
Hi everyone. I've been watching a bunch of old Boston sports championships on YouTube recently, including the six Patriots Super Bowl victories (I'm not going to watch the two losses against the Giants), the Red Sox Series from 2007 and 2013, and most recently the 1976 Celtics championship which occurred when I was four years old. Now I'm watching 1981, which I have some memories of my dad watching when I was almost nine. Here are my observations so far:
* The three point line was there, but no one was shooting from behind it! I looked it up on Grok, and apparently it didn't become a big thing until the mid-2010s thanks to Steph Curry and the Warriors. Now something like 40% of shots are attempted from behind the three point line. But hardly any were taken in 1981.
* Del Harris (later a Laker coach) was the coach of the Rockets in 1981. They actually brought the camera into a courtside meeting with the players after Game 2, where you can see him sketching out a play on a legal pad and hear exactly what he said. That's something that's not done anymore.
* They showed a clip from the previous Philadelphia series where Cedric Maxwell got in a fight with a fan at the old Philadelphia Spectrum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxhH8Q7yQ7A
* This Miller Lite commercial from 1981 is priceless! I don't recognize all the athletes, but you can catch Tommy Heinsohn and (I think) Bob Cousy at 0:38: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaDVG0znaRA
* People must've worked on their own cars a lot back then, because there were lots of commercials for Champion Spark Plugs, STP oil treatments, Fram oil filters, and BF Goodrich tires. Now I work on my car by parking it within WiFi range of the house to perform a software update.
The entire 1981 NBA Finals is available here. Enjoy! https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMDZI0yMfjSPcQxu6zj96D7qpCKa2TOe0&si=_FDLRX58TzSBScZu
1 comment
don’t look things up on grok lol