Speaker 1: This podcast is part of the seventy Sixers podcast network
Speaker 1: search seventy Sixers podcast wherever you get your pods. This
Speaker 1: week's edition of Tom's Talks takes us outside the Sixers circle.
Speaker 1: The first game of the restarts against the Indiana Pacers.
Speaker 1: The long time TV analyst of the Pacers is Quinn Buckner.
Speaker 1: He gives us inside into that matchup and has high
Speaker 1: praise for the seventy Sixers. Also, Quinn Buckner has a
Speaker 1: basketball resume that few can match. A winner at every level.
Speaker 1: He won the state championship in high school in Illinois,
Speaker 1: the NCUBAA championship at Indiana, and Olympic gold medal with
Speaker 1: the US team in seventy six and an NBA championship
Speaker 1: with Boston in nineteen eighty four. He talks about those teams,
Speaker 1: plus he touches on Bobby Night, Red Hourback, Michael Jordan,
Speaker 1: and Moore on this week's Tom's Talks podcast. Welcome to
Speaker 1: another edition at Mom's Talks, and we're joined by Quinn Buckner,
Speaker 1: one of the winningest basketball players in the history of
Speaker 1: our sport, and he joins us. I'm assuming from Indiana, Quinn,
Speaker 1: where he's getting ready to call the patient's games in
Speaker 1: the NBA restart and one thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: How is life in Indiana, Well, Thomas, it's it's like
Speaker 1: a lot of other places. I think our state has
Speaker 1: done a pretty good job trying to manage COVID, and
Speaker 1: you have the social unrest and that's that's tapering on.
Speaker 1: But COVID is managed your bowl and I use that
Speaker 1: word in quotes, but we're all in all, I'm on
Speaker 1: the right side of the grass and all the important
Speaker 1: things are fine. Thank you. So you're getting ready to
Speaker 1: call these games? I know Fox Sports Indiana has announced
Speaker 1: that they are going to call all the games. Production means,
Speaker 1: what do you think that's going to be like for
Speaker 1: you and Chris to call the game not at the
Speaker 1: site but back there in Indiana when the games are
Speaker 1: being played in Orlando. Well, we remotely did this when
Speaker 1: the patients played SA Cremental in India. And I've been
Speaker 1: blessed enough, and I know you have two time to
Speaker 1: be in this business long enough that periodically you do that.
Speaker 1: I've done world feeds and be on a site other
Speaker 1: than where the event has occurred. This will be a
Speaker 1: little different, only because I think there's got to be
Speaker 1: some social distancing in terms of what you normally see
Speaker 1: on a broadcast because normally played by playing analysts are
Speaker 1: seated together. That's probably not going to be the case
Speaker 1: at least six feet apart. But as a rule, this
Speaker 1: is something we've done before. We will make it interesting though,
Speaker 1: is the fact that you don't have fans because one
Speaker 1: of the things that I think when you do games remote,
Speaker 1: you're able to get some audio feed that gives you
Speaker 1: a sense of the arena and it allows you to
Speaker 1: generate a certain amount of energy or really just receive
Speaker 1: a certain amount of energy. Here. I think this is
Speaker 1: going to be much like studio where you're at a
Speaker 1: game and that has all the energy comes back to
Speaker 1: the studio and you have to generate your own energy
Speaker 1: in order to have the fans feel engaged that with
Speaker 1: you because you're not on site. So that will make
Speaker 1: it interesting. But for me, it's just fun and I'll
Speaker 1: be another challenge, and I actually kind of like the
Speaker 1: idea of doing it. Really. One of the reasons we're
Speaker 1: having you on it's the Sixes and Pacers are going
Speaker 1: to play the first official game for it's both these
Speaker 1: teams in the restart and of course they're tied in
Speaker 1: the Eastern Conference right now in fifth in sixth place.
Speaker 1: The Pacers at the edge of the key game one
Speaker 1: series Invis, what do you think about that's the first game,
Speaker 1: and of course for you guys, the status of both
Speaker 1: Broaddain as we speak in all the depot is key.
Speaker 1: But the Pacers going forward as we get we started
Speaker 1: and playing the Sixers in the first game, well, I
Speaker 1: think it's going to be difficult for everybody. And this
Speaker 1: is just my perception of this. You've got young men
Speaker 1: that have to unpack a whole lot given life in
Speaker 1: the last four or five months. And what this is
Speaker 1: coming down to is it's this is a cliche as
Speaker 1: it can get its mental toughness. Who can really find
Speaker 1: a way to resharpen if you will that tool and
Speaker 1: the tool being the mental tool. You got two weeks
Speaker 1: to work on your physical skills. I think that will
Speaker 1: help and hopefully keep guys from being injured. But I
Speaker 1: still think that this has as much as a mental aspect.
