We are witnessing hustory, Warrior's are all time great.

[Yoki_IsTheName]

I'm not sure how any Celtics fan could think the Warriors of today are a better 'single season' team then the 86 Celtics? Better record, maybe, but better team? Who do they have that could handle Bird, McHale, Walton and Parish?

The truth is, the league is watered down today with 29 or 30 teams in it. The baby boomers have come and gone and today's league must import players just to work. No way that Warriors team beats the best of the 80's teams, Celtics, Lackers, or 76'ers either.

In today's games with today's rules, how are the Celtics going to guard the Warriors.  Do you think Parish can guard Green on the wing.  Or McHale and hang with Barnes on the perimeter.  You see it does work both ways.  Even if the Warriors had Bogut out there for some size, that still means McHale has to guard Green.  Good luck with that.

And if it was played under the older rules, good luck Curry surviving the hard fouls. 





Either way, the best player on the floor is Bird.  The Celtics will control the boards which in terms can be used to control the pace.

Curry wouldn't drive as much, but you would still have to guard him on the wing.  No team from the 80's could compete with the three point shooting of the Warriors.  They just can't guard the bigs that hang out on the wing and bomb threes all day.

And those bigs couldn't handle the physical down low play.  No zone defense.  `

Don't know about that. Draymond handled Zach Randolph pretty well, and he's pretty close to the old school physicality of the 80's and 90's.

And even if we say we can't. The Dubs' bigs' positive outweigh their inability to play defense vs opponent bigs. While they're going to have a tough time defending them in the paint, opponents would have an even tougher time defending them on the perimeter, fast breaks and how they move without the ball.

I love Kevin McHale, and you can make a case that Draymond can't defend him (I think he can). But can you imagine him chasing Green around the court for the entire game? He'll be toast.

[manl_lui]

I don't care what era you play in. If you play an 82 game schedule and end up winning 91.5% of your games (75-7), you're one of the great sports teams in history.  All time great. Period.

If you win the title.

If you don't, you just go down in the annals as a great regular season team but didn't win the title.

this, in my opinion the championship at the end is more important. I mean yea, 75-7 is impressive but not winning the chip kinda makes your regular season irrelevant. Like didn't the Mavs win 69 games one year but lost the chip? I mean no one really talks about that team as being one of the greatest teams.

but don't get me wrong, I do want to see records broken, it's cool! And I respect and like the Warriors, and glad not the Miami Heat who breaks them or any LeBron-led team

[wdleehi]

I'm not sure how any Celtics fan could think the Warriors of today are a better 'single season' team then the 86 Celtics? Better record, maybe, but better team? Who do they have that could handle Bird, McHale, Walton and Parish?

The truth is, the league is watered down today with 29 or 30 teams in it. The baby boomers have come and gone and today's league must import players just to work. No way that Warriors team beats the best of the 80's teams, Celtics, Lackers, or 76'ers either.

In today's games with today's rules, how are the Celtics going to guard the Warriors.  Do you think Parish can guard Green on the wing.  Or McHale and hang with Barnes on the perimeter.  You see it does work both ways.  Even if the Warriors had Bogut out there for some size, that still means McHale has to guard Green.  Good luck with that.

And if it was played under the older rules, good luck Curry surviving the hard fouls. 





Either way, the best player on the floor is Bird.  The Celtics will control the boards which in terms can be used to control the pace.

Curry wouldn't drive as much, but you would still have to guard him on the wing.  No team from the 80's could compete with the three point shooting of the Warriors.  They just can't guard the bigs that hang out on the wing and bomb threes all day.

And those bigs couldn't handle the physical down low play.  No zone defense.  `

Don't know about that. Draymond handled Zach Randolph pretty well, and he's pretty close to the old school physicality of the 80's and 90's.

And even if we say we can't. The Dubs' bigs' positive outweigh their inability to play defense vs opponent bigs. While they're going to have a tough time defending them in the paint, opponents would have an even tougher time defending them on the perimeter, fast breaks and how they move without the ball.

I love Kevin McHale, and you can make a case that Draymond can't defend him (I think he can). But can you imagine him chasing Green around the court for the entire game? He'll be toast.

McHale is superior to Randolph in terms of talent and low post moves. 


And there will not be as many fast breaks.  The big men of the Celtics length and strength will control the boards. 




And everyone is concern about the defense on the Warriors, how about the defense on Bird? 

[Celtics17]

I keep reading how Golden State would win any contest against the old school Celtics because of their three point shooting. Let's not forget that Bird and Ainge were both excellent three point shooters. If Ainge played in todays game and wanted to shoot threes as much as teams today shoot them then he would be right up there. I dont think Bird needs any explanation or qualification on his ability to shoot threes.

