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depends, who would be officiating and what would the points in vegas be?
Man I hate summer, regardless of the 4th le.
Bowen would hold his own on Iceman, but be edged in the end. Like the above it was more physical then, and Bowen isn't much bigger anyways.
depends, who would be officiating and what would the points in vegas be?
Probably the same ones who didn't put GG on their all-time Spurs team.
Context 1980's: Bowen is able to be more physical and would "contain" Ice to fewer points, or same points on more attempts. Win for Bowen.
Context 2000's: Bowen is Ice's . See: 4 scoring les in a much more physical era.
I think you're dead on about the midrange game. Gervin had a deceptive first step and he would torture the Popovich Spurs with pullups in the no-man's land between 12 and 18 feet. Ice also took shots from odd angles and at spots on the floor where very few others would shoot. Bruce would eventually learn at least how to make him work, but the first 2-3 times they played he'd get lit up.
Oh, yeah. This reminds me of the time the Pacers were propping Dudley Bradley as the "Secretary of Defense" before a game against the Spurs in Indy.
Ice went for 55, and Bradley was never the same after that.
That is one of the little things that made him such an effective scorer: he learned to shoot from spots that were created by holes in the defensive schemes. And yeah, he used to shoot from some really odd angles.
Do you remember the 84-85 season when he went over the top of the backboard falling out of bounds in Denver? Not sure if he ever practiced that shot, but you knew that he knew he could hit it.
If he plays magic and offensively, he can be smart defensively...
WRONG!
Do you mean the night when he set the HemisFair Arena scoring record against the Nuggets? I was at that game, there was a shot where he got cut off on the baseline and threw up a semi hook that went over the backboard and into the net. I'm pretty sure that's an illegal shot, too.
I think it is now, but may not have been back then. Sort of like playing hard defense.
I could have sworn that game was in Denver, because I worked for the Spurs back in the 84-86 time frame and missed maybe two home games that entire time. I'll defer to your knowledge, as shortly after that I went off to college and relied on Chicago Tribune box scores and SI issues to keep up with them for several years pre-internet.
Well, I wouldn't defer too much, because for years I misremembered that game was against the Clippers (even though I was there).
The only thing I can vouch for:
-I was there the night he set the HemisFair record.
-I saw that one shot.
It wouldn't shock me if he had done that more than once.
I trolled for game-by-game stats of his career, because I thought it was in Denver and was part of a 40-ish point effort. But again, we are talking one shot in one game over 20 years ago. I just remember Denver, so it was probably the game you referenced.
<muttering about getting close to 40 and feeling old and somewhat senile>
You have a site where you can do this?
"Close to 40?"<muttering about getting close to 40 and feeling old and somewhat senile>
Trolled but did not find. Best I could find was season by season at basketball reference.You have a site where you can do this?
"Close to 40?"
When we have posters on here who never saw Ice play, then yeah, 40 is feeling old.
No chicken tonight!!!!Oh, yeah. This reminds me of the time the Pacers were propping Dudley Bradley as the "Secretary of Defense" before a game against the Spurs in Indy.
Ice went for 55, and Bradley was never the same after that.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...8/ai_n10331283"One particular half stuck in his mind. When the Spurs arrived in Indiana for one game, the Pacers had a big promotion going. Gervin remembered the details. "They said if they held the Iceman under 30, everybody in the building would get free chicken," he said. This was a leftover from the old ABA promotions, when the league would do anything to bring in fans. Now in the NBA, the Pacers were still in promotion overdrive. The lure of free chicken had the fans in a frenzy. Indiana did its part, assigning Dudley Bradley, known as the Secretary of Defense, to guard Gervin. This, of course, did not disturb the Iceman. "First half, I scored 25," he said, his eyes dancing at the memory. As he trotted to the dressing room for halftime, Gervin had a message for some courtside fans. "I was yelling at them, `No chicken tonight!' I got 55. It's still the arena record."
