{"id":73237,"date":"2023-12-20T03:45:03","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T03:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/?p=73237"},"modified":"2023-12-20T03:45:03","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T03:45:03","slug":"cedric-maxwell-admits-the-best-player-he-played-with-wasnt-a-boston-celtic-thanh-hang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aweu.info\/cedric-maxwell-admits-the-best-player-he-played-with-wasnt-a-boston-celtic-thanh-hang\/","title":{"rendered":"Cedric Maxwell Admits the Best Player He Played With Wasn\u2019t a Boston Celtic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cedric Maxwell was an underrated member of the Boston Celtics in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Drafted by Boston with the 12th overall pick in the 1977 NBA Draft, Maxwell played eight seasons with the Celtics and won two championships on some pretty stacked teams.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-73239 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/nbahang.aweu.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/cedric-maxwell-admits-the-best-player-he-played-with-wasnt-a-boston-celtic-thanh-hang.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"780\" height=\"780\" srcset=\"https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/cedric-maxwell-admits-the-best-player-he-played-with-wasnt-a-boston-celtic-thanh-hang.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/cedric-maxwell-admits-the-best-player-he-played-with-wasnt-a-boston-celtic-thanh-hang-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Maxwell was named the MVP of the 1981 NBA Finals on a team that included Larry Bird, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale. He then led the Celtics with 24 points in Game 7 of the 1984 NBA Finals against the rival Los Angeles Lakers after telling his teammates to jump on his back. Despite playing eight of his 11 seasons in Boston, Maxwell recently said the best player he ever played with wasn\u2019t even a Celtic.<\/p>\n<p>Cedric Maxwell Put Up Some Big Numbers Early in His Career<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">On May 13, 1981, the Celtics won their 14th NBA championship with a Game 6 win over the Houston Rockets. Cedric Maxwell was named series MVP \ud83c\udfc6<\/p>\n<p>Look for a new moment during Celtics Pregame Live and Celtics games all season to relive \u201c75 years of Celtics basketball&quot; \ud83c\udf40 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Jf380dmxqp\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/Jf380dmxqp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBCSCeltics\/status\/1452397979051208709?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">October 24, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>After a rookie year in which he averaged 7.3 points, Maxwell exploded in his second NBA season. He put up 19.0 points and 9.9 rebounds and left the league in field-goal percentage at 58.4%.<\/p>\n<p>The following year, Bird\u2019s rookie season, Maxwell saw his numbers decline a bit as Bird won Rookie of the Year and helped turn the Celtics into an NBA-best 61-win team after finishing with 29 victories the previous season. Maxwell still managed to average 16.9 points and 8.8 rebounds. He also led the league in field-goal percentage again at 60.9%.<\/p>\n<p>The Celtics won the first of their three championships of the decade when they topped the Houston Rockets in the 1981 NBA Finals. In that championship series, Maxwell averaged 17.7 points and 9.5 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>The Celtics traded Maxwell for veteran center Bill Walton before the 1985-86 season. Maxwell went on to play for the Clippers and the Houston Rockets.<\/p>\n<p>In a physical series with the Lakers in the \u201984 Finals, Maxwell got redemption after a dirty play by James Worthy in Game 6. Worthy pushed Maxwell from behind while Max headed in for a layup. The play was apparently in retaliation for a Game 4 foul when Boston\u2019s Kevin McHale clotheslined Kurt Rambis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn Game 6 out in LA, I\u2019m going in for a layup, and James Worthy does a cardinal sin that you never do,\u201d Maxwell said on a video posted by NBA History &amp; Legends on CLNS. \u201cI remember walking out, thinking, \u2018I\u2019m gonna get his ass. I\u2019m gonna get him. \u201c<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was in the locker room and Larry was in there and ML (Carr), and everybody was sitting there talking and I said, \u2018Don\u2019t you worry. Y\u2019all ain\u2019t got to worry. Y\u2019all get on my back. I\u2019m gonna win this damn championship for you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maxwell Said Hakeem Olajuwon Is the Best Player He\u2019s Ever Played With<br \/>\nMaxwell played with some of the biggest names in NBA history as a member of the Celtics. Shockingly, he said it wasn\u2019t Bird or any other Boston star who was the best player he\u2019s teamed up with.<\/p>\n<p>During an appearance on the \u201cShowtime With Coop\u201d podcast hosted by former Lakers guard Michael Cooper, Maxwell broke that news.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe best player that I ever played with would have been Hakeem Olajuwon,\u201d Maxwell said. \u201cI go with Olajuwon because Olajuwon controlled more of the game than anybody in the history of the NBA. He was not only great offensively, but for those years, Coop, he was a beast defensively.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOlajuwon controlled the game defensively and offensively like nobody has ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cedric Maxwell was an underrated member of the Boston Celtics in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Drafted by Boston with the 12th overall pick in the&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":73239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}