Speaker 1: Welcome to Special Teams, a production of my Heart Radio
Speaker 1: Greetings and Welcome inside Special Teams with Jason Smith and
Speaker 1: Mike Harmon, a podcast in which we look back in
Speaker 1: a specific year and a very special team or teams
Speaker 1: in the world of sports and what made them stand
Speaker 1: out in a bit of a nineteen eighties run right now,
Speaker 1: because it's been a very popular decade for that, you've
Speaker 1: wanted us to break down some teams and games and
Speaker 1: things going on for so we're gonna continue that on
Speaker 1: and take a look at what some of the worst
Speaker 1: of the year one was. But here's a twist. We
Speaker 1: have a really bad worst worst, but then we have
Speaker 1: worst that turned out to be almost best. If that
Speaker 1: makes sense, my Carmen, I don't know if it does,
Speaker 1: but I think it does. Well. You know what, you've
Speaker 1: got to talking out sometimes, you know, best laid plans,
Speaker 1: all of those kind of things, but the the idea
Speaker 1: being that, yeah, you sometimes you gotta hit absolute depths
Speaker 1: before you know you can rise like the Phoenix at Arizona.
Speaker 1: To steal from the late Jerry Steeler, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: gotta be in that rock bottom. I mean, as a
Speaker 1: Mets fan, you know, that. No, no, no, there's no
Speaker 1: rock bottom. You you hit the bottom and you keep
Speaker 1: digging going. Nope, I am going through this and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get through to the floor. There's gotta be a
Speaker 1: level of magma, and then under that there's got to
Speaker 1: be some kind of moving tectonic plates, and then under
Speaker 1: that maybe then I get to the bottom. But no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep digging through the mud and the sludge
Speaker 1: and go all the way through the center of the Earth. Wow,
Speaker 1: straight to the Earth's crust. It makes me want to
Speaker 1: eat a pizza Earth's crust. Yeah, alcome, no one's ever
Speaker 1: done that, had a pizza and called it Earth's crust?
Speaker 1: Or is there a there's somebody out there? Is there
Speaker 1: a place that's called Earth's Crust pizza? Crust pizza? Hey? Yeah, listen,
Speaker 1: can I get double anchovies and one with pepperoni? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You gotta get it out there in a half hour.
Speaker 1: How hot is your pizza? You know what? I looked
Speaker 1: at her hand out. It's really fair earth crust pizza.
Speaker 1: Let's see there there is an Earth's crust pizza in Montana.
Speaker 1: Who knew? Seems like we're gonna have to get it said, oh,
Speaker 1: you can eat pizza buffet, buddy, Yes it is. Well, well,
Speaker 1: so maybe not anymore than well, but maybe you just
Speaker 1: have to go sit in the yeah, and I don't
Speaker 1: think anything in the lot, and then you go walk
Speaker 1: back in and say more so what we mean? The
Speaker 1: New Scientist magazine said that the Earth's crust is just
Speaker 1: like a pizza dough. So there you go. No, I
Speaker 1: mean there's like a big level of layer of cheese
Speaker 1: on it. Cheese. Boy, if I could walk through cheese
Speaker 1: and just pick up cheese and put in my mouth.
Speaker 1: It's like Homer in the Land of Chocolate piece up
Speaker 1: the dog and takes a bite out of it as
Speaker 1: it runs by it. Chocolate half price, like everything's made
Speaker 1: of chocolate. It's free eat anything. Uh, the Simpsons. But
Speaker 1: that's what we have going on today. We have a
Speaker 1: worst of the worst in one and then we have
Speaker 1: the worst of the worst that actually becomes nearly the
Speaker 1: best of the best. So we'll save that for later on. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's get into what was possibly and probably the worst
Speaker 1: single season defense in the history of the National Football League. Now,
Speaker 1: immediately people want to jump back and go, oh, look
Speaker 1: at the Saints in two thousand and twelve. I think
Speaker 1: it over seven thousand yards. It was a horrendous season,
Speaker 1: but this is an age in the National Football League
Speaker 1: where everybody is throwing the football and you have inflated
Speaker 1: passing statistics. So seven thousand yards, even though it's really really,
Speaker 1: really really bad, it doesn't compare to this team that
Speaker 1: gave up sixty hundred yards when teams threw the football
Speaker 1: about four times a game, so it's not like you
Speaker 1: were facing all these big offensive juggernauts. We put it
Speaker 1: into the late two thousands. Everybody's throwing the football, quarterbacks
Speaker 1: throwing for three no, no, no, this is seven thousand yards.
Speaker 1: That stinks. This was undred yards back in in one
Speaker 1: three yards and a cloud of dust. And even the
Speaker 1: passes that were thrown up, let's face, and completion percentages
Speaker 1: were trash. Yeah if you were because you were a
Speaker 1: good quarterback, right, Because interceptions were not looked at the
Speaker 1: same way at all, and ball possession, which is kind
Speaker 1: of funny. Did they just not have the computers to
Speaker 1: run the stats. It's like the entire room is one computer. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's It's amazing though that people didn't catch onto this sooner.
Speaker 1: You know if we go to the shortened intermediate game,
Speaker 1: we will be more effective and keep moving the ball.
Speaker 1: Throw for the downs the night one. Then Baltimore cults
Speaker 1: worst NFL defense in history. Here's the evidence. Now. First
Speaker 1: of all, actually they had pretty decent expectations in one.
