Well Heff I do agree that the '83 76ers give a good series and they are a better team than any of the '80s Lakers and Celtics teams, for one year at least. But they still lose to the '96 Bulls.
The Bulls were 1st in D, 1st in O and only lost 2 times to a great team in the Finals but were never really challenged. Your roster is great down to 6 guys, after that there is a cliff. We could play all of our guys and remain just as deadly. Two other huge factors are the 3 point shooting, which in all fairness to the 76ers was not really part of the game like it is now, but if they were to play that's how the 76ers would play they don't know any other way, so that would be a huge weakness. The other thing is foul trouble for Moses. Jordan and Pippen got big men in foul trouble all of the time, that was their specialty, your backup was Clemon Johnson uh oh, that would be scary. If it went 6 or 7 they would tire Moses and Dr. J out to win the series.
The 76ers have arguably 2 huge ingredients that would give the Bulls trouble: Cheeks was a quick PG, although he didn't have a great oustide shot. And of course Moses was a big time Center who could score so that gives the Bulls problems as well. A third ingredient is Dr. J, he was there star guard/forward, who was fabulous. A big three like that and another 20ppg scorer in Toney (you keep comparing him to BG but Toney didn't shoot many 3ponters at all) and with a defensive Jones off the bench the 76ers were a great team. I was a little harsh on them in the other post because they didn't win 2 in a row, but when I got to thinking they match up better against the Bulls then the Lakers and Celtics.
Yes Scottie Pippen shuts down Bird and Magic. If you remember small, quick PG's and big Center's were the main problems for the Bulls. So slow Magic and slow Bird would not kill us like a Gary Payton did. They would be overwhelmed by the greatest perimeter defender of all time and Jordan there when he needs a break the 2nd greatest perimeter defender of all time.
Kareem by '83 was old, injured and had dropped to about 20ppg and 8rpg roughly, Magic was the team leader by then. I think you are forgetting that the 90's Bulls were built to slow big time centers, they played in one of the best Center's eras of all time. They had a 3 headed monster of 7 footers on both 3peat squads. The '96 team had 4, Longley, Wennington, Salley, Edwards, and they would even throw Dickie Simpkins in to foul Shaq and Ewing. Not to mention arguably the greatest power foward/big man one on one defender ever in Rodman. I think the Lakers give the Bulls more trouble because of Kareem and Magic but they handle Worthy, Wilkes, Nixon, just fine and later Byron Scott(he was like John Starks) and A.C Green are no problem as well.
As for the Celtics,
Dominique Wilkins used to kill the Celtics, yah he couldn't stop Bird but Wilkins would mostly outplay Bird he just had less help. Pippen was a better defender than Wilkins and Boston didn't have a quick PG. Tiny Archibald, Dennis Johnson were older, they weren't as quick as Gary Payton and Tim Hardaway who used to give the Bulls trouble. Parish wasn't a great low post scorer and they didn't have a PG that was gonna kill us. McHale was great but Rodman matches up perfectly with him, no worries there, I see Mchale doing his famous whining face a lot, ha. I think Kush pointed out in the other post that the Bulls averaged 113 in '86 against the C's. And even though they got swept, every game was close and Jordan's help was Orlando Woolridge, the '96 Bulls probably sweep the C's.