Speaker 1: Now you lose depending on what happens with Victor and Malcolm.
Speaker 1: Those are two of your top line players and you
Speaker 1: there's some uncertainty, I say for sure. About Victor, I
Speaker 1: don't know about Malcolm. Malcolm is back and I know
Speaker 1: he's he's back working out, and Victor has been working out.
Speaker 1: So the question is whether or not they have been
Speaker 1: able to do this on a consistent basis. But look
Speaker 1: planned the Sixers, you know, do you see it all
Speaker 1: the time? They're no joke, I mean, really talented team.
Speaker 1: You've added, you know, Shakee Milton has been one of those.
Speaker 1: I think one of the real surprises in the leagues,
Speaker 1: one of the shocks in the league. You're looking to
Speaker 1: add some perimeter shooting with him at forty five percent
Speaker 1: from a three line, so you're now doing that and
Speaker 1: Ben Simmons at four wh so you you But in
Speaker 1: the meantime, you're probably going to have more ball handlers
Speaker 1: on the floor, so you become a different team to
Speaker 1: play against. And that's what's interesting that the Pacers have
Speaker 1: to be prepared to play a team in the first
Speaker 1: game that's very different than the pacer of the six
Speaker 1: Ers team that they've played before, and so I think
Speaker 1: it'll be a task, but it still depends on who
Speaker 1: is better prepared. I think much more from a mental
Speaker 1: standpoint than a physical standpoint. One of the players that's
Speaker 1: been a bench contributor for the Pacers his former sixer team,
Speaker 1: Gay McConnell. What have you seen and what if you
Speaker 1: like fromcconnell in his one year and in the end,
Speaker 1: the same thing all all the Philly loves. You gotta
Speaker 1: love a guy who brings it. I mean, he matches
Speaker 1: his he matches what he can do from a pure
Speaker 1: basketball standpoint and from a physical standpoint. But he's a
Speaker 1: great I think he does a great job helping the
Speaker 1: team on the floor aggregate or get to come together
Speaker 1: because he's a guy that finds open people. He's got
Speaker 1: some Tenna City about it. He's gotten real toughness about it,
Speaker 1: high level understanding, and a really good teammate. And you know,
Speaker 1: I like him because he reminds me a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that I've seen other players who have limited
Speaker 1: skills do but do it. He's not as big as everybody,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't care about that. He knows what he
Speaker 1: can do. He's confident in it, and his teammates a
Speaker 1: confident that he'll come in and make a contribution. He's
Speaker 1: been a great addition with the second unit, and particularly
Speaker 1: when he and Si Bonus are in there together. The
Speaker 1: second unit for the Pacers' is very effective because TJ
Speaker 1: knows who needs what, when and where, how to get
Speaker 1: it in and out of places, and a lot of again,
Speaker 1: a lot of the great things you saw when he
Speaker 1: was a Sixer he brought to the Pacers because of
Speaker 1: the second unit. McDermott was talking that the Pacers as
Speaker 1: a whole are you got some players that were already
Speaker 1: treated or had to come there in the case of
Speaker 1: Brocken as a free agent, but Si Bonus and then
Speaker 1: the guy and the other TJ that not a lot
Speaker 1: of people talk about is TJ Warren and he had
Speaker 1: like a twenty eight thirty point game. Again to sixers,
Speaker 1: it's a group that has, I think something to prove.
Speaker 1: And speaking of Indiana, well, I think that's what Kevin Pritchett,
Speaker 1: the president of Basketball, is really gotten. You get guys
Speaker 1: that are underappreciated, if you will, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what that situation is. And when you have guys like
Speaker 1: that who come in and people don't necessarily give them
Speaker 1: maybe the kind of respect that they feel like they do,
Speaker 1: they know they have to continue to earn it. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've always thought about. Our
Speaker 1: league is a team that can play the hardest and
Speaker 1: the longest or and ors, if you will stay motivated,
Speaker 1: has the best chance to win. So you get a
Speaker 1: number of guys like that, and you're right. T J.
Speaker 1: Warrens has been a welcome surprise. And I say welcome,
Speaker 1: but not because of his offense. T J. Warren is
Speaker 1: a good defensive player, and I don't think anybody thought that.
