In competitive sports, direct conversations between the best athletes have always attracted a lot of attention, and the history of the NBA has ranged from the confrontation between Garnett and Duncan's top power forwards in the league, as well as the "big and small kings" played by James and Durant for a long time.
When talking about the "double pride" of the NBA, there is such a group of players that can be said to be unavoidable, they are "Magic" Johnson and "Big Bird" Bird.
The two stars who achieved outstanding achievements in college and played against each other in the NCAA Finals continued to play well after entering the NBA, and their game content was the ratings guarantee of the NBA in the 80s, coupled with their respective roles for the Lakers and Celtics, the two rival teams, the confrontation between "Magic" and "Big Bird" has been the most talked about topic among fans for a long time, so, what kind of performance did they play in 37 times in their careers, and what are the statistics? Let's take a look!
At the beginning of his career, he was on the tip of the needle
In 1979, two young men who had just finished playing in the NCAA Finals entered the NBA, "Magic" Johnson was elected the first pick and went to Los Angeles, Bird had been picked by the discerning "Cardinal" Auerbach with the first round No. 6 pick the year before, and waited for him to spend another year in college before coming to Boston to wear the Celtics jersey.
Before entering the NBA, in the final championship battle in college, "Magic" Johnson led the team to take away the championship honor, while Bird won the best player of the season and came to a higher level of the league, and the two sides lasted for 12 years, and the competition between the two sides was a needle-to-needle from the beginning.
In his career debut, "Magic" Johnson scored 26 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal and 4 blocks of all-round data, and Bird also had a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds, and contributed 5 assists.
At the end of December 1979, "Magic" Johnson and Bird faced each other for the first time in their careers, the former scored 23 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 steals, and Bird also scored 16 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 steals.
Throughout his rookie season, "Magic" Johnson left 18 points, 7.7 rebounds, 7.3 assists and 2.4 steals per game, while Bird averaged 21.3 points, 10.4 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.7 steals per game.
Like in college, in the NBA's rookie season, Bird defeated "Magic" Johnson in the individual award competition, and defeated the latter to win the best rookie by a margin of 63 votes to 3 votes, "Magic" Johnson was not for nothing, he helped the Lakers all the way to the Finals and finally won the championship, and also won the FMVP.
In the 80s, there were 8 "magic birds" with 10 crowns, and they met at the top 3 times
Stars like "Magic" Johnson and Bird in the West and East, who can play each other very few times in a season, have as many as 37 encounters, which is due in part to the fact that the two have led the team to break through from the Western and Eastern playoff regions many times and stand on the Finals stage together.
Time came to the 1983-84 season, at this time Bird had the best team, the best defensive team including a number of honors, and for three consecutive years in the MVP final list ranked second, 1980-81 season, only in the second year after "Magic" Johnson won the championship, Bird unlocked the championship achievement, "Magic" Johnson also had a resume of being selected to the best team, and also won the steal king and assist king, of course, he could not leave the rookie season and the two championships in the 1981-82 season.
In the 1983-84 season, the number of career meetings between "Magic" Johnson and Bird came to 7, and the Lakers of "Magic" Johnson won more, winning 4 games, with a slight advantage, but it was not too enjoyable to compete in the regular season, and in 1984, the two ushered in their first series in the fifth season of their careers, and they met in the Finals.
"Magic" Johnson and Bird each took the Lakers and Celtics in the finals so that fans can see the excitement home, the two sides fought seven games, from the tie-break to determine the winner, Bird handed over an average of 27.4 points, 14 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 2.1 steals and 1.1 blocks per game, both offensive and defensive ends are quite influential, the average points per game and rebounds per game are the highest in both teams, "Magic" Johnson shot 56% of the shooting rate, averaging 18 points, 7.7 rebounds, 13.6 assists and 2 steals per game.
As the core of the team, "Magic" Johnson and Bird were limited enough to the final tie-break of the series, but the two can still find a way to help the team, each got 16 points, 5 rebounds, 15 assists, 4 steals and 2 blocks, 20 points, 12 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 1 block, this time by Bird's Celtics had the last laugh, Bird continued the Celtics' winning streak against the archrival Lakers in the Finals series, reaching 8 consecutive wins.
