The greatest H-O-R-S-E man, in both fact and fiction, was — not surprisingly — a certain Larry Joe Bird of French Lick, Ind. Bird was almost impossible to beat when one of his more confident (or delusional) Celtics teammates — Danny Ainge, Cornbread Maxwell, Bill Walton — thought it was wise to challenge him.

But back in the spring of 1974, Denny Crum, just starting a long Hall of Fame run at Louisville, was trying to recruit Bird. Crum drove the 55 miles from campus to Springs Valley High School and he offered a full-boat scholarship.

“No,” Bird said.

Crum said, “How about you just come visit the campus, see if you like it?”

“No,” Bird said.

So Crum, who’d been a pretty good player at UCLA for John Wooden and still played often in his mid-30s, upped the ante: He challenged Bird to a game of H-O-R-S-E.

“Only if I get the ball first,” Bird said. Crum agreed. He then watched, amused, as Bird wandered 35, 40 feet away from the basket. He made the first shot. Crum didn’t come close.

He moved a few feet to his left — swish. And to his right — that would be “R,” if you’re keeping score at home. Five long bombs. Five makes. Crum headed for his car.

Many years later, Bird would help sell an awful lot of hamburgers while playing Michael Jordan for his Big Mac and fries. They never actually use the game’s name in the commercial — titled “The Showdown” — but the rules are familiar, if abbreviated: first one to miss watches the other one eat. And off they go.

Bird: “Off the floor, off the scoreboard, off the backboard, no rim.”

Jordan: “Off the expressway, over the river, off the billboard, through the window, off the wall, nothing but net.”

H-O-R-S-E, of course, may well be the greatest of all games, which is one reason it felt like such an appropriate landing spot for sports Sunday night — however virtually, however temporarily and, as it turns out, however difficult it might be to translate to exciting TV. The eight-person bracket, featuring some of the best of the NBA’s young (Zach LaVine) and old (Chris Paul), some of its legends (Paul Pierce) as well as its distaff (Allie Quigley) was some inspired programming — mostly because it is all but certain there aren’t more than a handful of citizens who’ve never played H-O-R-S-E.

H-O-R-S-E is the great basketball equalizer, after all. There are other derivative playground games that have made the rounds. “Around-the-World” is terrific, although if you aren’t Steph Curry from deep, the game is a lot less fun for you. I suppose you can get by at “21” with just an inside game, but good luck with that. “Taps” is the preferred game of big men on the playground, but it’s significantly less fun if you own a below-the-rim game, as most of us do.

But H-O-R-S-E?

Put it this way: Jerry West, The Logo himself, once lost a spirited game of H-O-R-S-E to a women’s player named Karen Logan, who’d starred at Pepperdine in the early-’70s. Lynette Woodard, the women’s scoring champ at Kansas, once found herself in an impromptu game against George Gervin, the NBA’s leading scorer, at a basketball camp in Sterling, Kan., and Woodard beat him as half the gym — the girls — went crazy and the other half — the guys — went numb.

Poor Iceman, who really ought to have a better H-O-R-S-E legacy than he does. One of the true YouTube gems is a mano-a-mano battle Gervin had with Pete Maravich during the 1977-78 season, put together by CBS for halftimes of its “Game of the Week.” Pistol hits a variety of short shots — underhand, no-look — and with the two of them tied at H-O-R-S to H-O-R-S, he jumps from the baseline, flicks in a backwards layup, and finishes the Iceman off.

(The world was deprived a proper ending that time. Pistol was hurt by the time CBS broadcast the finals, so Rick Barry subbed for him and got trounced by Paul Westphal — stunning, because you’d think Barry could be invincible at H-O-R-S-E by going with one underhand Granny shot after another, right?)

And so it was in Sunday’s quarterfinals. The 43-year-old Billups, retiree since 2014, knocked off Trae Young, who is half his age. Quigley knocked off Paul. Basketball democracy carried the night.

There’s no known origin story for H-O-R-S-E. Some believe it might’ve been inspired by an old-time cowboy roping-trick game with similar rules (hence the name) but somehow, for generations, kids have played it on Indiana farmlands, on the West 4th Street playground, on the beach in Southern California, in state-run gyms in the former Yugoslavia.

In the giddy aftermath of N.C. State’s epic upset of Houston in the ’83 NCAA title game, someone marveled that both Derek Whittenburg and Terry Gannon of State had zero concern about firing up long-distance bombs from suburban Albuquerque and Whittenburg laughed and said, “That’s how I got good. Playing H-O-R-S-E with Gannon.”

Someday, maybe we can have an Around-The-World challenge between Curry and Klay Thompson, which might well take four days because neither is inclined to miss all that much. For now, H-O-R-S-E will have to do. For now, H-O-R-S-E was perfect.