Speaker 1: So he's now combining that which he stretched the three
Speaker 1: ball out, and now he's doing that with consistency. He's
Speaker 1: become a tough player to guard on offense, but he's
Speaker 1: a tough player to play against when he's playing defensively.
Speaker 1: So there's some really good things with him coming over
Speaker 1: to the team as well. All right, let's turn to
Speaker 1: Quinn Buckner, as I said, a champion multiple times at
Speaker 1: both high school, college, the Olympics, the NBA, and we'll
Speaker 1: get into the NBA. You were with the eighty four
Speaker 1: Celtics team that won the championship. But it all started
Speaker 1: for you, not even in Indiana, but at Dalton Thorndridge
Speaker 1: High School and for our Philadelphia fans, that's right in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood where Donovan McNabb grew up, and two a
Speaker 1: state champion in like nineteen seventy four. You want to right,
Speaker 1: wasn't that two times in a round. Yeah, I'm my
Speaker 1: high school team, and I'm proud of all of my teams.
Speaker 1: My high school teams were really good. We wanted. We
Speaker 1: only lost one game between my junior senior year in
Speaker 1: high school, and we won the state championship both times
Speaker 1: undefeated my senior year and had really good players on
Speaker 1: guys that are just you know, a lot like teams
Speaker 1: that I've been blessed enough to play on. They just
Speaker 1: played it and they play for each other. And this
Speaker 1: outside of Chicago, so we have to play some schools
Speaker 1: in Chicago and still was able to withstand that, and
Speaker 1: being from Philly, you know how it is when you've
Speaker 1: got the suburban schools, people don't quite have the same
Speaker 1: appreciation for your game. And being able to be some
Speaker 1: of the Chicago schools periodically, I enjoyed that as much
Speaker 1: as anything else. So that championship was in March of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, and like Indiana, in Illinois, it was
Speaker 1: just a huge thing, like to go downstage and lead
Speaker 1: aid and I've shared this with you before and I laughed,
Speaker 1: But in this forum I happen. And so I was
Speaker 1: in fifth grade and you were a senior at dolg
Speaker 1: Thorndridge High School. At Recess, I would go out there,
Speaker 1: we would pick up and I had to be Quinn Buckler.
Speaker 1: But like I said, everybody wanted to be Quinn Buckner
Speaker 1: those some days I had to be Boyd Back. That
Speaker 1: brings your back a little bit. Uh yeah, boy Batts
Speaker 1: was actually the best player on our team from a
Speaker 1: pure skilled perspective. He was six six. A lot of
Speaker 1: the things you could see with guys of that size,
Speaker 1: you see to Dave routine Lee. Six six guys can
Speaker 1: handle the ball. He played center for us. He can
Speaker 1: make shots, he could block shots. There wasn't anything he
Speaker 1: couldn't do. He every now and then we'd have to
Speaker 1: kind of jerk him back into you know, you're playing
Speaker 1: with a team, you're not playing for yourself. So he
Speaker 1: was a terrific player. And we had great roles who
Speaker 1: was a great athlete and a terrific shooter. But I
Speaker 1: look guard Mike Bondsick was really the key because he
Speaker 1: was a kid who his father had been a coach,
Speaker 1: and because of that, he understood how to pull people together,
Speaker 1: could past the ball. He'd hit you in the head
Speaker 1: with it if you weren't paying attention. So it brought
Speaker 1: something there. But and then the other guy we had
Speaker 1: was Ernie Done, and Ernie Done was by far the
Speaker 1: intellectually the brightest guy that we had on the team,
Speaker 1: and he knew how to be a really good teammate
Speaker 1: and had solid skills. Not great, had solid skills. I'm
Speaker 1: a football player, honestly, that played basketball, and I was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a man child, more so in
Speaker 1: elementary school but in high school as well, because I
Speaker 1: was on When I left elementary school, I was about
Speaker 1: six feet in one hundred and eighty. I was big
Speaker 1: then so and my dad had played sports, so I
Speaker 1: had a mentality which I carried through my entire life
Speaker 1: about I was never going to be the best athlete,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't as I worked on my game, but
Speaker 1: I worked. That's the shoulders down. My father helped me
Speaker 1: understand shoulders up part of the game, and that's really
Speaker 1: what I think enabled me to be able to play
Speaker 1: with really good players and accept whether I could make
Speaker 1: a contribution in one place or another. Right, So he
Speaker 1: played in the defensive secondary in high school. And you
Speaker 1: actually went to Indiana, as we know, and we're going
Speaker 1: to get into with the basketball, but you've played from
