YouTube Gold: Dr J, Bird And Magic On The ‘96 Bulls

Here’s a great piece of video from the 1996 NBA playoffs when the Chicago Bulls faced the Seattle SuperSonics in the finals.

Bob Costas is speakng to Julius Erving, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird at the half of a game where Seattle is apparently crushing the Bulls and asks each of them their opinion about the greatness of the Bulls. Interestingly, all of them give some variation of the same answer: they’re a great team but we were too big for them.

And they all had a point.

The Sixers had Moses Malone and Bobby Jones, both superb. The Lakers had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who could score on a skyhook from almost anywhere on the court. Johnson was 6-9 as was James Worthy.

And of course Bird’s Celtics had a frontline of Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish.

We’re reasonably sure that Dennis Rodman, a brilliant defender, could have taken some of those guys out but there was only one Worm.

It’s impossible to know for sure, but it seems reasonably to say this: someone on each of those teams would have had a major mismatch to exploit against the Bulls.