Speaker 1: They still led Burt Jones at quarterback, Roger Carr was
Speaker 1: a pretty good wide receiver. Curtis Dickey was projecting to
Speaker 1: be a pretty good running back. These are names would
Speaker 1: probably remember from the Colts teams. David Schula, former Bengals
Speaker 1: head coach, was a wide receiver on this team. But
Speaker 1: things just went absolutely terrible from the jump. They went
Speaker 1: to out one good name though, you an all name
Speaker 1: team guy, Okay, go on, what do you got linebacker
Speaker 1: Joe Federspiel. Yeah, Federspiel is pretty good. It's a tough
Speaker 1: name to say in the heat of battle. Good play Feederspiel.
Speaker 1: I can see you messing that up a lot day.
Speaker 1: And maybe you call him glock in Spiel at some
Speaker 1: point that was probably his nickname was Yeah. He eventually
Speaker 1: became an SEC referee, by the way, Oh and they
Speaker 1: probably called him the glock I metued. I was, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's up block, but it's okay, I get it. Glocklock
Speaker 1: to see that as other connotations and now you've gone
Speaker 1: into a deep dark place. So it's just a nickname
Speaker 1: like Clock, except it's glock, except it's for glock and spiel. Anyway,
Speaker 1: uh so the Colts team just to give you the
Speaker 1: framework before you give you with some stats that you're
Speaker 1: gonna go there's no way this happened. They actually went
Speaker 1: too and fourteen. They won their first game against New England. Hey, congratulations, back,
Speaker 1: this is when Baltimore is in the a f C East.
Speaker 1: They then lost fourteen games in a row, and then
Speaker 1: they beat New England the final week of the regular seat.
Speaker 1: Hey did. New England also finished two and fourteen in
Speaker 1: the A f C East, so these were the only
Speaker 1: wins Baltimore had. They beat New England opened the season, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're feeling great. Then they lost fourteen in a row,
Speaker 1: and then they beat New England to end the season.
Speaker 1: So at least you can say, well, we started strong,
Speaker 1: we finished strong, and if we played New England every week,
Speaker 1: maybe they're sixteen and oh, but they don't, so this
Speaker 1: is what they wind up. Well. What's funny, though, is
Speaker 1: just the when you think about, all right, how bad
Speaker 1: does this team have to be? Right, you hit the
Speaker 1: bookends where you have these wins, go to tie breakers,
Speaker 1: all of that kind of fun stuff. But looking at
Speaker 1: the Patriots schedule, they had their moments of uh, wealth dominance.
Speaker 1: They held six opponents to nineteen points or fewer during
Speaker 1: the season, so uh put themselves in position. But and
Speaker 1: absolutely anemic offense leads you to the woeful two and
Speaker 1: four record, fourteen record, I should say, uh, including two
Speaker 1: losses to these historic Baltimore Colts. Here's how bad the
Speaker 1: Colts were. Okay, here here's some numbers that it just
Speaker 1: blow you away. They allowed five hundred and thirty three
Speaker 1: points on the season. All right, that's an average of
Speaker 1: thirty three a game. They scored two hundred and fifty nine. Okay,
Speaker 1: so they gave up twice as many points as they scored.
Speaker 1: This isn't a one hundred point differential like you see
Speaker 1: the worst teams in the NFL. Boy, we got outscored
Speaker 1: by hundred points. They scored to fifty nine. They gave
Speaker 1: up five thirty three. They literally gave up twice as
Speaker 1: many points as they scored. That's how bad of a
Speaker 1: defense this was. I mean, it wasn't a great offense,
Speaker 1: but boy, that's how bad a defense this was. Well,
Speaker 1: if if you laid some money down on them against
Speaker 1: the number and you took the over, you really did hardly. Yeah, no, exactly.
Speaker 1: They took the over every week. How far can we stretching? Guys?
Speaker 1: Just keep going. Uh, you know, it's just that curiosity,
Speaker 1: right at some point you would think there'd be some
Speaker 1: consistency and something would click. But as you mentioned, it's
Speaker 1: not like you're walking around with a bunch of household
Speaker 1: names that even went somewhere else and became pivotal cogs
Speaker 1: in some other machine. Uh. This is just, you know,
Speaker 1: not good for anybody. As you're rolling through five hundred
Speaker 1: thirty three points. They gave up four hundred twenty five
Speaker 1: yards per game, four football fields per game. Just staggering.
Speaker 1: This is a season in which the Colts gave up
Speaker 1: thirty five points or more in nine games. Nine games
Speaker 1: they allowed thirty five points and more. They allowed three
Speaker 1: seven points in the first half of games. That means
Speaker 1: teams were averaging twenty points in the first half against them.
Speaker 1: So whatever you have, you're allowing twenty a team is
Speaker 1: walking in a half time going, boy, we feel great.
Speaker 1: We scored twenty points. This is this is terrific um.
Speaker 1: All those early adopter fantasy leagues were having a blast.
Speaker 1: I mean this, Look, this Colts defense still had a
Speaker 1: couple of good players on it, right you know, you
Speaker 1: had John Dutton who wound up getting traded during the season.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, you had a couple of Bruce Laird,
Speaker 1: who was a pretty good strong safety. Nesby Glasgow was
Speaker 1: a pretty decent cornerback turned into You had a couple
Speaker 1: of decent players on this team. But this defense was
Speaker 1: just so bad. And maybe the best most damning statistic
Speaker 1: is what I'm gonna give you right now. This is
Speaker 1: how bad. Okay, they only returned twelve punts all season
Speaker 1: punt so nobody punted. They returned twelve punts. That's less
Speaker 1: than one punt return a game you could have gotten
Speaker 1: by without a punt returner. I can just let the
Speaker 1: ball at the ground right now, Okay, we'll take over
Speaker 1: wherever it is. They returned twelve punts, and they had
Speaker 1: thirteen sacks on the seat in and if full see
Speaker 1: and sixteen games they had thirteen sacks, So every game
Speaker 1: they basically were good for almost one punt return and
Speaker 1: almost one sack. That's how mad it was for the cults.