Speaker 1: the mistaken defensive back for two years under who's your
Speaker 1: football team? Yeah, I played. I played football all four
Speaker 1: years of high school, and you're right. I was a
Speaker 1: defensive back and played I played a little all of
Speaker 1: skill positions except quarterback. When I got to college, I
Speaker 1: got ready to go to college. My father had gone
Speaker 1: and my father, my father was a god Busses, so
Speaker 1: it was ahead of me many many years. So I
Speaker 1: go to Indiana. I had never seen coach and I
Speaker 1: coach had no idea what I was getting into. But
Speaker 1: I you know that era it is whomever is in charge,
Speaker 1: you respect to do what they ask. My father put
Speaker 1: me on a football scholarship and I asked him about
Speaker 1: that and I said why. He said, because I didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily want coach. He knew how coach coach. I didn't
Speaker 1: want him to have that kind of control over you.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was an interesting observation. I asked
Speaker 1: him that actually after I was done. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: played two years of football. I started at free safety
Speaker 1: and and now I can honestly, I had a gift.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you I had a gift as six
Speaker 1: to two hundred at that time, I'm running a four
Speaker 1: or five forty as a free safety and so, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't afraid of the game. And you can't be
Speaker 1: afraid of football football. You gotta play, and you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta listen. You gotta be prepared to take somebody's
Speaker 1: head off, because for sure they're doing that. So I
Speaker 1: did that for two years and it was fun. But
Speaker 1: my passion was basketball. My greatest gift was athletic ability football.
Speaker 1: My passion was basketball, and that's how I ended up
Speaker 1: being a basketball player. And what a crew. I mean
Speaker 1: the Indiana Hoosiers and again I shared on a Farm
Speaker 1: Bureau Insurance television. I got to watch those games. And
Speaker 1: what people forget. People may remember that Indiana won the
Speaker 1: nine the national championship in Philadelphia at the Spectrum in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, But the previous year, you guys were
Speaker 1: undefeated in the Big Ten. The last game Scott May
Speaker 1: out of Sandeski, Ohio breaks his arm in that Purdue
Speaker 1: game and end up losing to Kentucky. So you're right there.
Speaker 1: You're a championship caliber team and you get turned away
Speaker 1: in part because Scott May got hurt, but then you
Speaker 1: go undefeated the next year. That it reminds me of
Speaker 1: the Spurs that one year they got right to the cusp,
Speaker 1: but I think it was against the heat and they
Speaker 1: came all the way back. I mean, to win the
Speaker 1: regular season, you know, that good record, and didn't back
Speaker 1: and win the championship, and that's what your team did.
Speaker 1: Let's feel the thing that you've hit on it. And
Speaker 1: I think it's really important people just kind of take
Speaker 1: this in context. What we were able to do in
Speaker 1: seventy six was primarily because of what we didn't do
Speaker 1: in seventy five, because you still have to have a
Speaker 1: high level of drive and focus on your mission, obviously
Speaker 1: to win the championship, and when you feel that you
Speaker 1: have the best team in basketball the year before Scott
Speaker 1: May breaks his arm. But I think people need to
Speaker 1: understand when Scott healthy, he carried us a long way,
Speaker 1: and the next year that he was a Player of
Speaker 1: the Year in the in college basketball. So you're talking
Speaker 1: about a terrific player and he wasn't at full scale.
Speaker 1: But even at that, you know how how small it
Speaker 1: is a minuscule the chances are for things to go
Speaker 1: exactly the way you want them to go. Therefore, you
Speaker 1: have to make sure you put that extra effort. And
Speaker 1: I'm a firm believer. First of all, seventy five team
Speaker 1: was better just if Scott's healthy. But seventy six team
Speaker 1: was driven by the fact that we didn't have the
Speaker 1: success that I think some of us thought we should
Speaker 1: have had in seventy five. So it kept us emotionally
Speaker 1: at a higher pitch and allowed us to stay focused
Speaker 1: on winning the championship, knowing if you don't make a play,
Speaker 1: I don't care when it is. It can be the
Speaker 1: difference between you're not winning and losing the game, but
Speaker 1: winning and losing the championship. But you're thinking that every
Speaker 1: time you make a plot, a play has to be made.
Speaker 1: So that's what I really that's my feeling about that.
Speaker 1: But as much as anything, I'm equal. I'm probably going undefeated.
