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Spurs V Jordan Bulls!
i know, these kinds of discussions are old bits, but still -- the finals suck and are barely worth talking about, AND the spurs are on the verge of becoming a "dynasty".
anyhow, 3-headed monsters have ALWAYS given jordan's teams fits:
all of them have beaten jordan's bulls and all just became too old to sustain the beatings.
duncan, ginobli, parker may NOT be the worst of the 3-headed monsters i noted, so i think the spurs would have a definite chance against those bulls teams who never really had a challenge to their crown.
Which Bulls team would the Spurs be playing against,the first or the second 3-peat?
Not like it really matters as Jordan would drop 40 a game on them,and the Bull's would win the series in 6.
Unlike Lebron,Jordan will get his calls and live on the free throw line.Pippen will dominate since they'll be no one to guard him assuming Bowen will play Jordan.
I think the Shaq and Kobe Lakers would be a better match up,even though I think the Bulls beat them too.
Yeah, when Jordan had problems was before he had a full team around him. He was a beast on D too in his prime and the Spurs wouldn't put up enough points to hang with them.
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see, what happens here is that as time goes by, we tend to overrate teams, imo. the spurs were at least as good as the bad boy pistons, and they flat out beat up the bulls for 3 years. they were WELL into their decline though, and so coudln't sustain their dominance.
the bulls beat no one in the spurs league in any of their championships. the knicks were arguably their best competition. and the spurs are much better than they were AND the knicks were able to give the bulls a solid run for their money.
with the hardcore defense they can play, i still think the spurs could definitely win a series between them.
01 Lakers would've beat Jordan's Bulls. As much as I hate them, that team was much more dominant than any of Jordan's teams in the playoffs and they went through a much tougher conference in which they went an amazing 15 and 1. You can say all you want about Jordan but Shaq was in his prime during the 01 season and would've averaged 40ppg against the Bulls and Kobe, while at the time being okay as the side kick, could put up 8/10 of what Jordan could do scoring wise. Not to mention that the Lakers were an excellent defensive team.
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Sure the Piston's were getting old.Jordan and company weren't in their prime,well Jordan and Pippen certainly weren't.
As good as the Bulls Defensively? highly doubtful.
Kobe 8/10 of Jordan's scoring? never that especially if it was Jordan Defending him.All the close games would go the Bulls,Kobe wasn't the clutch player that he is now.
The series would be close though 7 games probably.
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Last edited by Mr.Biscuits on Jun 13th, 2007 at 04:05 PM
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no argument there.
my initial point (and i think it still stands) was that teams that presented multiple highly versatile scoring options did well against the bulls. the spurs fit that bill. at various times in the regular season and playoffs, ginobli, parker or duncan can/have carried their team offensively. shutting down 2/3 isn't always enough, and the bulls would have had hell trying to handle duncan who was FAR better in the paint (offensively AND defensively) than anyone the bulls had. rodman was overrated, imo, and too small to handle duncan. they'd need to double team him like everyone else, and the spurs have the other players to make them pay. again, imo, if the knicks could give the best of the bulls team a scare, the spurs could beat them, imo.
the spurs are also NOT afraid of getting rough if they need to -- ask nash. the bulls never really liked teams that muscled them around (knicks, pistons) the knicks just weren't talented enough to do anything EXCEPT roughhouse.
i agree. the 80s teams would CERTAINLY have been able to take the bulls out as well when they were in their prime.
Good question. The Spurs may have beaten some of the Bulls' championship teams. However, they would not have sniffed the 1996 Bulls (referred to by most as the single season greatest NBA team ever) championship team's jock.
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Re: Re: Spurs V Jordan Bulls!
i agree with the former. i'm not completely sold on the latter. that team wasn't significantly better or different from many of the others -- they DID seem to be clicking on all cylinders all the time though, so you may be right. it's possible in THAT given year no one would have stopped them. destiny anyone?
That 1996 team had just so much going for them. And yes, whether on all cylinders or not, they fit a championship team picture like a nicely glued puzzle. There have been other great teams-no doubt. But, I'll run down a synapsis of what it'd look like with this year's Spurs against the 1996 Bulls.