Speaker 1: Think about that, because we we had a good laugh
Speaker 1: at it here in When a team goes through and
Speaker 1: dozen't punt, it's like, all right, that guy gotta check
Speaker 1: and just got to hang out and do his weird
Speaker 1: ball tricks like he's in the middle of training camp. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you go through. I mean that that's just amazing.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the totals from last year and it's
Speaker 1: just staggering. Thinking thirteen for an entire year, you're low
Speaker 1: in nineteen was the doll for with twenty three only
Speaker 1: three more teams finished with fewer than thirty, and then
Speaker 1: your league leaders Steelers, Panthers, Saints and RAN's all finished
Speaker 1: with at least fifty. Just by way of contrast. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's just pathetic for a bass rush. That's that's
Speaker 1: almost like you're not trying. Uh. Mike McCormick was the
Speaker 1: head coach and he only made it through this year
Speaker 1: and then he got fired. Uh. And and as if
Speaker 1: all those stats all remember how bad this defense was
Speaker 1: losing games the way they did. Look, they beat the Patriots.
Speaker 1: Then they lost thirty five, three, thirty seventeen, No, then
Speaker 1: forty one, nineteen. Then they give up forty three, then
Speaker 1: forty two, then twenty seven, then forty one, then thirty eight,
Speaker 1: then thirty five. It was just a pummeling all season long. Right,
Speaker 1: But this is okay, it's historically bad. They got a
Speaker 1: really bad Dave and maybe one of the worst defenses ever.
Speaker 1: They couldn't stop anybody. But this story about the Colts
Speaker 1: season may give you everything you need to know outside
Speaker 1: of the fact that, boy, this defense was bad. All right,
Speaker 1: check this out. So I told you you know, Burt
Speaker 1: Jones was still a pretty decent quarterback and things got
Speaker 1: so bad at one point. This is then Colts owner
Speaker 1: Bob er Say, who players hated. Right. John Dutton, who
Speaker 1: got traded in the middle of the season, said I'll
Speaker 1: do anything Dallas wants me to do right now except
Speaker 1: shoot someone. He was so happy to get off the
Speaker 1: Baltimore Colts. That was his That was his big quote
Speaker 1: after he got traded, right, all of these things. They
Speaker 1: couldn't stand back Burt Jones, Oh it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was just one of those seasons where you couldn't
Speaker 1: believe what the owner did. Bob Er say. At one point,
Speaker 1: during a loss to Philadelphia in November, they lost, the
Speaker 1: owner got so mad he jumped into the booth and
Speaker 1: started calling plays from the coaches booth. He started calling
Speaker 1: offensive plays from the booth. So Burt Jones said he
Speaker 1: just ignored them. Like every time the play call came
Speaker 1: in to go left, he would go right. If it
Speaker 1: was a run, he would call a pass. But Bob
Speaker 1: ar say calling plays from the coaches booth. In fact,
Speaker 1: he says that he called one of Burt Jones's touchdown
Speaker 1: passes in this game. Burt Jones says, no, I just
Speaker 1: went and did my own thing. The players couldn't stand
Speaker 1: or say. But not even Jerry Jones, Mike and I,
Speaker 1: I know he's probably been tempted to. I could just
Speaker 1: get the headphones off of Jason and uh just start
Speaker 1: calling plays because I know the names of some of them.
Speaker 1: You know there's that red ride eighty eight or did
Speaker 1: I see that on the NFL films? Uh? What about
Speaker 1: that sixty five toss power trap Let's run? Now, No,
Speaker 1: that's NFL films. Not even Jerry Jones on his worst
Speaker 1: day says, you know sorry, slide over, I'm gonna start
Speaker 1: calling plays. But this was the NFL where the owner
Speaker 1: comes in and starts calling plays in How fantastic would
Speaker 1: that be? Though? Jerry Jones finally, just you know, before
Speaker 1: Jason Garrett was dismissed, saying, you know what I got,
Speaker 1: I got something for Dak. I got I got something
Speaker 1: special I cooked up on this here napkin, and he's
Speaker 1: got some weird ass alignment still legal, uh in terms
Speaker 1: of formations, but just crazy town. I mean there's several
Speaker 1: owners that you know, you would not be surprised if
Speaker 1: they actually did it. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if er, say,
Speaker 1: Jim Ursay would do while playing guitar. I always wanted
Speaker 1: to do that, you know that. I was always jealous
Speaker 1: that he did that. I really would like to death
Speaker 1: He's playing Jimmy Hendricks's guitar while calling plays and sending
Speaker 1: it down to Philip Rivers. Maybe you just have to wait.
Speaker 1: That's why Andrew Luck retired. I couldn't. I couldn't take
Speaker 1: it because you know, all the year says they all
Speaker 1: want to call plays that I just had to walk out.
Speaker 1: It was just too much for me. I was done
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing. This was the season that was for the
Speaker 1: one Waltimore Colts looking at being the worst defense in
Speaker 1: NFL history. Coming up next, Uh, two things that were
Speaker 1: really bad and then they met together and things got
Speaker 1: really it. I'll explait trust me, I'll explain it all.
Speaker 1: Coming up next right here on special teams from the
Speaker 1: worst of the NFL. And boy, the Cults were really
Speaker 1: that bad to the NBA and the nineteen eighty one
Speaker 1: Western Conference playoffs because in one things really got weird
Speaker 1: in something that we have never seen anything even close
Speaker 1: to this since this happened. Now, we had the Knicks
Speaker 1: make it to the NBA Finals in the in the
Speaker 1: lockout year. They were an eight seed and they pulled
Speaker 1: a bunch of upsets. We watched the Golden State Wars,
Speaker 1: an eight seed, pull a few upsets a few years ago,
Speaker 1: knocking out the Mavericks. They were the number one seed.