Speaker 1: I get it. But we went two years in Big
Speaker 1: Ten Conference and didn't lose the game. That to me
Speaker 1: is a bigger feat in its own right. When you
Speaker 1: think about now, they call him big five conference. But
Speaker 1: Big Ten has always had great athletics at the football
Speaker 1: basketball level, and to do that to me, says, this
Speaker 1: was a team that was was pretty good. Absolutely beat
Speaker 1: Ricky Green in Michigan for the champion and like to
Speaker 1: Cincinnati read of that era. I could name your entire
Speaker 1: left out and Green Rots and Vincent Mayer. What was
Speaker 1: it like playing for Body Night coach who was demanding.
Speaker 1: But I come from a father who was demanding. As
Speaker 1: I said, my father was was an athlete. My father
Speaker 1: was one of those people who think if you had
Speaker 1: to tell you twice, you had a problem. So I
Speaker 1: was that part. I dealt with what I didn't deal
Speaker 1: with well, and particularly my sophomore year. I kind of
Speaker 1: just got through it my freshman year because you're just
Speaker 1: trying to acclaiment was I didn't didn't care for the
Speaker 1: way the message was delivered. And at one point my
Speaker 1: father and I had had a conversation and he even
Speaker 1: suggested that I might consider leaving because I had a search.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what it was, but tom something happened
Speaker 1: and I was trying to get it corrected and talked
Speaker 1: to coach Night. He wouldn't talk to me. He walked
Speaker 1: up the stairs and say, I don't have anything to
Speaker 1: say to you, and he said it certain with some
Speaker 1: extra words. My fathers. I talked to him about it,
Speaker 1: and we go through this whole conversation as you would
Speaker 1: with your child, missais Son. You either make nitre's a question.
Speaker 1: Either listen to what he says and do that and
Speaker 1: take out of consideration how he says it. You'll be
Speaker 1: fine if you can't do that, and you mayn't want
Speaker 1: to consider going somewhere else. And that really triggered for
Speaker 1: me because what he was, what he said, and in
Speaker 1: addition to what he said, he said because if it's
Speaker 1: the right thing to do, do it. So if you
Speaker 1: take it out of context in terms of how it's
Speaker 1: delivered and take the message as the message, he was
Speaker 1: right the majority of I mean, he was right. As
Speaker 1: a rule. He's a he's a brilliant guy, so he
Speaker 1: was right. So I had to get to that to
Speaker 1: be able to not have any anxiety or whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it for playing for coach. But the
Speaker 1: thing I knew for him he had done something. When
Speaker 1: I was a freshman, Minnesota had the great team. Dave Winfield,
Speaker 1: who's the great player, Jim Brewer, Clyde Turner. They had
Speaker 1: a heck of a team. They had the best team
Speaker 1: in the conference, there's no doubt about it. And they
Speaker 1: were going to play Northwestern near the end of the
Speaker 1: season and we were right there, tied with them, something
Speaker 1: right in there, and coach and I said, they're gonna
Speaker 1: lose a Northwestern now nor offense to Northwestern, and all
Speaker 1: of the journalists you and I know from Northwestern as
Speaker 1: a basketball school, they weren't noted for that. And long behold,
Speaker 1: they went up there in Minnesota lost and that was
Speaker 1: one of the other things that got my attention. So
Speaker 1: from a buying perspective, you got buy in that. You
Speaker 1: know he knows what he's talking about. So when he
Speaker 1: starts sharing information and he keeps coming at you as
Speaker 1: hard as he did. And my dad and I had
Speaker 1: a discussion. I just took it, took the context. I
Speaker 1: didn't take the way it came at me. And that's
Speaker 1: how I was able to do what I was We
Speaker 1: were able to do so just for today's Darken or Carland,
Speaker 1: somebody would say you didn't like his methodology. No, I
Speaker 1: didn't like his methodology, but I love the guy. Because
Speaker 1: the other thing I knew about him for sure time.
Speaker 1: There wasn't any question about And I think when you
Speaker 1: manage people that way, I don't think you can do
Speaker 1: it anymore. They have to know that you care about them, right,
Speaker 1: And that's part of leadership. If I know you care
Speaker 1: about me and you're coming at me with that, I
Speaker 1: can deal with it. It's like family. You know, family
Speaker 1: comes at you sometime and you're like, look at them,
Speaker 1: all right, Well it was That's what it was like.
Speaker 1: But the methodology, let's put it this way. That's not
Speaker 1: my method We'll have more of my conversation with Quinn
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Speaker 1: Now back to my chat with Quinn Buckner. So, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to discount this because then after that
Speaker 1: you'd already played kind of international level. But that summer,
Speaker 1: you know, you end up getting drafted by Milwaukee seventh overall.