Now, you think Boston would have a hard time guarding Green? How is Golden State going to handle McHale and Parrish down low? How are they going to handle Bird at all because that is going to be far more difficult then McHale having to guard Green. And, let's not forget Walton off the bench because he is going to kill G.S. simply because they would have noone to guard him off the bench.

You may not like the idea that today's league is 'watered down' but it's true. If you look at the baby boomers (born between 1946-1964) you have  almost twice as many young people to enter the league (potentially) then what you would in todays league. That alone waters it down and then you throw in the fact that there are around %50 more teams in the league today and it again waters down the teams, not individual players, but teams. Does anyone think that Michael Cooper couldnt do a pretty good job against Curry?

[mef730]

I don't care what era you play in. If you play an 82 game schedule and end up winning 91.5% of your games (75-7), you're one of the great sports teams in history.  All time great. Period.

If you win the title.

If you don't, you just go down in the annals as a great regular season team but didn't win the title.

Unfortunately, the 2007 Patriots would agree with you.

Mike

[Yoki_IsTheName]

I'm not sure how any Celtics fan could think the Warriors of today are a better 'single season' team then the 86 Celtics? Better record, maybe, but better team? Who do they have that could handle Bird, McHale, Walton and Parish?

The truth is, the league is watered down today with 29 or 30 teams in it. The baby boomers have come and gone and today's league must import players just to work. No way that Warriors team beats the best of the 80's teams, Celtics, Lackers, or 76'ers either.

In today's games with today's rules, how are the Celtics going to guard the Warriors.  Do you think Parish can guard Green on the wing.  Or McHale and hang with Barnes on the perimeter.  You see it does work both ways.  Even if the Warriors had Bogut out there for some size, that still means McHale has to guard Green.  Good luck with that.

And if it was played under the older rules, good luck Curry surviving the hard fouls. 





Either way, the best player on the floor is Bird.  The Celtics will control the boards which in terms can be used to control the pace.

Curry wouldn't drive as much, but you would still have to guard him on the wing.  No team from the 80's could compete with the three point shooting of the Warriors.  They just can't guard the bigs that hang out on the wing and bomb threes all day.

And those bigs couldn't handle the physical down low play.  No zone defense.  `

Don't know about that. Draymond handled Zach Randolph pretty well, and he's pretty close to the old school physicality of the 80's and 90's.

And even if we say we can't. The Dubs' bigs' positive outweigh their inability to play defense vs opponent bigs. While they're going to have a tough time defending them in the paint, opponents would have an even tougher time defending them on the perimeter, fast breaks and how they move without the ball.

I love Kevin McHale, and you can make a case that Draymond can't defend him (I think he can). But can you imagine him chasing Green around the court for the entire game? He'll be toast.

McHale is superior to Randolph in terms of talent and low post moves. 


And there will not be as many fast breaks.  The big men of the Celtics length and strength will control the boards. 




And everyone is concern about the defense on the Warriors, how about the defense on Bird?

That's what they said when they played Memphis, and they were able to fight off rebounds against the Memphis bigs. And they were going small most of the time.

And there's just no way to stop the Warriors from running. They can create missed shots by double teaming plenty, and constantly, especially on the inside. They are quick to recover too and hep out, which makes their double teams very effective. They can also switch pretty much in everything. They could create missed shots, and start a break from there. How are McHale and Chief going to be able to run with the Dubs?

As for Bird. Of course no one would stop him, just as no one from the C's would stop Curry. The advantage is ball and player movement. The Warriors will move the ball better than the C's, their off ball movement would be too fast, too confusing for that era's style of play, and they will just break down defensively.

[wdleehi]

I'm not sure how any Celtics fan could think the Warriors of today are a better 'single season' team then the 86 Celtics? Better record, maybe, but better team? Who do they have that could handle Bird, McHale, Walton and Parish?

The truth is, the league is watered down today with 29 or 30 teams in it. The baby boomers have come and gone and today's league must import players just to work. No way that Warriors team beats the best of the 80's teams, Celtics, Lackers, or 76'ers either.

In today's games with today's rules, how are the Celtics going to guard the Warriors.  Do you think Parish can guard Green on the wing.  Or McHale and hang with Barnes on the perimeter.  You see it does work both ways.  Even if the Warriors had Bogut out there for some size, that still means McHale has to guard Green.  Good luck with that.

And if it was played under the older rules, good luck Curry surviving the hard fouls. 