In 1984, Bird finally won the championship by surpassing "Magic" Johnson, and he also became the first of the two to win the MVP, and this is only the starting point of three consecutive MVPs.
However, "Magic" Johnson led the team to complete the revenge on Bird and the Celtics in the 1984-85 season, the Lakers and the Celtics met in the Finals for the second year in a row, and the Celtics came up and beat the Lakers by 34 points in G1, opening the series in such an embarrassing situation, which inspired the fighting spirit of "Magic" Johnson, he led the Lakers to fight back, G2 and G3 won two cities in a row, allowing the Celtics to take the lead in the series in the total score.
G4, Bird was not to be outdone, scored 26 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals and 1 block, filled the data column, led the team to win the game and rewrote the series total score to 2-2, but lost the "Battle of Kings Mountain" under the excellent play of "Magic" Johnson, G5, "Magic" Johnson shot 55%, scored 26 points efficiently and also sent 17 assists, and only 2 turnovers, the Lakers played a mercury-like offense to destroy the Celtics and get the match point.
G6, "Magic" Johnson ended the series with 14 points, 10 rebounds, 14 assists and a win.
In the 1986-87 season, after two years, "Magic" Johnson and Bird stood on both sides of the Finals stage for the third time in their careers, the year before, Bird achieved three consecutive MVPs, and took the Celtics to the Finals for the third consecutive year as scheduled, but the Lakers of "Magic" Johnson failed to enter the Finals, the Celtics swept the Bucks in the division finals to advance, but the Lakers were sent home by the Rockets 1-4 to "fish", and the Celtics finally defeated the Rockets who made the Lakers a stepping stone in 6 games to win the championship.
In 1987, "Magic" won the first MVP of his career, helping the Lakers to achieve a luxurious record of 65 wins and 17 losses in the regular season, ranking first in the league, and in the playoffs, they almost did not encounter too many obstacles to advance to the Finals, with an 11-1 record in the first three rounds of the series, but the Celtics seemed to stumble, and the three-round series hit the tie-break twice before entering the Finals.
At that time, "Magic" Johnson was already at ease in the game, there were too many ways to dissolve the opponent's defense, and the series averaged a team-high 26.2 points, 13 assists and 2.3 steals per game, and an average of 8 rebounds per game was the most on the team, although Bird was able to average 24.2 points, 10 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.2 blocks per game, but it was still difficult to stop the Lakers from moving towards the championship podium.
But the only team that could "snatch" two wins from the Lakers in the playoff series that season was the Celtics.
"Magic" Johnson averaged 20.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, 13.5 assists and 2.2 steals per game, while Bird averaged 25.3 points, 11.1 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 1.7 steals and 1 block per game, and "Magic" Johnson led the Lakers to win 11 of the 19 games.
Not so flashy finale
"Magic" Johnson, who once broke the record for the largest number of viewers in the history of the NCAA in the finals in college, Bird made it possible for the NBA to stop the decline or even develop better in the 80s, but what is unexpected is that these two supergiants said goodbye to the league at a time when they were still very competitive due to different reasons such as injuries and off-court factors.
In the 1991-92 season, Bird averaged 20.2 points, 9.6 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game, shooting 40.6% from three-point range, and his influence on both ends of the offensive and defensive ends was still strong, but he retired after this season, and "Magic" Johnson left the league for four years from 1991-92 to 1994-95, before which he was selected to the All-Star team for nine consecutive years, and in the 1990-91 season he ranked second on the MVP final list. The brief comeback of the 1995-96 season was no longer at its peak.
As a result, the final game between "Magic" Johnson and Bird came in the 1990-91 season, and the two supergiants showed their talents on the court, "Magic" Johnson got 21 points, 9 rebounds and 16 assists, and Bird scored a triple-double of 11 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.
In the regular season career, the statistics of "Magic" Johnson and Bird also stayed at the same time, averaging 19.4 points, 6.8 rebounds and 11.5 assists per game and 21.7 points, 10.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game, and Bird led the Celtics to win 7 of the 18 games.
"Magic" Johnson and Bird, two stars who won a total of 8 championships in the 10 years of the 80s, watched the "smiling assassin" Isaiah Thomas complete two consecutive championships, and watched Jordan and the Bulls go to the top of the league after pushing the NBA for the better.