Speaker 1: But you play in the nineteen seventy six United States
Speaker 1: Olympic gold medal gay team in Montreal, and like I said,
Speaker 1: to put it on USA in the winning goal. What
Speaker 1: did that feel like? A little more about that, Well,
Speaker 1: let me just give you a couple of things that
Speaker 1: have happened. Coach Knight knew I wanted to be an Olympian,
Speaker 1: and because I wanted to be an Olympian, more sold
Speaker 1: than playing in the NBA, I hadn't thought about. I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure if I was skilled enough. Honestly, I just
Speaker 1: wasn't sure. So I played on the international team's my
Speaker 1: first three years from school, including when Larry Bird came
Speaker 1: to Indiana. I was in an international competition when Larry
Speaker 1: Bird came from French Lick, Indiana to come team to
Speaker 1: the university. For the first two weeks, I was playing
Speaker 1: with David Thompson and that great team with Norm Sloan,
Speaker 1: Mony Tow and Tom Burleson, And so I wasn't there
Speaker 1: to help Larry kind of I think accla made himself
Speaker 1: through that. But my point was simply, coach Knight kept
Speaker 1: involved in international competition to prepare for the opportunity to
Speaker 1: be on the Olympic team. Now, as many of those
Speaker 1: closer to our age, you know, seventy two, it was
Speaker 1: taken from us. There's no question they was taken from us.
Speaker 1: They played a game three times, they try to get
Speaker 1: the outcome the last I think three minutes to get
Speaker 1: the outcome they want. So we were considered, you know,
Speaker 1: Scott May, Adrian Danley, what Ernie Grunfelt, Mitch cup Check,
Speaker 1: Phil Ford, Walter Dames. I mean, we've got a real crew.
Speaker 1: Those guys are legit. Those are all really good basketball players.
Speaker 1: And so there was some real question as to whether
Speaker 1: or not Coach Smith, Dean Smith for those of you
Speaker 1: who don't know, great coach Smith and coach Thompson. John
Speaker 1: Thompson was an assistant, right. I mean, we had a
Speaker 1: heck of the staff, but people didn't think that we
Speaker 1: were going to be able to do it because we
Speaker 1: didn't have size, hadn't been together, and it was our
Speaker 1: thought that we're gonna again talk about the motivation. When
Speaker 1: I was a senior in college the same thing. For this,
Speaker 1: we're highly motivated to get that back. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can always speculate had we consistently been winning,
Speaker 1: we'd had the same motivation because you would take it
Speaker 1: for granted. The Russians were really good and they're the
Speaker 1: ones that took that. The game went to and seventy two,
Speaker 1: but we didn't play them in the final game. We
Speaker 1: played Yugoslavia, who was really big. Then it's it's not
Speaker 1: you no longer Yugoslavia, but that's what it was then,
Speaker 1: and for me, there is no better feeling. And from
Speaker 1: an athletic standpoint, even when an NBA championship as happened
Speaker 1: as I was then, then representing your country and the
Speaker 1: sport that you have been participating in and playing the
Speaker 1: national answer for that, that's huge. I get shields about
Speaker 1: that thought. Even today. It's one of the greatest things
Speaker 1: I've ever been involved in. I get love in my
Speaker 1: throat thinking about it. So then you go to the
Speaker 1: Bucks and in your fifth year under Nelly, you guys
Speaker 1: are really good. You win sixty games and you get
Speaker 1: into the Eastern Conference semifinals one nineteen eighty one and
Speaker 1: you faced Doctor j and the Sixers and they knocked
Speaker 1: you out. And tell me a little bit about the
Speaker 1: well we had struggled. We were green and growing, if
Speaker 1: you will, the first couple of years. Because for those
Speaker 1: of you who don't remember, and this is really revision
Speaker 1: as history, Junior Bridgeman, who was a terrific player, Brian
Speaker 1: Winners was on our team. Dave Myers had left our team.
Speaker 1: We had like Mickey Johnston at the time, but Dave
Speaker 1: Myers is Andy Myers's brother and was a great UCLA player.
Speaker 1: They had come over in the Kareem trade. I came
Speaker 1: the year after that, and then we got Kent Benson,
Speaker 1: Marcus Johnson, Sydney Moncrief. Bob Lanier is on our team.
Speaker 1: So we've got a team that can play. But listen, yeah,
Speaker 1: Bobby Jones and Doc and most cheeks. It really just
Speaker 1: came down to, you know, there is more skills. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm just that's really what it was. We were trying
Speaker 1: to hang in there, and I don't think we had
Speaker 1: the kind of confidence you need when you play a team.
