During his career, Larry Bird established himself as one of the greatest players of his time. Apart from his skills with the ball, Bird also had a knack for demolishing his opponents with his amazing ability to trash talk.
There are many famous stories of Bird talking trash like the time he told Dominique Wilkins that he will get 40 points on him even before the game began. He proceeded to score 39 points, just 1 point shy of the claim that he made.
Apart from that, NBA legend John Stockton revealed a story about rookie Larry Bird. According to the story, Bird walked by the opposing team’s bench and told that he felt like scoring 43 points. Such type of confidence requires some serious skills to back up and Bird had that in abundance.
Talking more about Bird’s trash-talking stories, the Instagram account “Timeout Hoops” recently shared a post about another one of Bird’s stories. It involved NBA Hall of Famer and Chicago Bulls legend Dennis Rodman. However, at the time, he was still a part of the Detroit Pistons and was an upcoming star of the NBA.
Apparently, Bird asked Chuck Daly and upon finding out that it was Rodman, Bird claimed that he will get 60 points.
“Who’s guarding me, Chuck? Is anyone guarding me? You better get someone on me or I’m gonna for 60!”
Although Bird didn’t score 60 points, he finished the match with 32 points to his name. Moreover, he helped the Celtics win the match with a score of 121-110 and led both sides in terms of points.
It must have been a learning experience for a young Rodman. Rodman and co. will go on to take their revenge against Bird’s side in the 1988 playoffs. It took the Pistons six games to win the series as they did it with a score of 4-2.
Unfortunately, the Pistons were unable to win the NBA Championship as they would lose to the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.
