Playoffs only, Tim Duncan or Larry Bird?

[The Infamous1]

Strictly playoffs, who was a better in their primes?

[colts18]

Easily Duncan. Bird was a playoff failure from 80-83 and 88-92. He had a few good playoff years but for the most part played his worst basketball in the playoffs.

[kaima]

Bird gets hammered for playoff failures with homecourt around here.

Interesting fact? Duncan has lost 8 times in 15 seasons in the playoffs with homecourt. Yet we hear that his teams always finish where they should.

Further, Duncan's a rather large question mark at the end of games due to his clockwork inability to nail a FT.

Just two points amongst others, that get swept under the rug when discussing Duncan.

I think the issues are debatable, Unfortunately, they never seem to be debated at all, or discussed.

[JordansBulls]

Bird gets hammered for playoff failures with homecourt around here.

Interesting fact? Duncan has lost 8 times in 15 seasons in the playoffs with homecourt. Yet we hear that his teams always finish where they should.

Further, Duncan's a rather large question mark at the end of games due to his clockwork inability to nail a FT.

Just two points amongst others, that get swept under the rug when discussing Duncan.

I think the issues are debatable, Unfortunately, they never seem to be debated at all, or discussed.

Actually the records are as follows:

Duncan 23-6 in Series with HCA
Bird 24-7 in series with HCA

[ahonui06]

Duncan. He has one more ring than Bird and won with weaker supporting casts.

[Clyde Frazier]

You could look at it 2 ways. Overall "winning":

Duncan - 4 rings, 3 finals MVPs
Bird - 3 rings, 2 finals MVPs

I'd say it's pretty arguable that bird had better #s than duncan when he won, though.

[Kobe Bean]

Duncan

I'd pick the entire top 10 GOAT list, as well as LeBron and KG over Larry

[semi-sentient]

Duncan is one of the most consistent performers in history. His post-season play rarely regresses and in most instances improves. There aren't many in history that can make that claim.

I'll take Duncan as Bird's play, injury-related or not, tended to dip in the post-season. He rarely ever maintained his scoring and/or efficiency in the post-season, and that's where his main value lies. In fact, in 8 of 12 seasons he regressed significantly as a scorer and that can't just be wiped under the rug.

[ardee]

I think peak for peak, as in '86 and '03, I think Bird was a bit more spectacular then Duncan. It's just a personal preference, Duncan was a grind it out and squeeze out the win type of player, Bird at his best used to eviscerate and humiliate teams on an NBA 2K level.

Career wise is a toss-up, I feel Bird's playoff 'failures' are overstated. Only '83 and the one Detroit series in '88 were true 'failures'. There's a reason people call him the clutchest player ever.

[The Infamous1]

I think peak for peak, as in '86 and '03, I think Bird was a bit more spectacular then Duncan. It's just a personal preference, Duncan was a grind it out and squeeze out the win type of player, Bird at his best used to eviscerate and humiliate teams on an NBA 2K level.

Career wise is a toss-up, I feel Bird's playoff 'failures' are overstated. Only '83 and the one Detroit series in '88 were true 'failures'. There's a reason people call him the clutchest player ever.

He was terrible in the 80',81',82', and 83' playoffs, his efficiency and PPG dropped almost every year

I can't think of a worse 4 year run in the playoffs for a superstar then that.

[Shot Clock]

I think peak for peak, as in '86 and '03, I think Bird was a bit more spectacular then Duncan. It's just a personal preference, Duncan was a grind it out and squeeze out the win type of player, Bird at his best used to eviscerate and humiliate teams on an NBA 2K level.

Career wise is a toss-up, I feel Bird's playoff 'failures' are overstated. Only '83 and the one Detroit series in '88 were true 'failures'. There's a reason people call him the clutchest player ever.

He was terrible in the 80',81',82', and 83' playoffs, his efficiency and PPG dropped almost every year

I can't think of a worse 4 year run in the playoffs for a superstar then that.

Planet infamous the world where 22/14/6 on .470 Fg% is terrible. (All increases over regular season except fg% dropped from .478). Turrible

[The Infamous1]

A 51%TS in the 80' playoffs, garbage.
A 53% TS in the 81' playoffs and was bad in the finals against a mediocre rockets defense(1981 Rockets DRtg 106.7(#16)). 15 PPG on a 46% TS in the finals.
A 47% TS in the 82' playoffs(17 PPG)
A 47% TS in the 83 playoffs and was swept by the bucks

That's allen iverson like efficiency, think about this for a second.

All with loaded teams. This myth of bird being this playoff performer on this whole other level is just that... a myth. Don't get me wrong Duncan has had his moments(that people like to sweep under the rug like the disaster that was the 2005 NBA finals) but bird at times has been godawful. But I'm thankful on realgm in the last year or 2 he's finally being exposed for being the overrated postseason fraud that he is. Larry literally has had 3 good playoff runs and the rest mostly crap. That's nice but I can't judge someone on 3 good(or their best)years, I judge players on their entire bodies of work in the playoffs and larry just isn't as good as advertised

[ardee]

A 51%TS in the 80' playoffs, garbage.
A 53% TS in the 81' playoffs and was bad in the finals against a mediocre rockets defense(1981 Rockets DRtg 106.7(#16)). 15 PPG on a 46% TS in the finals.
A 47% TS in the 82' playoffs(17 PPG)
A 47% TS in the 83 playoffs and was swept by the bucks

That's allen iverson like efficiency, think about this for a second.