Speaker 1: But that kind of talent where you can give it
Speaker 1: to Doc at any moment and he could make some
Speaker 1: kind of play that you've never seen before. Um, that's
Speaker 1: what you have to have when you're deep in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: As you know, time, the further you go in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: I think it's more about the talent. It really is.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could xenoy it, but the defense is
Speaker 1: going to be solid. They're going to be times that
Speaker 1: everybody knows what each other doing. Now, you gotta have
Speaker 1: a guy that can just find a way to get
Speaker 1: a bucket or get to the file life. Bobby Jones
Speaker 1: would up, Mo would come up with the Steel. You know, Clint,
Speaker 1: you got guys doing that. Um, you know, you got
Speaker 1: a bunch of guys that can make plays. And for us,
Speaker 1: we just, honestly, I just didn't think, you know, in retrospect,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure we had enough. That's not I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to complicate it. We just didn't have another. Right.
Speaker 1: But later you get traded to the Celtics and the
Speaker 1: Dave Collin Steel and in your second year in Boston
Speaker 1: A three four, when sixty games and you're with Larry
Speaker 1: Bird and Shale and Perish and Ja you come off
Speaker 1: the bench and guys win the championship. One of the
Speaker 1: great NBA teams. You beat the Lakers. We that was
Speaker 1: terrific to give you a part of the way. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, so I'm Americana, if he will quote unquote
Speaker 1: having gone through high school with that success in the Olympic,
Speaker 1: I always thought I was a Celtic at heart. I
Speaker 1: really did, because this is where Wayne Embery had drafted me.
Speaker 1: And Wayne Embery was a great player for the Celtics.
Speaker 1: He ended up when he's the one that actually got
Speaker 1: Kareem in Milwaukee. Wayne Embury and Coach Knight were really close.
Speaker 1: One of the guys that really that I got to know,
Speaker 1: and I mean one of the really bright men that
Speaker 1: I've ever been around was read our Back and Coach
Speaker 1: Knight and read our Back were really close. And a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, Red would only ask Coach Knight about
Speaker 1: college players. The rest of it. He just kind of
Speaker 1: scouted on his own. So at one point what happened
Speaker 1: was after you after eighty one, we lose, you know
Speaker 1: eighty two. Basically we play and we're decent, I tear
Speaker 1: my thumb and I'm done. But it was it was
Speaker 1: a blessing because my son was born like a month later,
Speaker 1: so it was a blessing. So I find myself and
Speaker 1: I'm going to Boston. Well, initially I was disappointed because
Speaker 1: my ego was in it. Frankly, I'm borderline All star
Speaker 1: starting whatever. Going to Boston obviously for my career was
Speaker 1: the greatest thing that could have happened, because I go
Speaker 1: to an organization that has established at the upper level
Speaker 1: of winning and you know, as you well know, having
Speaker 1: beat to seventy six ers at one point for the
Speaker 1: Eastern Conference championship, they were they were consistent, and they're
Speaker 1: winning the year that I went. The first year, we
Speaker 1: weren't really good. We weren't tied together. We're good, we
Speaker 1: just weren't tied together. So in eighty three and toy four,
Speaker 1: you play in a series that's East Coast, West Coast,
Speaker 1: Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and it's got everything you want
Speaker 1: in it. And I was just trying to make sure,
Speaker 1: as I always did on any team, that I can
Speaker 1: make a contribution in any game. And when we lost,
Speaker 1: you know, it was one of those things because it
Speaker 1: was two three two and we'd lost, We were in
Speaker 1: the process of losing a game and Gerald Henderson's it
Speaker 1: was the ball and it really flips the series, because
Speaker 1: if you go down one one game and you go
Speaker 1: out to the other team's home court and they got
Speaker 1: three games, there's a chance you're gonna lose two of
Speaker 1: those games. So now you're looking at playing at some
Speaker 1: point coming home to play an elimination game. So having
Speaker 1: whether that kind of storm, I think brought on a
Speaker 1: greater amount of intensity. But it couldn't have been any
Speaker 1: more fun than have done that and beating the Lakers,
Speaker 1: because you know they the Lakers and the Celtics as
Speaker 1: a rule in the Sixers had moved up there, but
Speaker 1: the Lakers and the Celtics have been a toast of
Speaker 1: the league. So to be able to beat them, and
Speaker 1: it was really show time against blue collar and you know,
Speaker 1: as good as everybody. You know, Magic was good. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you what. The captain, the big fell Careem.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, people was out of this world. And
Speaker 1: we just happened to have some guys play good. Cedric Maxwell,
Speaker 1: who played well against the Sixers, and eighty one and
Speaker 1: one the MVP played great for us in game seven,
Speaker 1: and it was really a part of why we were
Speaker 1: able to beat him and sold because we had Kevin
Speaker 1: mckell's Cedric didn't play a whole lot that year, but
Speaker 1: in that game he played like he'd been starting the
Speaker 1: entire year and was terrific in all aspects. And then
Speaker 1: you guys ended up playing the Lakers again in eight
Speaker 1: and acted their revenge. Well we played, yeah, we actually
Speaker 1: played them again, and they called us. They beat us.