Speaker 1: But normally the bottom seed doesn't make it to the
Speaker 1: NBA finals. Also, normally the bottom two seeds don't make
Speaker 1: it to the conference finals. But this is what happened
Speaker 1: in one. The NBA regular season ended with the Sons
Speaker 1: at the top best record in the Western Conference. The
Speaker 1: Suns were loaded, followed by the Spurs. The Lakers were third.
Speaker 1: Remember this is the early days of Magic Johnson. The
Speaker 1: Blazers were fourth and in fifth and sixth place because
Speaker 1: it was the top six teams that made the NBA
Speaker 1: playoffs back then were the Kings and the Rockets. The
Speaker 1: Kansas City Kings, who was before they moved to Sacramento.
Speaker 1: The Kansas City Kings and the Houston Rockets, the five
Speaker 1: and six seeds, the two lowest seeds, both make the
Speaker 1: playoffs with records of forty and forty two. Who do
Speaker 1: you think winds up playing in the Western Conference Finals?
Speaker 1: The Kings and the Rockets. Again that this is a
Speaker 1: journey that no one could. This is never gonna happen
Speaker 1: in the NBA. You're never gonna see seven eight seeds
Speaker 1: pull these big upsets and saying, hey, we're playing here
Speaker 1: in the in the conference finals. But it happened here
Speaker 1: in one. Both teams finished seventeen games out of first place.
Speaker 1: They were under five hundred on the road. They were
Speaker 1: just an average team, couldn't even finish even five. But
Speaker 1: the Kings and the Rockets make it to the Western
Speaker 1: Conference Finals, bolstered by the fact that the Dallas Mavericks
Speaker 1: were an absolute train wreck. The Utah Jazz, with twenty
Speaker 1: eight wins, allowed you to get fat a little bit
Speaker 1: and overcome the other members of the Pacific Division, which
Speaker 1: had several teams in the mid thirties in terms of wins, like,
Speaker 1: thank you very much, we're under five. Like nowadays, think
Speaker 1: about all the ink that gets slung and when it happens.
Speaker 1: Remember the Seahawks when they were seven and nine and
Speaker 1: you would have thought the world was ending, Like everything
Speaker 1: we knew about sports was going into some wormhole. Uh,
Speaker 1: and the pundits were out for blood. No, they should
Speaker 1: just not be a playoff team. The playoffs should go
Speaker 1: a team Short's like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: But folks advocated for so many random tweaks to playoff rules,
Speaker 1: and you know what they're they're an emalies. And this
Speaker 1: one sure stands out all these years later. Only time
Speaker 1: two teams with losing records met in the conference finals. Right,
Speaker 1: So how did they get there? Well, let's do the
Speaker 1: Kansas City Kings. First. Kansas City was led by Otis
Speaker 1: bird Song, who had a terrific NBA career. The guy
Speaker 1: scored twenty five points a game. You know, late seventies,
Speaker 1: early eighties. Otis bird Song was fantastic. Phil Ford was
Speaker 1: terrific NBA Rookie of the Year in seventy nine. They
Speaker 1: both were All Star players alright. Scott Wedman before he
Speaker 1: settled into being a rotation piece for the Celtics throughout
Speaker 1: most of the mid eighties when everybody watched Lakers Celtics
Speaker 1: on TV, he was pretty decent. And so Kansas City
Speaker 1: had some time, I mean some talent because they finished
Speaker 1: five hundred. They worked really great. Well, there's just just
Speaker 1: a game. One game decided it, right sure, uh you
Speaker 1: know who. And also but they also missed making the
Speaker 1: playoffs by a game because the Warriors almost snuck in
Speaker 1: a thirty nine and forty three, so they were that
Speaker 1: close to being out to uh now, their first round
Speaker 1: they played Portland, who wasn't that much better. They won
Speaker 1: two out of three. They won a couple of games
Speaker 1: in overtime. But then their rewards they get the Phoenix Suns.
Speaker 1: All right, the number one seed in the West. This
Speaker 1: is gonna be pretty easy. They knock off the Suns
Speaker 1: in seven games. They had a three games to one lead.
Speaker 1: Kansas City jumped out and the Sons, who like to
Speaker 1: play a lot of players, they were loaded, Dennis Johnson,
Speaker 1: Walter Davis, Truck, Robinson, they were all stars. They were
Speaker 1: so deep and they just kept running players out there,
Speaker 1: you know, their rotations going through. They were so good.
Speaker 1: But they couldn't beat the Kings. But they come back
Speaker 1: to tie at three three before the Kings win games
Speaker 1: seven on the road. But check this out. Not only
Speaker 1: do the Kings win game seven in Phoenix, where you think, okay,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of silliness here. Now the Suns are
Speaker 1: gonna straight and up and win. The King's won without
Speaker 1: birds Song and Ford, who were both hurt. Bird Song
Speaker 1: played a little bit with a sprained ankle, but but
Speaker 1: Ford was out. He got he got hit in the eye,
Speaker 1: and somehow they were able to win that game. So
Speaker 1: the so the worst team in the West is able
Speaker 1: to beat the best team in the East without their
Speaker 1: two best players. Okay, so this is like looking at
Speaker 1: a team like this is like if if the Portland
Speaker 1: Trailblazers beat the Lakers in the first round of the
Speaker 1: playoffs this year, and they and they won Game seven
Speaker 1: without Lillard and McCollum. I mean, that's that's the equivalent
Speaker 1: of what the Kansas City Kings did to beat the
Speaker 1: Suns and move on to the Western Conference Finals. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna put it in its most blunt terms, that
Speaker 1: would have been. So yes, it would have been, because
Speaker 1: it's be something forever that you'd be looking back going
Speaker 1: that really can't be right, can it? Can it? No?
