Hoops4theSoul

May

22

5-22-1988: Bird & ‘Nique Go Mano-a-Mano

Filed Under On This Day . . ., NBA, Loose Balls

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Larry Bird & Dominique Wilkins Larry Bird & Dominique Wilkins Larry Bird Scorches the Atlanta Hawks in Game SevenTwenty-one years ago today, Atlanta’s superstar #21 — Dominique Wilkins — nearly led his Atlanta Hawks to a Game Seven upset victory against the Boston Celtics at the fabled Boston Garden.

Doing anything and everything possible in his own will to carry Atlanta to the 1988 Eastern Conference Finals, Wilkins scored a game-high 47 points for the Hawks in Game Seven.

Unfortunately for Wilkins, he and his team were going up against the ultimate old gunslinger himself, Larry Bird, who scored 20 of his 34 points in the fourth quarter.

It can be argued that Bird’s heroics in Game Seven against Atlanta was the last great stand of that 80s Celtics team as NBA title contenders.

After squeaking out the 118-116 Game Seven and 4-3 series victory against the Hawks, Bird and his defending Eastern Conference champion Celtics would lose in six games to the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Boston would not make it out of the first round in the next two playoffs before being pushed to the brink of elimination in the first round of the 1991 NBA playoffs.

In one of the last great moments of his illustrious career, a hobbled Bird would push the Celtics to the second round by shooting down nemesis Chuck Person and the Indiana Pacers in the decisive Game Five.

However, the Celtics would bow out to the Pistons in the second round in both 1991 and 1992, and Bird would call it quits soon after.

For the Hawks, things seemed to be looking up after the 1988 playoffs with Wilkins, Kevin Willis, Doc Rivers and frisky Head Coach Mike Fratello in the fold.

However, with the Pistons on the verge of becoming NBA champions and the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers rising in the Eastern Conference’s Central Division, Atlanta would fall back and not make it to the second round of the playoffs until 1994.

By that time, Wilkins was a member of the Los Angeles Clippers after being traded for Danny Manning in a surprise move at the 1994 NBA Trade Deadline.

That move wouldn’t have the desired effects for the Hawks, which would lose to the underdog Indiana Pacers in the second round of the 1994 NBA playoffs.

Anyways, here’s a nice recap of the classic second-round playoff series between the Hawks and Celtics in 1988.

And, of course, here is the video of the unforgettable fourth quarter staging the upstart Wilkins versus the venerable Bird.

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