect....

Very true. I remember jlauber saying birds fg% if going off todays league, would be around 42 to 46%. Notthing very special.

[fos]

IMO Larry Bird is second only to the incomparable Michael Jordan.

[ShaqAttack3234]

I remember jlauber saying birds fg% if going off todays league, would be around 42 to 46%. Notthing very special.

That's what JLauber says he'd shoot, which says nothing about what Bird would actually shoot today.

Look at what Bird was doing with really bad back from age 33-35 from '90-'92. Seasons of 24/10/8, 47 FG%, 19/9/7, 45 FG%, 20/10/7, 47 FG% respectively those 3 years. And he got better as the '90 season went on, commentators were pointing out how his shooting was less consistent due to injuries and rust(he basically missed the '89 season), but averaged 27/10/7 on 49/39/93 shooting percentages after the break.

Boston was also 26-5 before Bird missed any games in '91 and he was shooting 48% at that point. They ended up going 46-14 with him and 10-12 without him.

This version of Bird well into his 30's with a really bad back still had a good amount of those high scoring triple double/near triple double games that everyone went crazy over when Lebron was doing it recently in his prime. I'm talking about games of 50/13/7, 49/14/2/4, 46/8/10, 45/8/8/5, 43/8/13, 43/15/6, 40/11/10 ect.

This was an aging, broken down Bird in the 90's, by the way. This wasn't '84-'88 Bird.