Speaker 1: It is? It's uh yeah, it's It's strange when you
Speaker 1: watch teams that are that are well put together, that
Speaker 1: have some depth to them, and guys assuming roles. Right,
Speaker 1: we watched it a couple of years ago what the
Speaker 1: Celtics were trying to do with all that young nucleus,
Speaker 1: and then you you're you're missing Kyrie Irving and Gordon
Speaker 1: Hayward and all those guys grew into roles really fast.
Speaker 1: So when the veterans came back, it's like, all right, no,
Speaker 1: we don't got room for you. We got problems and
Speaker 1: what did you have? Dysfunction? And you know, dude had
Speaker 1: to leave uh in Kyrie uh and Jayson Tatum and
Speaker 1: all the young guys, you know, building off of that,
Speaker 1: I guess here you looked at some veteran leadership, not
Speaker 1: that he played a ton of games for them, but
Speaker 1: I mean you did have Jojo White finishing up his
Speaker 1: career there, motivational speaker. Some commercials to Jojoe White if
Speaker 1: I remember, sure, I I think I think he did.
Speaker 1: He was in a like in the early eighties when
Speaker 1: certain guys to do commercials and they were all like
Speaker 1: the stars of the seventies and like X A B
Speaker 1: A stars and they were the ones that were in
Speaker 1: the big commercials in the early eighties, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: who's that? I remember? It was just one of those
Speaker 1: weird things where certain guys were in commercials and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know who that is. I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I am I supposed to know who that is. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know who that is. Well, you were trying
Speaker 1: to pick out all the characters from the uh what
Speaker 1: was it? The Miller light adde right right? Well, because
Speaker 1: it's great, less filling, it's like, who's that guy in
Speaker 1: the back? Yeah? And also you didn't know who anybody
Speaker 1: was because when when did I see the Kansas City
Speaker 1: Kings play? In one fair point, I saw the Knicks play. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I saw the Nicks play on the Knicks. Actually, I
Speaker 1: saw the Knicks play and then you saw whatever, like
Speaker 1: the game of the week was or what you know,
Speaker 1: what you saw on a Saturday or a Sunday, and
Speaker 1: you would see those teams once and how many times
Speaker 1: for the change with you know, forty wins. They weren't
Speaker 1: showing them no there, and you didn't have these packages.
Speaker 1: And hell, those finals were on tape delay, so wasn't
Speaker 1: like you were seeing it live anyway. Here it is
Speaker 1: so well we edited out some parts where it really
Speaker 1: didn't matter. But this Son's team that that could have
Speaker 1: gone to the NBA finals. Look, they had those three
Speaker 1: great player, Alvin Adams had a really good season. I
Speaker 1: mean this team was loaded and they wind up going
Speaker 1: home and the Kings go to the Western Conference finals. Now,
Speaker 1: how did the Rockets get there? Well, the Rockets a
Speaker 1: little bit of a different story. It's their first year
Speaker 1: in the Western Conference because they've been in the Eastern
Speaker 1: Conference for so long. But now the Mavericks were in
Speaker 1: the league and and and they put some they reconfigured everything,
Speaker 1: and so the Rockets are in the Western Conference. Now.
Speaker 1: They're led by Moses Malone who was in his peak
Speaker 1: as a dominant player. I mean most of Malone was
Speaker 1: average twenty seven and fifteen. I mean he was one
Speaker 1: of the greatest centers in NBA history. And this he
Speaker 1: let you know it to. Oh yeah, No, he was
Speaker 1: never shy about it. Moses Malone would always tell you
Speaker 1: how good he was and how bad the players he
Speaker 1: was playing against us. He almost was kind of like
Speaker 1: and almost as fun Shock, you know, like most of
Speaker 1: the Malone was great and he was outspoken, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't as much fun as Shock was. Like he would
Speaker 1: say things that we'll get this a couple of things
Speaker 1: he said that he probably shouldn't have. But he was
Speaker 1: always a but he was never the you know, the
Speaker 1: fun side that Shack had with him. But he would
Speaker 1: always say what was on his mind. He would he
Speaker 1: would give bulletin board material to other team. Moses Malone
Speaker 1: just didn't care. But then again, when you're that big
Speaker 1: and that talented, I I don't I don't think it
Speaker 1: mattered to Moses Malone. Well, I mean the fact that
Speaker 1: you didn't have any better nickname than Chairman of the boards.
Speaker 1: It was it was the early eighties. There weren't that
Speaker 1: many nicknames come on that was coming out a disco
Speaker 1: and all that nonsense. There should have been some really
Speaker 1: creative fools up in there trying to make their ownecial
Speaker 1: since everybody was buying posters for four ninety nine to
Speaker 1: put on their walls. Oh, I know, they could have
Speaker 1: called him Moses because he was good down low. They
Speaker 1: could have called him post Malone would have done. I
Speaker 1: really thought you were going to go for a dominating
Speaker 1: in the low post in the lane, partying like the
Speaker 1: Red Sea. Oh, come on, Moses, that's too easy. I
Speaker 1: mean that was Charlton Heston right, Moses, he was two,
Speaker 1: wee go, You're absolutely right. Let my guards get on
Speaker 1: the fast break. So Malone is in his peak as
Speaker 1: a dominant player. Calvin Murphy also a terrific year. This
Speaker 1: is the year in which he made seventy eight straight
Speaker 1: free throws at an NBA record seventy eight straight free
Speaker 1: throws Rudy tom Janovic before he became a big time
Speaker 1: head coach in the NBA. Don Mike dun Levi Sr.
