I can't believe I'm saying this about ANYTHING regarding the Lakers in the late 80s -- but what a great unique TBS/CBS upload. You never see this anywhere. This was one of those Friday night 10:30 PM est tail-end of a DH games I would end my teenage Friday night with. PLEASE more like this from this era, sir!
The commercials, the pregame broadcast with Craig Sager (RIP) and the game with Bob Neal and Rick Barry on the TV broadcaster bring back all those great memories as a kid in the 80's. Nice, Clean upload. Great job. Thank you so much.
Don't forget him and AC Green were on the All-Hi-Pitched Cryout Team when they'd go to the basket. Guarantee you would always hear "Ahhhh!!!" by both every game!
14:00 Jesse Ventura and Nathan Lane Miller Lite commercial. …and Nathan Lane has ZERO lines…Jesse does great btw. Also, this is one of the final games as “The Forum.” A few games later it would change to “Great Western Forum”
Also a few weeks after Turner bought WCW so there were probably more than a few WTFs coming out of the office, although Jesse would make the move three years later.
And....this has gotta be the last time in NBA history that one team has put 5 white guys on the floor at the same time, and Bobby Hansen didn't even dress! Kinda unbelievable.
The early calls against Stockton are prototypical of how this league works: finding ways to hand gimme victories to favored markets such as the Lakers. The Lakers get control of the game with Stockton out, then run up the score in garbage time so their stars can stat-stuff. Why? Probably because Utah put a scare in them the year before. And because Stockton outplayed Magic in that playoff series. As an LA local, the Lakers -- at least when they're in contention -- always seem to get extra victories in the regular season off of suspect calls. Their records, in my opinion, are juiced through this, typically giving them a higher seed that they otherwise would not have possessed. Oh well. Been this way since the NBA forced Utah to give up Magic Johnson's draft rights. The league "fixed" its 1970s problem of the "wrong" markets winning titles.
Just for the record, here are Stockton's stats versus Magic's in the 1988 Western Conference Semifinals - Stockton: 19.3 PPG, 16.4 APG, 3.4 REB, 4.0 STL, 50.5% FG Magic: 18.7 PPG, 10.3 AST, 4.6 REB, 1.0 STL, 50.0% FG Eaton also terrorized the Lakers, which magically led to him being in foul trouble when the Lakers needed it most in that series. Hm.
Can please upload these four games?: March 1, 1989, Jazz @ Pistons; March 3, 1989, Cavaliers @ Pistons; March 29, 1989, Pistons @ Jazz; and March 31, 1989, Pistons @ Supersonics
The 2010 and later media is the one who ruined NBA and some semblance of loyalty. With debates and criticisms everyday from skip, stephen a, brousard, rob parker, cowherd, wright and the rest of them , incites the fanbase to go against the current make up of their teams- teams and GMs are pressured to prematurely rebuild or break up the team. This game is 1988 they were only championship contender after 10 years. If the media then is like today,their EVERYDAY topic would be break the duo and rebuild around '92 to '94...even the rockets kept their core intact for a good 6 or 7 years of not winning... right now some are even saying "trade zion", "luka cant win with that style" , "cade is a prisoner in detroit", and all those nonsense.
Weird set design for Craig Sager at 1:18:30. They use Darrell Griffith as the feature jersey next Magic; instead of Malone or Stockton for Utah???? That preceded by Michael Bolton singing a Prudential commercial before he was famous. And BOY do I miss this NBA on TBS production, with music jingles n all. Kinda gives makes me nostalgically sad for those Gen-X teen years.
I wouldn't call it a choke. I'd call it a Don Nelson Gameplan: the Warriors pulled Eaton out of the paint (an easy move in the pre-Zone era against a Center like Eaton) and played at their pace throughout the series. Across the series, Utah got 30 and 16 out of Malone, and 28 and 16 out of Stockton, yet they still got swept because they couldn't find any other consistent scoring. Nelson showed a high level of aptitude for taking down high seeds in the first round: he did it to Utah in 1989, San Antonio in 1991, and Dallas in 2007. He was really great at targeting top-heavy teams and finding a weakness that would topple them. He also was keen on aggressive gambles: for instance, he understood how dangerous Stockton was on clutch shots, so in the 2001 series between Dallas and Utah, he ran a triple team on Stockton to force the ball out of his hands on the final possession, another move that paid off.
Nothing like getting served, pestered by Sherrifs & taken to court over a Will that myself and my sisters are not only 100% excluded from but do not even have any interest in contesting in the first place. Thanks Dad - Craig Sager II (@CraigSagerJr) January 2, 2018
That was interesting that Riley would bring Magic and Scott back in the game when Frank Layden had already resigned to finishing the game with the Provo MTC junior varsity squad.