The finger roll was almost unblockable, even moreso than TP's teardrop. There were great shotblockers when Ice played, some of the greatest shotblockers in the history of the NBA(Eaton, Tree Rollins, Jabbar, McHale, Elvin Hayes) and Ice got his shot over every one of them many many times. Do not speak if you do not know what the you are talking about.
Ice would score 40 on Bruce, just as as any great scorer can.
No chicken tonight!!!!
Ice played D. He had multiple seasons of at least 100 blocks and 100 steals.
Almost every year from '73-'80
ICE grew up playing basketball in the streets of Detroit. You don't think Ice knew something about physical ball play?
I had the honor of playing with ICE, and his son G, for a couple of years after he retired, in private league games. He was still amazing then. And the one thing that caught everyone by surprise with Ice was...his strength.
He looks skinny as a rail. But when you put a body on him, you noticed it was like pushing against solid rock. You didn't feel muscles...you felt ing solid bone. He was scary strong. His confidence was in the stratosphere as well, he never got shook up. I guess that's why he was always smiling. He'd have a ball scoring on Bowen, and Bowen would love every minute of it. He always had a way of making you feel good when he scored on you. That's Ice. Bas
Anyway, as much as I appreciate Bowen...Ice could score on anyone. It wasn't his ovewhelming quickness, it was his overwhelming skill. Trickiest sob ever to play the game. And he enjoyed it more than anyone I've ever seen play the game...truely.
The finger roll was almost unblockable, even moreso than TP's teardrop. There were great shotblockers when Ice played, some of the greatest shotblockers in the history of the NBA(Eaton, Tree Rollins, Jabbar, McHale, Elvin Hayes) and Ice got his shot over every one of them many many times. Do not speak if you do not know what the you are talking about.
Ice would score 40 on Bruce, just as as any great scorer can.
People obviously don't remember how dominant Ice was offensively. Kris's age is showing through in his post.
Every team put their best defender on Ice, and Ice still took them all night long. Michael Cooper was a pretty good defender in his own right and I remember Ice dominating him. Back then guys were allowed a lot more contact and Gervin still owned them all.
I love me some Bruce, but Ice would have no trouble scoring 40 on him.
Ice could kill you whatever way he wanted. He'd post you up. He'd take you off the dribble. He'd shoot over you. He'd pull up. He was completely and utterly unstoppable. He learned how to make every shot in the book, and then he wrote his own book. At least once or twice every night he'd make some ridiculous shot and you'd just marvel at how he did it. Bowen is the one of the best perimeter defenders in the history of the league, but don't blaspheme. Ice would kill him.
That was another good point about Ice's strength. People joke about the ball not being heavy, but it takes physical strength to put up 25 shots every night in the NBA with people hanging all over you.
Having said that, I will give some props to today's game so I don't sound like the typical "it was better back then" geezer. The overall defensive intensity of the game is much higher now. Back then, even the top defenders (Michael Cooper, Dennis Johnson) weren't going full throttle for as much of the game as Bowen does now. They were very good, but they picked their spots a lot more. If you look at game films from the 70s and 80s, the team defense wasn't nearly as sophisticated and the close outs weren't as strong or as often.
Maybe some of that had to do with the game pace (it's harder to sustain the D when everyone is putting up 100 shots a game). But I think the greater athleticism of today's game is most noticeable on the defensive side, even if you could get away with more then.
One last thing about Ice. I can't ever recall him ing about not getting a call. Of course, very few players in the league ed much longer than a few seconds about anything then.
My favorite memory of Ice is when he drove the lane against the Lakers and Kareem came up to meet him and he finger-rolled from about 10 feet out right over Kareem's outstretched hand. Kareem's hand had to be about 12 feet up. An unbelievable shot. He was unstoppable.
The crazy thing is that no one has ever been able to duplicate his finger roll with any consistency.
Gervin drew an incredible amount of baskets plus the foul. He had a knack for finding contact and bouncing off the defender while putting the ball in the basket. Usually off the glass from an impossible angle.
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