Speaker 1: People think Mike dun Levy Jr. Played back in Yes,
Speaker 1: Mike Dunlevy Jr. Was playing back in anyone. Well, he's
Speaker 1: he's actually um like Admiral Hucks when he was in
Speaker 1: about time and he could time travel. You got an
Speaker 1: Admiral Hucks very nice. Well, you know it's you gotta
Speaker 1: get Donald Gleason in where he can. So this was
Speaker 1: actually a big first round series because the Rockets had
Speaker 1: to play the Lakers. Now, the Lakers are coming off
Speaker 1: winning the NBA title the year before, but things just
Speaker 1: were different for them, you know, seeing what the Lakers
Speaker 1: had to say. Magic Johnson was very outspoken about the
Speaker 1: Lakers following their loss here. Uh, it was it was
Speaker 1: very difficult, difficult here for the Lakers, but they go
Speaker 1: down to defeat and this is a Rocket scene that
Speaker 1: sometimes played with four big men, and it was, you know,
Speaker 1: you think about playing small ball now here the Rockets
Speaker 1: they were put four big men out there. They wound
Speaker 1: up winning in five games, and it was probably Magic
Speaker 1: Johnson's worst playoff game ever. He was two out of
Speaker 1: fourteen from the floor, six out of seven from the
Speaker 1: free throw line. He missed two free throws that could
Speaker 1: have won the game with thirty seconds left. This was
Speaker 1: the worst playoff game of Magic Johnson's career. Right game five,
Speaker 1: the Lakers were in a series they didn't expect to
Speaker 1: be in. He goes two out of four teen from
Speaker 1: the floor, six out of eleven from the free throw line. Right,
Speaker 1: Magic mss two free throws with thirty seconds left that
Speaker 1: could have changed the outcome of the game. Rocket lead
Speaker 1: eight s eighty five. This is after Magic shooting terribly
Speaker 1: missing the free throws. Magic goes into the lane, kind
Speaker 1: of hesitates and puts up an air ball. Magic Johnson
Speaker 1: puts up an airball from the middle of the lane.
Speaker 1: Malone gets the rebound, hits two free throws. The Rockets
Speaker 1: win and they knocked the Lakers out. I actually remember
Speaker 1: watching this specific game as a kid because it was
Speaker 1: Game five and the Lakers. Look, the Lakers and the
Speaker 1: and the Celtics were basketball royalty, right. There was the
Speaker 1: rivalry with Burden. Magic was just getting going when the
Speaker 1: Lakers and Celtic this is what you watched for. And
Speaker 1: I remember in my basement watching this game, going, oh,
Speaker 1: Magic Johnson is gonna hit this and he's gonna win.
Speaker 1: And he put up an air ball, and the whole
Speaker 1: next week, every single kid I knew in school would
Speaker 1: like take up like crumple up a piece of paper
Speaker 1: and throw it and miss, like throwing in the in
Speaker 1: the in the in the garbage, going Magic Johnson, Magic Johnson,
Speaker 1: because you know on the East Coast, you if you
Speaker 1: even even though you know you grew up a Knicks fan,
Speaker 1: you were a Celtics fan when they played the Lakers,
Speaker 1: right because you were. It was East Coast versus West Coast,
Speaker 1: and everybody just made fun of Matchic. Everybody in school
Speaker 1: that week missing stuff. You try to throw something to
Speaker 1: somebody and they would miss it and and they all look
Speaker 1: at Magic. I mean it was that miss was horrendous
Speaker 1: for Magic. I can't believe he actually had a playoff
Speaker 1: game that way. And as I mentioned, he got into
Speaker 1: after the game was over that it wasn't the best
Speaker 1: year for them and maybe there were certain things that
Speaker 1: went on that he didn't really go into details on
Speaker 1: that shouldn't went on, and maybe they needed to take
Speaker 1: things more seriously and clearly losing in the first round
Speaker 1: of the Rockets, you can say, Okay, Magic, I get
Speaker 1: where you're coming from. Yeah, you look at that game, uh,
Speaker 1: in the final, but he goes two of fourteen from
Speaker 1: the field, right Uh. And then you get into the
Speaker 1: next year and it's eleven games into the season when
Speaker 1: pat Riley takes over and the rest of his history. Hey,
Speaker 1: guess what, I think we need a new head coach.
Speaker 1: Who do we need? Riles me and I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: bring We're gonna call it showtime. Oh that's a good idea. Hey,
Speaker 1: there go the Lake probably trademarked at too that crafty.
Speaker 1: So they beat the Lakers, and they beat the Spurs
Speaker 1: in seven games to make it to the Western Conference Finals. Murphy,
Speaker 1: who was the shortest player in the league uh scored
Speaker 1: forty two points in Game seven. So now you have
Speaker 1: the Kansas City Kings and the Houston Rockets in the
Speaker 1: Western Conference Finals coming up next. We'll tell you how
Speaker 1: it shook out and why Boses Malone really should have
Speaker 1: kept his mouth shut. This is special teams. So the series,
Speaker 1: everybody thought we were getting the Kansas City Kings and
Speaker 1: the Houston Rockets to go to the NBA Finals to
Speaker 1: take on the Boston Celtics. Otis bird Song, you know,
Speaker 1: the star for the Kancity Kings, didn't play in Game
Speaker 1: one and game two. He was still hurt and didn't
Speaker 1: play until Game three, and he had limited minutes. And
Speaker 1: that was a crusher for the Kings. I mean in
Speaker 1: the Western Conference Finals, they just couldn't stop Moses Malone.
