Otis Birdsong: the upstart New Jersey Nets mailed it in, all right, delivering one of the NBA's greatest playoff upsets - The Game I'll Never Forget

Basketball Digest, March, 2003

WITH THE NEW JERSEY NETS' success last season, a lot of people were bringing up our team in 1983-84. We were the first Nets team to win an NBA playoff series--and the last one before the 2001-02 season.

In 1984, we beat the Philadelphia 76ers--the reigning champion 76ers--in a great five-game series. They had an outstanding team with Julius Erving, Maurice Cheeks, Andrew Toney, Moses Malone, Bobby Jones, and others, but we beat them in the fifth and deciding game, in Philadelphia. That was the game I'll never forget.

So a lot of people began comparing the 2001-02 Nets team with ours, I even saw a newspaper article comparing the teams position by position.

There's no comparison. There's no way Todd MacCulloch could match up with Darryl Dawkins at center, especially with the way Darryl was playing that year. In fact, Dawkins not only dominated Moses Malone and Philly in the 1984 playoffs, in the next series against the Milwaukee Bucks, Darryl dominated Bob Lanier. Lanier was on his way out, but Darryl was playing with a lot of confidence that year. It was one of his better years.

At power forward, Buck Williams had come into his own. He was playing All-Star caliber basketball. He was strong and a great player, but I don't think he could have handled Buck inside. He probably would have ended up in foul trouble.

Albert King and Mike O'Koren certainly would have been a problem for Keith Van Horn. Because Van Horn's so tall, he wouldn't have been able to keep up with those two. Albert would have been too quick. He would have put the ball on the floor taxi drove by Van Horn all the time.

And at point guard, Jason Kidd is great, but I think Micheal Ray Richardson would have locked him up, he was such a great defensive player. And Jason would have had his hands full trying to guard someone like Micheal. Richardson was so fierce. He could post up, shoot the jumper, and the threes. He would have been so much for Jason to handle. Micheal Ray was one of the keys to our team.

That gave our team two big guards. Richardson could score and play defense, and I could score and was a pretty good defensive player. We caused all kinds of trouble for opposing backcourts. Micheal Ray was a heck of a talent. When he was healthy and playing, we were a heck of a ballclub. You just never knew when Richardson would play, and how long he would play.

Unfortunately, he got into a lot of personal problems and that took him from the team. He missed almost half of the 1983-84 season.

And at the other guard spot, Kerry Kittles is a good player, but I don't think he would have been able to match up with me.

We started off that 1984 series by winning the first two games in Philadelphia which was really something considering how wild and how loud the fans in the Spectrum were. But then Philly came back and beat us twice in New Jersey.

New Jersey was a tough place to play. The fans were different. Most of our fans were corporate fans because most of season-ticket holders were corporations The Boston Celtics and the Sixers would get a larger ovation than we would when we played them in the Meadowlands.

Before the fifth and final game, Dr. J said some uncharacteristic things. Usually he was pretty quiet, but before Game 5 Erving said that there's no way a team could beat the 76ers three times at home; He said we might as well mail in the score.

Yes, that can help motivate a team.

We came out and played well for most of the game. We had the lead going into the fourth quarter. The cool thing is I recently saw a replay of this game on TV, so I remember it well now. Things looked good for us, but you knew the Sixers were going to put together a major run before it was all over.

Philadelphia came storming back in the fourth quarter and took the lead. It was 9083, and things were not looking good for us, That Spectrum crowd was loud. I mean really loud, rocking.

They looked like they were going to finish us off. There were only about seven minutes left in the game--seven minutes left in our season, for that matter.

They made their run, but we kept our composure and didn't give up or throw in the towel. We fought back and took the lead fight back. It was a big game for Micheal Ray and myself; we had 24 points each. He had some big shots down the stretch. On one shot, he was driving the length of the court and Marc Iavaroni was trying to defend him. Micheal Ray went up for the shot and made it even though Iavaroni fouled him. That was a real key play. Plus, we made our free throws. So we were able to keep the Sixers three, four, five points behind the rest of the way.

Toney made a layup for the Sixers right as the game was ending, but it was too late. We had won. We had done what a lot of people, including Doc and the whole city of Philadelphia, didn't think we could do.

The Spectrum had gotten real quiet and people were all leaving. I remember looking up in the stands and seeing Doc's wife, Turquoise. She just had this look of disbelief and shock on her face. They had been the champions, now they lost the fifth game of the first round at home. She was just in shock. You could just see the pain on her face.