All with loaded teams. This myth of bird being this playoff performer on this whole other level is just that... a myth. Don't get me wrong Duncan has had his moments(that people like to sweep under the rug like the disaster that was the 2005 NBA finals) but bird at times has been godawful. But I'm thankful on realgm in the last year or 2 he's finally being exposed for being the overrated postseason fraud that he is. Larry literally has had 3 good playoff runs and the rest mostly crap. That's nice but I can't judge someone on 3 good(or their best)years, I judge players on their entire bodies of work in the playoffs and larry just isn't as good as advertised

You do realize it's possible for a player to impact a game in other areas besides scoring? In the title year of '81 he was averaging 15 rpg, up there with Moses for crying out loud.

And you conveniently picked his first 4 years.... How do you judge someone's career over their earliest seasons?

Bird was a monster, calling him a fraud is absolutely laughable.

1981 ECF vs. Sixers - hits game winning shot to send the Celtics to the finals (had 23/11/5/5 overall in the game).

1984 ECSF vs. Knicks - 39/12/10, dominates his matchup with King.

1987 ECF vs. Pistons - 37/9/9 including scoring or assisting on all but two points in the last 6 minutes of the game.

1987 ECSF vs. Bucks - 31/10/8, 13 of them in the fourth quarter of a very close game.

1988 ECSF vs. Hawks - Outduels Nique by scoring 20 pts in the fourth quarter, made 9 of 10 shots. Celtics needed every single one of those points to pull out the win as well.

These are some of Bird's game 7s. Whenever his team needed him to, he came up big. I can't people I just read someone compare him to Allen Iverson.

[The Infamous1]

A 51%TS in the 80' playoffs, garbage.
A 53% TS in the 81' playoffs and was bad in the finals against a mediocre rockets defense(1981 Rockets DRtg 106.7(#16)). 15 PPG on a 46% TS in the finals.
A 47% TS in the 82' playoffs(17 PPG)
A 47% TS in the 83 playoffs and was swept by the bucks

That's allen iverson like efficiency, think about this for a second.

All with loaded teams. This myth of bird being this playoff performer on this whole other level is just that... a myth. Don't get me wrong Duncan has had his moments(that people like to sweep under the rug like the disaster that was the 2005 NBA finals) but bird at times has been godawful. But I'm thankful on realgm in the last year or 2 he's finally being exposed for being the overrated postseason fraud that he is. Larry literally has had 3 good playoff runs and the rest mostly crap. That's nice but I can't judge someone on 3 good(or their best)years, I judge players on their entire bodies of work in the playoffs and larry just isn't as good as advertised

You do realize it's possible for a player to impact a game in other areas besides scoring? In the title year of '81 he was averaging 15 rpg, up there with Moses for crying out loud.

And you conveniently picked his first 4 years.... How do you judge someone's career over their earliest seasons?

Bird was a monster, calling him a fraud is absolutely laughable.

1981 ECF vs. Sixers - hits game winning shot to send the Celtics to the finals (had 23/11/5/5 overall in the game).

1984 ECSF vs. Knicks - 39/12/10, dominates his matchup with King.

1987 ECF vs. Pistons - 37/9/9 including scoring or assisting on all but two points in the last 6 minutes of the game.

1987 ECSF vs. Bucks - 31/10/8, 13 of them in the fourth quarter of a very close game.

1988 ECSF vs. Hawks - Outduels Nique by scoring 20 pts in the fourth quarter, made 9 of 10 shots. Celtics needed every single one of those points to pull out the win as well.

These are some of Bird's game 7s. Whenever his team needed him to, he came up big. I can't people I just read someone compare him to Allen Iverson.

First off

1. I never said bird never had great playoff games, series, or overall years. I've stated he had about 3 good postseason runs(84',86', and 87'). But outside of that, it's awful. Terrible from 80-83 and a disaster from 88-92', Im sorry but I have to look at the whole picture when judging someone's playoff career not just 2 or 3 of his best years.

2. Of course you can impact the game outside of scoring(even though I've always believe its the most important part of being a superstar) and I've always advocated that but it's always a double standard on here where efficiency matters when talking about some players and not about others. I remember Kobe for example averaged 8 rebounds per game in the 2010 finals for the series and had 15 in the game 7 clincher but no one cared because he shot 6/24 in that game(had a 52% TS for the series). We have to be consistent

3. And the AI comparison is valid, compare the TS's during the playoffs. Lots of AI's runs were sub 50 and barely over. Which is like Larry in the years I pointed out.

But overall for this thread, Larry at his absolute best is as good as Timmy in the playoffs but nowhere near as consistent year in and year out

[G35]

I'll take Duncan. As was mentioned a player can impact his team beyond the typical "Hey look at his TS%!" It goes without saying that Duncan blows Bird away defensively. How many big men can stay on the court vs a team that runs like the 2005 Suns and THEN grind it out vs arguably one of the top defensive teams ever in the Pistons?

Does anyone think about that? Duncan went up against Sheed/Ben Wallace/McDyess in the finals and Amare in his PRIME best and beat them both. The reason the Spurs have always owned the Suns is because Duncan has been versatile enough to be able to run the floor on offense AND get back in transition defense. There are few big men that could run that gauntlet.

Duncan's consistency is what is overlooked. He rarely throws up duds. When he does he comes back with a strong performance in the next game.

Duncan's average playoff game is 22/12/2.5 and that's in 190 playoff games.

For reference:

Garnett 19/11/1.4 125 games
KAJ 24/10/2.4 237 games
Shaq 24/11/2.1 216 games
Hakeem 26/11/3.3 145 games

Duncan has a level of consistency that few can touch......