Speaker 1: Malone was twenty nine and twelve in Game one, forty
Speaker 1: two and twenty three in Game four, thirty six and
Speaker 1: eleven in Game five. I mean, maybe the series is
Speaker 1: different if birds Song is healthy and he plays, But
Speaker 1: this wasn't even close. Like, you know, Okay, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get this seven games of blood on the floor and
Speaker 1: hair on the walls, and it was just Houston said,
Speaker 1: we have the best player. It's Moses Malone, and they
Speaker 1: rode him all the way through, just like the Lakers
Speaker 1: or or an Orlando Magic team would do with Shack
Speaker 1: when they didn't have a lot or enough behind. It
Speaker 1: was okay, this is the guy that's gonna get us through.
Speaker 1: And whereas you know, the Lakers were able to figure
Speaker 1: out the team around Shack and get it to a championship,
Speaker 1: but the Rockets that just weren't able to do it.
Speaker 1: And and like I said, this is the best Moses
Speaker 1: Malone that you had over the course of his career.
Speaker 1: Twenty seven point four points per game in this series.
Speaker 1: Uh dominant in low po So I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: when the big men reigns supreme. Right, we watched Bullyball
Speaker 1: as teams are in you know, two thousand, nineteen, two
Speaker 1: thousand and twenty. The game changes, but that's still the
Speaker 1: elemental piece. If you've got a guy that can dominate
Speaker 1: in the low post and can be remotely functional at
Speaker 1: the line. Moses was thirty fifty two in this series.
Speaker 1: But if you're remotely functional, you know that you're not
Speaker 1: just gonna play the hack a shack game. But even
Speaker 1: doing that, I mean, the opportunities are immense to to
Speaker 1: rack up points and opportunities filed trouble, all of that things,
Speaker 1: you know, changing the rotations, forcing some of the lesser
Speaker 1: players in and and Moses, you go back and watch
Speaker 1: some of that film. He's a man among boys in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, just in terms of body structure.
Speaker 1: He was. He was a guy that I remember because
Speaker 1: you know, right around I started watching basketball, right around
Speaker 1: Bird Magic, right that that was my exposure to it.
Speaker 1: I remember watching the National Championship game. My uncle was
Speaker 1: such a big Larry Bird fan, and he was all,
Speaker 1: let's watch, and I watched, and that was like my
Speaker 1: birth of basketball. So still I'm learning about a lot
Speaker 1: of players at this point when I'm this young, and
Speaker 1: as remember remember Mos and Malone going, this guy is
Speaker 1: so great, this guy is so great. And then you know,
Speaker 1: you see Bird and you see magic play. But Malone,
Speaker 1: because he's so big and he's so dominant and he
Speaker 1: could do whatever he wanted to. It was, I don't
Speaker 1: understand why he doesn't win a championship every single year
Speaker 1: because he's just that big. But then we watched Malone
Speaker 1: really get a little bit too big for himself. See
Speaker 1: what I did there. Yeah, so I get paid that
Speaker 1: broadcast professional, my friend, I get that. So the Rockets
Speaker 1: win and look at like I said, it wasn't a
Speaker 1: great or a very close series. The Rockets win this
Speaker 1: and clearly they were the better the team. And like
Speaker 1: I said, maybe if Otis burn Song played a little
Speaker 1: bit more, if he was back to being himself, it
Speaker 1: could have gone a little bit further. But the Rockets
Speaker 1: go to the finals. They're huge underdogs to the Boston Celtics. Right,
Speaker 1: the Celtics are walking in here going, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we're gonna crush them and win this year. You had,
Speaker 1: you had the bottom seat in the West. Make it all.
Speaker 1: We have to worry about the Lakers. The Sun's anybody,
Speaker 1: and Moses Malone trash talks Boston, who had a tough
Speaker 1: time keeping up with all the bulletin board material they
Speaker 1: had to write down all Malone said. He called the
Speaker 1: Celtics chumps. He said they ain't that good. At one point,
Speaker 1: he said, I could get four guys off the street
Speaker 1: in my hometown and we can beat them. I mean
Speaker 1: they like it's wrong. Why don't why it? Look if
Speaker 1: you're gonna go down, go down. Swinging in with a
Speaker 1: good press headline. He he must have had a great hometown.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a great hometown team, I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: Is it like was it like space jam? We had
Speaker 1: all the other best players and they were Oh, I
Speaker 1: got Bernard King, I got a bunch of guys. We're
Speaker 1: all gonna come and play. Well, we'll beat you. Guys
Speaker 1: will be great. I like the way that I like
Speaker 1: the way you talk. Um. So, while from alone, it
Speaker 1: probably wasn't the smartest thing to take on the Celtics
Speaker 1: and and continue to give them material the way they did,
Speaker 1: he wasn't really wrong because the Celtics, look, they should
Speaker 1: have won this series going away, but instead the Rockets
Speaker 1: gave him a tough time with the series was tied
Speaker 1: to two before the Celtics win the last two games.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why is because this was
Speaker 1: not a great NBA Finals for Larry Bird. Larry Bird
Speaker 1: really struggled many times throughout this. He wasn't the NBA
Speaker 1: Finals m v P. It was Cedric Maxwell, a big
Speaker 1: game five he had with eight and fifteen, but Bird
Speaker 1: didn't play well. If you had a normal NBA Finals
Speaker 1: from Larry Bird, well maybe then this is a sweep
Speaker 1: or it's four one. But the Rockets, they hung in
Speaker 1: a lot longer than people expected, and it took the
Speaker 1: Celtics at the end to put them away. And I
Speaker 1: think probably Boston was like, boy, that was tougher than
Speaker 1: we thought it was gonna be. But we didn't. We won,
Speaker 1: but boy, it was tougher than we thought. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: they did a great job defending on Bird. Shot was
Speaker 1: off the entire entire series. The only shot from the
Speaker 1: field all right, rounded up to forty two. To make
Speaker 1: him feel better, but just I think he needs that.