I think we all know what MJ can do defensively and offensively. There is no one to this day that I've seen slow him down other than Joe Dumars, BECAUSE Joey made MJ guard him on the offensive end also. That was the secret. He refused to accept being gaurded. ..had a ticker like MJ, just not the tools. Few are born with that heart. Also, I don't care who else is brought up, Bowen, Manu or whomever-would not be able to stop Michael. First, you have to overcome that it's already the greatest player ever with the ball in front of you. Once you get past the mystique, you'd have to deal with the embarassment of picking up your jockstrap everytime you saw a picture flash, because you just became his next victim in some 10 year old's bedroom poster. Believe me, Bowen would crap his pants having to guard Mikey from the top suddenly seeing every other Bull spread out 15+ feet. Tim, you back there? Given the benefit of the doubt, let's say that MJ is maybe reduced to 28 points a game instead of 40. The problem is he is also defending your best scoring guard. This does not wash out favorably for an oppenent. I'd like to see Parker going against MJ one on one. All those easy baskets and layups would either have to suddenly become assists or turnovers, they do not become points. If he gets off MJ from a pick, he's got Pip lurking and Rodman just walling up in front of him. End result: It becomes a difficult assist or shot.
Now we have Pippen-again, a nightmare for any small forward to account for at either end. End result-you lose. He'd probably be put on Manu. Manu is giving inches and arm span. Not a fun matchup for him. Even if you slow him down on the offensive end, he has taken away more from you on the defensive end.
Rodman-afraid of no one, and pound for pound, inch for inch the greatest rebounder to play the game. He wouldn't chip in a point, but your power forward will have to work ALLLLLL day to keep him off both ends of the glass. He was nasty, tenacious, and a psychological nightmare. IF TD couldn't keep a ref out of his head, how is going to keep Rodman out of it? Give Duncan the edge, but TD would be exhausted every night. The bottom line is his O doesn't compensate for the lost O of Manu and TP.
Paxson-boring, but incredibly efficient and productive. It becomes very easy to do what you need to do with the other 3 above. A lethal 3 point gunner when he needed to be; and if you were "out there" on him, you just created MORE spacing for MJ and Pip to operate; and Rodman to snare to a board. Choose your poison. Lesser PG's could have stepped in nicely and the team would not have skipped a beat. But Pax was a nice piece....didn't need to be a star and knew it. That was the key. He just had to contribute when asked.
Center-serviceable, but nothing special. Did it matter, anyway? If YOU HAD A GOOD ONE, the Bulls had 18 fouls to give to bludgeon the crap out of your guy. Ask Lambeer, Shaq, and Ewing what it was like. They'll tell ya'.
6th man? Kukoc-he'd give up 20, but could easily score 21 if he needed to.
Bench? The Bulls always had such an underrated bench-specialists everywhere you look-energy man, 3 point shooter, instant O man, another decent defender, another 12 fouls, blah, blah, blah, you get the picture.
They make a big deal about Jordan being successful without a good big man, but really he didn't go up against a lot of them. The best big guys he has beaten were Ewing, Zo, and Shaq. Although Shaq's team did beat Jordan's once and the Spurs are a lot better than that Magic team. Yes, Jordan's Bulls bounced back the next year, but if they went against a strong defensive 'team' with a great big man, they may struggle.
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Indeed. 2 wins against the greatest single season team ever is a big accomplishment, especially in 7 game series. The Spurs have the talent.... is definitely there to stretch the Bulls to a hard 7 games.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Spurs V Jordan Bulls!
can't say it's not a well-thought-out post.
you may well be right. the advantage the bulls had -- always -- was jordan's ability to do whatever was needed to win. it's hard to measure that and to account for it.
still, your scenario is plausible, but . . .
it could also be something like duncan getting into rodman's crazy head, rodman getting ticked and getting technicals and getting the boot or just getting thrown off his game and being a non-factor. i agree with the hacka-duncan though, but he'd still get his 25-30 assuming he could hit his free throws -- a question no doubt.
one thing we can both agree on i think -- it'd be a very good series. and i'm . . . pretty sure it would have better ratings than THIS series does.
There was a telling stat today on Sportscenter. Something like 4 of the lowest 8 scores ever in a winning effort in the Finals were from this Spurs dynasty in the last few years. And one of the other 4 was a team playing against one of those Spurs teams. Meaning, the Spurs have consistently been a part of the lowest scoring Finals games ever.
I can see them being competitive, even winning some games and making it a series. Hell, maybe they're better defensively because they have a true big man. But 8/10 times, the Bulls are just going to put up more points than the Spurs can muster.
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hmm, an interesting stat. but i'd be more interested in knowing how many of those games they WON. i could honestly jordan getting his 30-35, but they would put the clamps on everyone else like they've done to cleveland. none of the support are getting lose like they did against detroit, another strong defensive team.
bobby put a good argument forward, but i'd say it was a lot closer than you're saying digi.
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Jun 13th, 2007 01:53 PM