Either way, the best player on the floor is Bird.  The Celtics will control the boards which in terms can be used to control the pace.

Curry wouldn't drive as much, but you would still have to guard him on the wing.  No team from the 80's could compete with the three point shooting of the Warriors.  They just can't guard the bigs that hang out on the wing and bomb threes all day.

And those bigs couldn't handle the physical down low play.  No zone defense.  `

Don't know about that. Draymond handled Zach Randolph pretty well, and he's pretty close to the old school physicality of the 80's and 90's.

And even if we say we can't. The Dubs' bigs' positive outweigh their inability to play defense vs opponent bigs. While they're going to have a tough time defending them in the paint, opponents would have an even tougher time defending them on the perimeter, fast breaks and how they move without the ball.

I love Kevin McHale, and you can make a case that Draymond can't defend him (I think he can). But can you imagine him chasing Green around the court for the entire game? He'll be toast.

McHale is superior to Randolph in terms of talent and low post moves. 


And there will not be as many fast breaks.  The big men of the Celtics length and strength will control the boards. 




And everyone is concern about the defense on the Warriors, how about the defense on Bird?

That's what they said when they played Memphis, and they were able to fight off rebounds against the Memphis bigs. And they were going small most of the time.

And there's just no way to stop the Warriors from running. They can create missed shots by double teaming plenty, and constantly, especially on the inside. They are quick to recover too and hep out, which makes their double teams very effective. They can also switch pretty much in everything. They could create missed shots, and start a break from there. How are McHale and Chief going to be able to run with the Dubs?

As for Bird. Of course no one would stop him, just as no one from the C's would stop Curry. The advantage is ball and player movement. The Warriors will move the ball better than the C's, their off ball movement would be too fast, too confusing for that era's style of play, and they will just break down defensively.

Look at Boston's rebounding SF, Bird.  Who does Memphis have that can do that? 


Throw in the trio of Parish, Mchale and Walton.


It is not a fair comparison for Memphis.

[Moranis]

I'm not sure how any Celtics fan could think the Warriors of today are a better 'single season' team then the 86 Celtics? Better record, maybe, but better team? Who do they have that could handle Bird, McHale, Walton and Parish?

The truth is, the league is watered down today with 29 or 30 teams in it. The baby boomers have come and gone and today's league must import players just to work. No way that Warriors team beats the best of the 80's teams, Celtics, Lackers, or 76'ers either.

In today's games with today's rules, how are the Celtics going to guard the Warriors.  Do you think Parish can guard Green on the wing.  Or McHale and hang with Barnes on the perimeter.  You see it does work both ways.  Even if the Warriors had Bogut out there for some size, that still means McHale has to guard Green.  Good luck with that.

And if it was played under the older rules, good luck Curry surviving the hard fouls. 





Either way, the best player on the floor is Bird.  The Celtics will control the boards which in terms can be used to control the pace.

Curry wouldn't drive as much, but you would still have to guard him on the wing.  No team from the 80's could compete with the three point shooting of the Warriors.  They just can't guard the bigs that hang out on the wing and bomb threes all day.

And those bigs couldn't handle the physical down low play.  No zone defense.  `

Don't know about that. Draymond handled Zach Randolph pretty well, and he's pretty close to the old school physicality of the 80's and 90's.

And even if we say we can't. The Dubs' bigs' positive outweigh their inability to play defense vs opponent bigs. While they're going to have a tough time defending them in the paint, opponents would have an even tougher time defending them on the perimeter, fast breaks and how they move without the ball.

I love Kevin McHale, and you can make a case that Draymond can't defend him (I think he can). But can you imagine him chasing Green around the court for the entire game? He'll be toast.

McHale is superior to Randolph in terms of talent and low post moves. 


And there will not be as many fast breaks.  The big men of the Celtics length and strength will control the boards. 




And everyone is concern about the defense on the Warriors, how about the defense on Bird?

I think Green would do fine against Bird and Barnes wouldn't be terrible either.  Heck Iggy did a great job on James, who is faster and stronger than Bird ever was (and isn't much shorter). 

I'd also expect the Warriors to play slightly bigger against a team like that, just like they would against a healthy Cavs or the Spurs i.e. Bogut (who has actually started 24 of his 28 games) would play a lot more.  So the Warriors would basically start Curry, Thompson, Barnes, Green, and Bogut with the main rotation being Iggy, Livingston, Ezeli, and Rush.  I think that would be a very difficult team for the Celtics to guard.  I mean how is Ainge going to guard Thompson (who is basically the only person he has any shot of guarding)?  Come on.  Thompson might score 40 a game in the series. 

