"Jordan as a player talking shit to Larry Bird when he was a coach" - Prominent soccer columnist on his favorite part from "The Last Dance" docuseries featuring Michael Jordan and Chicago Bulls
ESPN's Last Dance 30 for 30 brought NBA fans a whole new view of Michael Jordan, on and off the court. ESPN and The Athletic's soccer columnist David Amoyal talked about one of his favorite moments between the Chicago Bulls star and Larry Bird. At the same time, Bird was head coach of the Indiana Pacers.
Bird faced off against Jordan and the Bulls several times during his Hall of Fame career with the Boston Celtics. The two would strike up a friendship over time, as two the best players in the NBA.
A picture of Jordan and Bird hanging out on Twitter was posted, and Amoyal commented on his favorite moment for The Last Dance, which included the unlikely pair. Amoyal responded to the picture by tweeting,
“My favorite thing about Last Dance was Jordan as a player talking shit to Larry Bird when he was a coach with Pacers”
My favorite thing about Last Dance was Jordan as a player talking shit to Larry Bird when he was a coach with Pacers twitter.com/super70ssports…
The moment he is referring to is one of the best moments in the documentary. After Michael Jordan and the Bulls beat the Pacers, Bird and Jordan met in the tunnel after they both left the court. They hug each other and then appear to share a special moment, however, they were trash-talking each other the entire time.
The trash talk might hurt even more than the L 🤣
#TheLastDance https://t.co/aZE8lf4nvg
Michael Jordan versus Larry Bird
As players, they matched up against each other 34 times, six of those games came in the playoffs. Bird won 23 of those 34 games and won all of the playoff contests between the two.
A big reason for such a mismatch in the wins was that the Celtics were one of the best teams in the NBA when Michael Jordan entered the league. Meanwhile, the Bulls were just beginning to see the talent they had in Jordan and were looking to build a dynasty of their own.
In their regular season head-to-head matchups, Jordan averaged 33.5 points, 6.1 rebounds and 5.3 assists. While in the playoffs, Jordan put up 39.7 points, 6.7 rebounds and 5.8 assists against Bird.
"Our whole thing was just do what we can do to hold Michael down, but you don't hold the great ones down."
"That wasn't Michael Jordan out there, that was God disguised as Michael Jordan." - Larry Bird
#TheLastDance on ESPN https://t.co/CUFr6nB5R3
In just his second year in the league, Jordan played one of the best games of his career in Game 2 against the Celtics in the first round of the 1985-86 playoffs. In just his fifth playoff game, Jordan scored 63 points on 41 shots to show the NBA world that he had arrived and would be a challenge.
The Bulls lost all three games in the series, which makes sense because the Celtics and Larry Bird would go on to win the NBA Finals that season. Bird stepped up to the plate in many of his matchups with arguably the best basketball player ever.
Bird averaged 26.9 points, 8.6 rebounds and 6.4 assists, and in the playoffs, he came close to a triple-double, averaging 27.2 points, nine rebounds and 8.5 assists. Bird did not have to carry his team as Jordan did because he had already been in the league for four seasons, winning two NBA championships before Jordan was drafted.
Michael Jordan and Larry Bird are two of basketball’s ultimate legends. @Hoophall Robert Parish played with both of them.
He tells @hoopscritic and @SamMitchellNBA what it was like to share the court with Jordan and Bird. https://t.co/2A8bGXAFqB
Bird and Michael Jordan are two of the best players in NBA history and went toe-to-toe lot throughout their playing careers, and even when Bird was a coach. Their on-court battles forged an unlikely yet special friendship filled with immense amount of competition one would imagine