Speaker 1: It's just that simple. In eighty five we played them
Speaker 1: and then they beat us. Um, and they beat us,
Speaker 1: And I think it was a little bit because they didn't.
Speaker 1: You remember what I talked about Iu in the seventy
Speaker 1: five It is that that shadowed a doubt that you
Speaker 1: noticed there that allows you to play at a slightly
Speaker 1: higher level than you did before. And they did, and
Speaker 1: they were for that series, they were better. You know,
Speaker 1: at some point you got met the guy's better that
Speaker 1: were just better. When watching the Last Dance, there was
Speaker 1: one of those sequences where Michael was a year going
Speaker 1: into you were in his inner circle with Michael Jordian.
Speaker 1: What did you see off the court as obviously you
Speaker 1: got to be friends with them. Um, really good guy,
Speaker 1: he really is. He's a good guy. He's a smart guy. Um,
Speaker 1: but he's he's an intense competitor and everything, and you
Speaker 1: just know that when you deal with him, UM, and
Speaker 1: either you you're either going to have to be an
Speaker 1: intense competitor with him or you just don't compete with
Speaker 1: him on on on that, on anything. UM, but I
Speaker 1: don't at the last day. It was interesting even that
Speaker 1: he did it quite frankly as I as he but
Speaker 1: I think he felt it was something that needed to
Speaker 1: have happened. I just was hoping that people could see
Speaker 1: that though he was competitive and he challenged internally and
Speaker 1: what they were doing, that at his heart, he's really
Speaker 1: a good human being. UM. And I've been blessed enough
Speaker 1: to be around a lot of guys at that level.
Speaker 1: I have a great you know this this relationship and
Speaker 1: Larry and those guys their intense personalities. Some people can
Speaker 1: be intense and play in the in the field or
Speaker 1: on the court and turn it off some camp it's
Speaker 1: just how they're built. Because I don't know the thing
Speaker 1: and we were talking earlier, and I think it's important
Speaker 1: for people to understand. This is what I think is
Speaker 1: going to be the challenge, even in the bubble and
Speaker 1: the time frame, because the mental capacity to be able
Speaker 1: to withstand all of the things that come at you.
Speaker 1: That can be foreign to what is just a smooth ride.
Speaker 1: You have to be able to endure. But that takes preparation,
Speaker 1: and the guys have been out of the game for
Speaker 1: a while and that ability to do that that those
Speaker 1: great players have, and they have it at a higher level,
Speaker 1: is a matter of preparation, and it's daily, daily preparation.
Speaker 1: It's minute by minute preparation. It's who they are. So
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's what I know about them. At
Speaker 1: the end of the day. What you hope for all
Speaker 1: of them the good people, and I want the people
Speaker 1: the casual fan who's listening to us. I don't care
Speaker 1: what you see from the ninety nine point nine percent.
Speaker 1: They are really good people that you see grow up
Speaker 1: right in front of your eyes. And sometimes they do
Speaker 1: and say some things that don't make sense for you,
Speaker 1: and they really don't make sense for them. But they're
Speaker 1: young men and young women who make mistakes, and if
Speaker 1: you're around them on any prolonged period of time or
Speaker 1: you get the chance to sit with them, they realize
Speaker 1: they're just human beings that do what all of us do.
Speaker 1: They make mistakes, and they're smart. They'll grow and they'll
Speaker 1: learn well, Quinn. I can't think enough great insight, tremendous
Speaker 1: to talk to you. I wish you the best and
Speaker 1: hopefully we'll see u at some point down the road.
Speaker 1: Who knows when that may be. Thanks a lot, I
Speaker 1: appreciate it, Tom Lukard, Thanks for listening to Tom's talks
Speaker 1: with me Tom McGinnis on the seventy six ers podcast Network.
Speaker 1: Check for new episodes every weekend