[fairweatherfan]

I don't care what era you play in. If you play an 82 game schedule and end up winning 91.5% of your games (75-7), you're one of the great sports teams in history.  All time great. Period.

If you win the title.

If you don't, you just go down in the annals as a great regular season team but didn't win the title. 

Yeah, we can fuss around about who'd beat who all we want, but ignore the hypotheticals about who's the absolute #1 squad ever and we're probably looking at a historically great team by any measure.  If they win the ring of course.


Also, lol at the people claiming the league is more watered down today than in the mid-80s.  Here's the final standings for 85-86: http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_1986.html

Take a look at the standings and then the rosters of the teams outside of the elite.  The league was tremendously top-heavy; there were no truly terrible teams but the middle and bottom of the league was weak across the board - only 10 out of 23 teams cracked .500.   Most of the next generation of stars (Jordan, Malone, Ewing) were just starting out and not ready to lead a winner yet.  There was very little competition for the top few squads.

[Donoghus]

I don't care what era you play in. If you play an 82 game schedule and end up winning 91.5% of your games (75-7), you're one of the great sports teams in history.  All time great. Period.

If you win the title.

If you don't, you just go down in the annals as a great regular season team but didn't win the title. 

Yeah, we can fuss around about who'd beat who all we want, but ignore the hypotheticals about who's the absolute #1 squad ever and we're probably looking at a historically great team by any measure.  If they win the ring of course.


Also, lol at the people claiming the league is more watered down today than in the mid-80s.  Here's the final standings for 85-86: http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_1986.html

Take a look at the standings and then the rosters of the teams outside of the elite.  The league was tremendously top-heavy; there were no truly terrible teams but the middle and bottom of the league was weak across the board - only 10 out of 23 teams cracked .500.   Most of the next generation of stars (Jordan, Malone, Ewing) were just starting out and not ready to lead a winner yet.  There was very little competition for the top few squads.

Yeah, people can argue all day one way or another about quality of competition & stuff.

I just think if you have a sport where you play an 82 game regular season and you lose single digit games, that would be of the most impressive things you would ever see in professional sports.   Think of the difficulty of it.  Back to backs. 3 games in 5 nights.  All the travel.  Stuff like that.
 

[Yoki_IsTheName]

I'm not sure how any Celtics fan could think the Warriors of today are a better 'single season' team then the 86 Celtics? Better record, maybe, but better team? Who do they have that could handle Bird, McHale, Walton and Parish?

The truth is, the league is watered down today with 29 or 30 teams in it. The baby boomers have come and gone and today's league must import players just to work. No way that Warriors team beats the best of the 80's teams, Celtics, Lackers, or 76'ers either.

In today's games with today's rules, how are the Celtics going to guard the Warriors.  Do you think Parish can guard Green on the wing.  Or McHale and hang with Barnes on the perimeter.  You see it does work both ways.  Even if the Warriors had Bogut out there for some size, that still means McHale has to guard Green.  Good luck with that.

And if it was played under the older rules, good luck Curry surviving the hard fouls. 





Either way, the best player on the floor is Bird.  The Celtics will control the boards which in terms can be used to control the pace.

Curry wouldn't drive as much, but you would still have to guard him on the wing.  No team from the 80's could compete with the three point shooting of the Warriors.  They just can't guard the bigs that hang out on the wing and bomb threes all day.

And those bigs couldn't handle the physical down low play.  No zone defense.  `

Don't know about that. Draymond handled Zach Randolph pretty well, and he's pretty close to the old school physicality of the 80's and 90's.

And even if we say we can't. The Dubs' bigs' positive outweigh their inability to play defense vs opponent bigs. While they're going to have a tough time defending them in the paint, opponents would have an even tougher time defending them on the perimeter, fast breaks and how they move without the ball.

I love Kevin McHale, and you can make a case that Draymond can't defend him (I think he can). But can you imagine him chasing Green around the court for the entire game? He'll be toast.

McHale is superior to Randolph in terms of talent and low post moves. 


And there will not be as many fast breaks.  The big men of the Celtics length and strength will control the boards. 




And everyone is concern about the defense on the Warriors, how about the defense on Bird?

That's what they said when they played Memphis, and they were able to fight off rebounds against the Memphis bigs. And they were going small most of the time.

And there's just no way to stop the Warriors from running. They can create missed shots by double teaming plenty, and constantly, especially on the inside. They are quick to recover too and hep out, which makes their double teams very effective. They can also switch pretty much in everything. They could create missed shots, and start a break from there. How are McHale and Chief going to be able to run with the Dubs?

