Compara-Bull, Doc says team reminds him of Jordan-era Bulls
I went to practice yesterday looking for some sort of historical perspective on the Celtics current run of dominance. It’s been a while since we’ve had such heady times here, with a 22-2 start and a 14-game winning streak. So I just wanted to try and wrap my head around it from a historical perspective and ask some of the guys on the team if they could remember a run like this by a defending champion.
“Just the Bulls,” Doc Rivers said. “I saw them first hand. They were as mentally tough as any team I’ve ever seen…They had that drive, even after they won it. They had to get better.”
This, led to the natural follow up of, does Rivers see any similarities between this Celtics team drive and the Bulls team that won 72 games, and 69 games respectively in 1996 and 1997?
“I saw it the first day of practice with the starters…The first day they were running in full gear. The bench had to catch up (and they still do) to rediscover their roles…”
According to Basketball-Reference.com the 1995-96 Bulls had a 22-2 record going into their 25th game as well. They also had a nearly identical 13-game winning streak in Nov/Dec and then pulled off an 18-game winning streak in Jan/Feb. However, the next year the Bulls came out of the gate 21-3 through 24 games, meaning we’re ahead of their pace (that team won 69 games), they also had a 12-game winning streak in November.
While there is a strong similarity in the teams, I think the Bulls had the benefit of a softer league to play in. However, it is interesting to think that the Celtics certainly have a better starting five than the Bulls did. I’d give the nod to Rondo over (an aging) Haper, and certainly Perk over Luc Longley any day. Does this mean they will win 72-games? Well, probably not. However, it doesn’t hurt to get some perspective now and then now does it.
We have a boffo Cliffor Ray interview going up soon. Sadly, we’ve had some technical difficulties.
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December 15th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Pretty sure the Bulls got to beat up on expansion teams that season. Vancouver Gizzlies and someone else. Raptors probably?
Not positive about that. I’m pretty sure that was an expansion year or maybe year 2 of expansion teams but it’s like Indy getting to play the Texans twice every year…
When the Celts win 70 games and another ring this year, they’ll go down as the greatest team ever. 3 HOFers in their prime…how you gonna stop that?
December 15th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
It was an expansion year for both those teams. So, that would be 6 gimme games because Toronto is in the conference and Vancouver would be in another conference.
I like where your head is at. Although, 85-86 was so damn good. They just started off a little slower than these guys and lost some flukey games but they had three hof’ers.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
As a Raptors fan (here via Truehoop), I feel it necessary to note that one of the 10 losses the 95-96 Bulls gave up was to the expansion Raptors.
Just had to be said I think.
Great post by the way, and your Celts look ridiculously dominant, it’s going to be a good season.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Did they really? I remember when the Celts beet the Bulls in Pitino’s first game of 1997 I cried. How freakin sad is that? It should tell you how low things were then.