Speaker 1: He needs to feel better. Yeah, well you know what
Speaker 1: you got to do that off the bricks across the
Speaker 1: beam through the skylight and score, you know when he's
Speaker 1: battling Michael Jordan's for fries uh and McDonald's series. But
Speaker 1: thirty nine of nine three in the series, only one
Speaker 1: of three from three point range. That's fine. It barely
Speaker 1: got to the file line. And when you're shooting that poorly, right,
Speaker 1: putting pressure on the other guys to step up. And look,
Speaker 1: you got a loaded lineup right, all the names, you know,
Speaker 1: Cedric Maxwell, Robert Parrish, You've got Kevin McHale, mL car
Speaker 1: like all of these guys playing big roles, and of
Speaker 1: course Tiny Archibald, everybody's favorite, Chris Ford playing heavy minutes.
Speaker 1: Those those are all your principles. And even at this
Speaker 1: point Kevin McHale, you know, played only eighty three minutes
Speaker 1: in the series, but you're just expecting a walk go over.
Speaker 1: And I think we do this every year where there
Speaker 1: there's always a team that suddenly either plays defense or
Speaker 1: plays defense just enough to kind of mess things up, right,
Speaker 1: We've seen that men your Houston Rockets in the season. Well,
Speaker 1: but just the idea that at least for Bursts, James
Speaker 1: Harden was playing defense. So you're looking around, going what's
Speaker 1: going on? Here again bizarro world, But the same thing
Speaker 1: here is a guy who is seemingly unstoppable, became mortal
Speaker 1: for a series and you know, tied to two and
Speaker 1: then eventually to blow out wins to to finish the
Speaker 1: finish off the the Houston Rockets. But you look at
Speaker 1: Moses Malone did everything he could single handedly to try
Speaker 1: to keep them in it and try to will them
Speaker 1: towards victory. So he at least backed up the talk.
Speaker 1: And you know, you can't fall to good strategy. We
Speaker 1: say it on the show on Fox Sports Radio all
Speaker 1: the time. You may not agree with it. It may
Speaker 1: seem a little wrong headed, poking the bear, but in
Speaker 1: the end, you know, and then anytime you can get
Speaker 1: a bunch of press off it and it becomes the
Speaker 1: stuff of legend where we're talking about it thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: Of wow, that was interesting. Imagine that in the social
Speaker 1: media air era. Right, Hey, what did he do? He
Speaker 1: went on a podcast because he was in the bubble,
Speaker 1: he uh started tweeting on it. I mean, what would
Speaker 1: Moses Malone's burner accounty? Oh no, you know, hey, how
Speaker 1: about this, I'll tell you exactly what will be said
Speaker 1: about the Rockets in the Celtics coming off this series
Speaker 1: ready ahead, Malone had no help twenty two and fifteen
Speaker 1: in the NBA Finals, Robert Reid, Billy Pulse, nobody was
Speaker 1: good enough. The guy was trying to do it all
Speaker 1: by himself when Robert Reid was too busy with three
Speaker 1: young boys of his own. And then for Larry Bird,
Speaker 1: they would say, oh, yeah, you look, he had the stats.
Speaker 1: You know, it would be like what we would say
Speaker 1: about Lebron. He only scored fifteen points. Well, he also
Speaker 1: averaged fifteen rebounds and seven assists. So even though Bird
Speaker 1: wasn't shooting well, he found other ways to impact the
Speaker 1: game because he was the leading rebounder and the leading
Speaker 1: assist maker throughout the entire series. But it would be yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's not birds supposed to lead the team. And
Speaker 1: it was a bad time. Look. He shot horrendously and
Speaker 1: it kept it kept the Rockets in in in games
Speaker 1: because he didn't score more than more than fifteen in
Speaker 1: a game, but he still pulled down fifteen rebounds. I mean,
Speaker 1: he had fifteen. This is this is him and Moses Malone.
Speaker 1: Fifteen rebounds per game and seven assists for Bird, it
Speaker 1: was a great all around, but it would be, oh, yeah, Lebron,
Speaker 1: Lebron couldn't win the m v P. Cedric Maxwell won
Speaker 1: the m v P. Lebron couldn't win the m v P.
Speaker 1: Alex Caruso won the m v P. This is not
Speaker 1: a real title for Lebron, That's exact. That's what would
Speaker 1: be said about Lebron now. Would be the same thing
Speaker 1: being said about the Celtics back then. Larry Bird isn't
Speaker 1: that good, He's overrated. He would have done he would
Speaker 1: have scored, We should have scored at least twenty five
Speaker 1: a game. That's exactly what people would say. System player,
Speaker 1: what do you want? Well, I mean, look, as we
Speaker 1: go through the annals of NBA history, I mean there
Speaker 1: are certain periods where it's like, all right, where was
Speaker 1: the competition? And I look squarely at the earlies, earlier Celtics.
Speaker 1: No disrespect to the great Bill Russell and his teammates.
Speaker 1: You know, they were running circles around the rest of
Speaker 1: the league. Uh as you roll through. Likewise, this Celtics
Speaker 1: squad was in the midst of another monster run, right,
Speaker 1: a huge decade plus run atop the Eastern Conference. So
Speaker 1: for Larry Bird, yeah, I mean you want to go
Speaker 1: all around? Right? Was he taken the big shot at
Speaker 1: the end? Was he and all of the things that
Speaker 1: you ascribe to Lebron James or in in certain superstar
Speaker 1: here that it'd be just fun to watch how the
Speaker 1: series would get broken down as they played out. So
Speaker 1: now you see what I mean when I say two
Speaker 1: teams that weren't really good, that we're the worst and
Speaker 1: turned into potentially the best. This is the upside down
Speaker 1: year that was Jason Smith, Mike Harmon. Our show is heard.
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