Odinn21 wrote:Game 1- The Celtics kept putting Chamberlain on the line at the start of the 2nd half and it paid so greatly that it turned out to be a blowout.
Don't you think that his teammates shooting 32% from the field also has something to do with that?
I won't deny, Wilt's FT issues certainly didn't help but this would be a clear blowout even without Wilt's missing FTs.
Game 2- Russell did a great job at disturbing Chamberlain's shots. Chamberlain was 5 of 7 from the line but he was limited by Russell so much in general.
Yeah, I agree with that. Wilt struggled in that game, though it's important to mention Greer going 1/11 from the field.
Game 4- He basically refused to shoot in this game due to how Russell came back and hunted him down after game 3. His facilitating and screen setting on offense were on point but he still attempted 13 fgs in regulation, and he went 0-1 from the field and 0-2 from the line in ot.
Yeah, it's probably his worst game of the series. It was a winnable game as well (unlike games 1 and 2), so he deserves a lot of blame for that one.
Game 5- Chamberlain came back to be aggressive as possible. He forced the Celtics so much that none of them ended the game with less than 4 fouls. But in doing so, he went 8-25 from the line. He was 2-11 in the first quarter which put the Sixers in a position of chase for the rest of the game and the Celtics held on.
Again - how much of a blame should we give Wilt for this loss when his teammates shot 30% from the field? It's true that his poor FT% hurt his team but without his herculean effort they would get blown out quickly.
This series should've been at least a 6 game series with more fight in it. Chamberlain's ft worries didn't let it to happen.
I think that Greer having the worst series of his career (16/7/4 on 40 TS%) is the bigger factor to be honest. Chet Walker didn't help either and Wali Jones clearly wasn't prepared for that in 1966 (13/3/4 on 37 TS%).
You can prove me wrong, but I also have a reason to believe that Sixers guards averaged a lot of turnovers in the series as well. Celtics defense simply shut them down and I don't think Wilt's better FT shooting would change the outcome.
Compared to Duncan who was struggling on offense himself (his game 3 performance was truly awful, it was probably the worst postseason game of Duncan's prime) but still 1 odd shot away from going up by 3-2 against a superior and a far deeper team, I very much disagree with the bolded part. Duncan put his team to in a competitive position, played goat level defense while directly facing one of the monsters in history.
To be honest, you may be right. Still, I don't think it's as simple as that. Spurs were on a good pace to beat Lakers going up 2-0 and after two strong performances, Duncan put up probably his worst postseason performance in his prime in game 3 and he wasn't great in game 4 either. These two games completely swung the momentum to the opposite direction. Even after getting a win with his heroics in game 5, I don't think Spurs would have won the series. They got blown out in game 6 and I can't be confident with Spurs chances when Duncan was so inconsistent throughout the series.
All these points should be taken with the prespective that Wilt had clearly better RS in 1966 than Duncan in 2004. Even if you believe that Duncan played better in postseason (which is arguable to me, but defensible), I don't think he played good enough to overcome the difference in RS performance.