As for Bird. Of course no one would stop him, just as no one from the C's would stop Curry. The advantage is ball and player movement. The Warriors will move the ball better than the C's, their off ball movement would be too fast, too confusing for that era's style of play, and they will just break down defensively.

Look at Boston's rebounding SF, Bird.  Who does Memphis have that can do that? 


Throw in the trio of Parish, Mchale and Walton.


It is not a fair comparison for Memphis.

Yeah, that's actually a fair point. Point taken.

Now, the question now is how do they solve the Warriors high-octane, up tempo offense?

[Moranis]

I don't care what era you play in. If you play an 82 game schedule and end up winning 91.5% of your games (75-7), you're one of the great sports teams in history.  All time great. Period.

If you win the title.

If you don't, you just go down in the annals as a great regular season team but didn't win the title. 

Yeah, we can fuss around about who'd beat who all we want, but ignore the hypotheticals about who's the absolute #1 squad ever and we're probably looking at a historically great team by any measure.  If they win the ring of course.


Also, lol at the people claiming the league is more watered down today than in the mid-80s.  Here's the final standings for 85-86: http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_1986.html

Take a look at the standings and then the rosters of the teams outside of the elite.  The league was tremendously top-heavy; there were no truly terrible teams but the middle and bottom of the league was weak across the board - only 10 out of 23 teams cracked .500.   Most of the next generation of stars (Jordan, Malone, Ewing) were just starting out and not ready to lead a winner yet.  There was very little competition for the top few squads.

Yep. and Boston had a pretty easy run to the title.  Got 30 win Chicago in the first round.  That was the year Jordan only played in 18 games (though he was around for the playoffs).  Played the Hawks, which was pretty much Nique and a bunch of role players.  Then played the Bucks, who are a bunch of good players, but no great ones (and Moncrief missed a bunch of playoff games and wasn't fully healthy).  Then ended up with the Dream/Sampson Rockets who had no one else. 

the 80's was by and large the Celtics and Lakers, with the Sixers in the first half and the Pistons in the 2nd half of the decade.  Then there were a bunch of teams that had a great player and not much else (i.e. Hawks, Bulls, Spurs, Knicks, Rockets, Jazz), teams that were fairly solid without any real stars (i.e. Bucks, Suns, Nuggets), and then just a bunch of crap (i.e. Pacers, Warrios, Kings). 

the early 90's is when a lot of those one star team put it together and became really good as you still had the three old guard, but saw the rise of the Bulls, Sonics, Blazers, Suns, etc. Then there was some expansion which took a few years to even out, but by the mid-2000's the league was back in peak form and has pretty remained there. 

This year the Cavs, Spurs, and Warriors are all elite teams and would compete well with all the great teams in history.  If the Thunder get healthy and actually stay that way, you might even be able to put them into that category as well.  The Clippers, Bulls, and Heat are all good teams and would be good teams in any decade in the sport (you know the type of team that could knock off an elite team in the playoffs, but probably aren't a true title contender).

[Denis998]

No. League is all time mediocre

This! I was just thinking the same thing. You take a and 80's Celtics or Lakers, or a 90's Bulls team and have them play against these teams with these rules, we might be saying the same thing about them.

I mean Jordan averaged over 30(before the old timer come backs) in a league that was defender friendly.

I always hear about these teams not being able to play decades ago, but would those storied teams such as the celtics, pistons, and bulls be able to play effectively with the way that the game is called now? Those stars of the past wouldn't be able to get away with most of the things they did.

[GreenFaith1819]

Maybe an argument for this, but the 90's Bulls teams AND the 80's Lakers, Celtics and Pistons would destroy them.

[Celtics17]

Have to agree with 'destroy' them. Green, Bogut and Barnes are going to cover Parrish, McHale, Bird and Walton huh? I guess that both Curry and Thompson could either shut down MJ? And the recirpocal of that is there is no way MJ could handle guarding Curry as quick as he is. If memory serves it seems as if Dennis Johnson and the Celts held MJ to only 15 points through the final three quarters of the deciding game of the series the year MJ retured from a broken foot. And, by the way, Bird and McHale matched Jordan's 63 in that series game where MJ set the all time playoff record. Bird had 36 and McHale had 27. 

I am not trying to downplay how good the current Warriors squad is but to become an all time great team they first have to win the title again and then maybe it can be discussed seriously but not til then. Winning at a 90% clip doesnt make you an all time great team when it's been done for less then half a season.